Morphology

What is morphology?
• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core
part of linguistic study today.
• The term morphology is Greek
– morph- ‘shape, form’
– -ology - ‘the study of something’.
Morphemes
• the building blocks of morphology
• the smallest meaning-bearing units of language
• Words have internal structure: built of even smaller pieces
• SIMPLE WORDS:
– no internal structure (only consist of one morpheme) eg work, build, run.
– cannot be split into smaller parts which carry meaning or function.

• COMPLEX WORDS:
– internal structure (consist of two or more morphemes) eg worker: affix -er added to the
root word to form a noun.
Free vs Bound Morphemes
• Free morpheme:
– simple word, consisting of one morpheme
– eg house, work, high, chair, wrap. They are words in themselves.

• Bound morpheme:
– morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to receive meaning.
– EG: UNKINDNESS
– UN- and -NESS are the bound morphemes, requiring the root KIND to form the word.
– also called affixes as they are attached to the stem. There are two types as outlined below:
– Prefix (front of the base)= Un-
– Suffix (end of the base)= -ness
How many morphemes?
• Tempting
• Dog
• Cats
• Surfers
• Establishment
• Worrying
• Spice
How many morphemes?
• Tempt - ing
• Dog
• Cat - s
• Surf – er - s
• Establish - ment
• Worry - ing
• Spice
Characteristics of a Morpheme
Indivisible • the smallest unit of meaning
• cannot be subdivided and still have the same meaning
• e.g. sleep

Adds to meaning • Words are made up of morphemes.

• Every morpheme in a word has meaning even if it is just one sound.
• e.g. cats

Recursive • occur repeatedly in many different words

• e.g. –ion as in progression, expression
• recursive nature can be found in morphemes that act as grammatical
markers

Can have a number of syllables • Syllable is a unit of sound i.e. smallest pronounceable unit of a word
• A morpheme is a unit of meaning that may be made up of many
syllables
• Morphemes can be either root words or affixes of words
– Root: a morpheme that can stand alone with its own meaning, a free
morpheme
– Affixes:
– Suffix: a bound morpheme that appears at the end of a word and
changes its meaning, ex: (-s), (-ed), (-ly), (-er)
– Prefix: a bound morpheme that occurs at the beginning of a word and
changes its meaning, ex: (re-),(ex-),(de-),(un-), (be-)
Affixes can be distinguished as:
• Derivational morphemes:
– change the meaning of the root, such as making it mean the
opposite (ex: “happy” becomes “unhappy,” which means not
happy, when the prefix “un” is added on)
– change it’s part of speech or classification (ex: the word “read”
is a verb, but when the suffix “-er” is added to it it becomes
“reader,” a noun)
– These can be either prefixes or suffixes and can effect the
pronunciation of a root
• Inflectional morphemes:
– suffixes which work with a specific class of words (nouns, verbs, etc)
– have a grammatical function but do not change the class of a word

Affixes Function Example

-s plural apple-s
3rd person, singular present
-s walk-s
tense
- ing progressive study-ing
- ed past tense walk-ed
- er comparative fast-er
- est superlative fast-est
Morphology Tree
Simple and Complex Morphology Trees

http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/morphology/what-is-morphology/
Examples of other tree diagrams

http://literacyreferencelem.pbworks.com/w/page/17979975/Morphology https://www.slideshare.net/amna-shahid/a-brief-introduction-of-morphology
Let’s Practise
• List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is
free (F) or bound (B).

creating unhealthy
seaward waiter
wastage reconsider
poetic keys
modernise incompletion
Let’s Practise
• Draw a tree diagram for each word below:

shipper simply
disobey jumping
resettled digitizes
anticlimaxes activity
disengagement confrontational
Why is Morphology important?
• influences spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension
• large words can be more easily understood by simply breaking them down
into smaller morphemes or combinations of morphemes.
• combine the knowledge of root word spellings with common affix spellings.
– magic – magician
– sign – signature
– grace – gracious
– perform – performance
Why is Morphology important?
• New words are often formed using combinations of morphemes
– Compounding- combinations of free morphemes
– Prefixing- placing a bound morpheme at the beginning of an existing word, which can be
either one free morpheme or a combination of free and bound morphemes
– Suffixing- placing a bound morpheme at the end of an existing word

