ENGL540

Analytical Perspectives
in English Grammar
Brief Overview of Morphology

Dr Rickey Lu
Dept of English and Communication, PolyU
From last class
 Review – ‘levels’ of
grammar

Joe is very happy because he found a cheaper flat.

Joe / is / very / happy / because / he / found / a / cheap /er/ flat - morphemes

Joe / is / very / happy / because / he / found / a / cheaper / flat- words

Joe / is very happy / because / he / found a cheaper flat - phrases

Joe is very happy / because he found a cheaper flat - clause

 Brainstorm: What is a ‘word’?

• We might look up ‘words’ in the dictionary

• Obtain information about the grammar, pronunciation, meaning
 The ‘Grammar