• One root combined with many other morphemes can create countless new words
– courage – courageous, courageously, encourage, discourage, discouragingly
– relate – relates, related, relating, unrelated, relation, relations, relative, relatives, relationship,
relationships, relational, correlate, correlates, correlated, correlational, correlative
– struct – construct, constructed, constructing, constructions, reconstruct, reconstructed,
reconstructing, reconstruction, instruction, instructions, instructional, destruction, destructible,
indestructible, destructive, destructively,
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/06/11/cullum-on-morphology/
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/06/11/cullum-on-morphology/
Syntax
• Though language is infinite, there are only a small number of ways in which
words can be combined.
• Sentences have certain structures.
• A 'syntax' is the grammatical order or arrangement of words, as the rules
prescribe.
• The study of syntax
– ways in which the word categories can be ordered and combined.
– the order, or distribution, of those categories.
• In English, the syntax is usually in the SVO format (S - Subject V -
Verb O - Object)
– Normal syntax: Jane ate a cake.
– The format is SVO in this case.

Subject : Jane
Verb : ate
Object : Cake

– Inverted Syntax: A cake Jane ate

– This is the OSV format.
https://penlighten.com/explanation-of-inverted-syntax-with-examples
 Consider this
aspect of language
in creating
persuasive
messages for your
campaign.

http://www.bukuinggris.co.id/aturan-aturan-dalam-
membuat-parallel-sentences/
http://www.czrt.info/examples-of-syntax
More Complex Syntactic Structures
• Embedding
– "The boy with red shorts kicked the
ball."
– "with red shorts" is a prepositional
phrase that further describes “the
boy”
– the Prepositional Phrase (PP) “with
red shorts” is embedded within the
subject Noun Phrase (NP) so that the
subject is subdivided into a Noun
Phrase and Prepositional Phrase
(PP).
– The Prepositional Phrase itself
contains a further Noun Phrase.

http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
 More Complex Syntactic Structures
• Conjoining
– extend sentences by
joining together complete
structures or complete
and incomplete structures
– The conjunction “and”
joins together the
complete sentence: "The
boy with red shorts
kicked the ball“ and the
verb phrase: “scored a
goal"

http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
Grammaticality vs Semantic Soundness

Me Tarzan, you Jane

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Types of sentences
Syntactic Categories
• Parts of Speech/Word Classes
1. CONTENT WORDS (major lexical categories)

– NOUNS (N): specify the things we talk about

– desk, love, reading

– ADJECTIVES (Adj): express attributes of Ns

– old desk, real love, slow reading

– VERBS (V): what things do

The old desk collapsed.
Their love died.
Slow reading is the best.
• Major classes of verbs
– Transitive verbs (Vt) - express actions which an active subject NP (=
agent) does to a passive object NP (= patient):
– Jack read the book.
– Jack killed the fly with a rolled up newspaper.
– Intransitive verbs (Vi) - express actions which a passive subject NP (=
patient) experiences itself.
– Their love died.
– Jack slept until noon.

• ADVERBS (Adv): express attributes of Vs

– suddenly collapsed, died slowly, is often
2. FUNCTION WORDS (minor lexical categories, grammatical words)

– PRONOUNS (Prn): "stand in" for Ns

– It collapsed.
– What died?
– That is the best.

– PREPOSITIONS (Prep): relate NPs in various ways to other sentence constituents

– the desk by the window
– their love for one another
– slow reading in bed

– DETERMINERS (Det): "specify" Ns in various ways (indefinite, definite, possession, quantity)

– the desk
– their love
– an easy reading
– VERBAL AUXILIARIES (Aux): together with Vs, form complex verb expressions
– The desk will collapse.
– Their love has died.
– Slow reading should be fun.
– DEGREE WORDS (Deg): specify the "degree" of Adj or Adv
– The really old desk collapsed quite suddenly.
– Their very weak love finally died rather quickly.
– Slow reading is terribly boring.
– CONJUNCTIONS (Conj): link other constituents
– The old desk collapsed, but their love remained true.
– Slow reading and slow eating are great fun.
The Structure of Phrases
• the phrase is labeled according to its head
– the child:
– child  head of the phrase, noun
– the child  a noun phrase, NP

– found the puppy:

– found  head of the phrase, verb
– found the puppy  a verb phrase, VP

• in general, if X stands for a grammatical (lexical) category that functions as a phrasal

head, then the label of the phrase is XP
Types of Phrases
• NOUN PHRASE (NP)
– each N or Pronoun is the head of an NP
– The old desk collapsed.
– It collapsed.
– Their love for one another never died.
– Slowly reading old cookbooks is great fun.

• ADJECTIVE PHRASE (AdjP)

– each Adj is the head of an AdjP
– The old desk collapsed.
– The rather old desk collapsed.
Types of Phrases
• VERB PHRASE VP
– each V is the head of a VP
– The old desk collapsed.
– The old desk suddenly collapsed.

• ADVERBIAL PHRASE (AdvP)

– each Adv is the head of an AdvP
– The old desk suddenly collapsed.
– Their love died rather suddenly.

•  PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (PrepP)

– each Prep is the head of a PrepP
– The desk by the window suddenly collapsed.
– Their love died in the spring.
Semantics
Semantics
• the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences
• the study of meaning in language
• central in the study of language acquisition and of language change (how
meanings alter over time).
• important for understanding language in social contexts, as these are likely to
affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English and effects of style
• fundamental concept in language
Semantics

how meaning is conveyed through the symbols of a

written language
how different ways of combining words result in
different meanings.
https://veryserioso.wordpress.com/semantics/
What is meaning?
Denotation vs Connotation
So meaning =
• Extension
– the literal meaning

• Intension
– the concepts/mental images that the word/phrase evokes.
The Relationships between Words
• Synonymy
– synonymous/ synonyms
– words can be used to mean the same thing in some contexts
– e.g. Begin and start, Big and large, Youth and adolescent.
• Antonymy
– antonyms
– words that have opposite meanings
– e.g. Big and small, Come and go, Up and down.
The Relationships between Words
• Hyponym
– meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another, broader term
– vegetable and carrot: carrot is a hyponym of vegetable
– cutlery includes knife, fork, spoon; cod, guppy, salmon and trout are
hyponyms for fish
• Metonymy
– replace the name of something with the name of another thing closely
associated with it
– e.g. suit – business person, plastic – credit card, Hollywood? Silicon
Valley?
The Relationships between Words
• Polysemy
– words can have two or more related meanings
– one form but mean two different things.
– two meanings are related in some way
– e.g. Bright (shining) and bright (intelligent). Mouse (animal) and mouse (computer
hardware), paper, head, deposit

• Homophony
– words with the same pronunciation but differs in meaning
– may be spelled e.g. rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as
carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.
– e.g. Bat (flying mammal) and bat (sports equipment). Pen (writing instrument) and pen
(small cage).
The Relationships between Sentences
• Paraphrase
– the same truth conditions
– ‘The boys like the girls’ and ‘the girls are liked by the boys’,
– ‘John gave the book to Chris’ and ‘John gave Chris the book’.
• Mutual entailment
– Each sentence must be true for the other to be true.
– ‘John is married to Rachel’ and ‘Rachel is John’s wife’,
– ‘Chris is a man’ and ‘Chris is human’.
The Relationships between Sentences
• Asymmetrical entailment
– One of the sentences must be true for the other to be true, but that sentence may be true
without the other sentence necessarily having to be true.
– ‘Rachel is John’s wife’ entails ‘John is married’ (but John is married does not entail
Rachel being his wife),
– ‘Rachel has two brothers’ entails ‘Rachel is not an only child’ (but Rachel not being an
only child does not entail Rachel having two brothers).

• Contradiction
– One sentence is true and the other cannot be true.
– ‘Rachel is an only child’ and ‘Rachel’s brother is called Phil’,
– ‘Alex is alive’ and ‘Alex died last week’.
Ambiguity
• Lexical Ambiguity
– two or more possible meanings due to polysemous or homophonous words
– Prostitutes appeal to the Pope
– "You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note
on the windscreen; it said, 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."(English comedian Tim Vine)
– 'Do you believe in clubs for young people?' someone asked W.C. Fields. 'Only when
kindness fails,' replied Fields.
• Structural Ambiguity
– words in a sentence can be combined in different ways which create different meanings
– Enraged cow injures farmer with axe
– Lung Cancer In Women Mushrooms
– Juvenile Court To Try Shooting defendant
Lexical Ambiguity

https://arnoldzwicky.org/2014/07/
Structural Ambiguity

https://arnoldzwicky.org/category/ambiguity/page/10/
Grammatical Aspects of Language
• Phonetics governs the structure of sounds
• Morphology governs the structure of words
• Syntax governs the structure of sentences
• Semantics governs the meanings of words and sentences
References
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/morphology/what-is-
morphology
/
• http://literacyreferencelem.pbworks.com/w/page/17979975/Morphology
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/syntax/what-does-sy
ntax-study
/
• http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
• http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~hana/teaching/2015wi-ling/06-Syntax.pdf
• https://www.albany.edu/~krassi/lin220/lecture%20notes/syntax/
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/semantics/what-does
-semantics-study
/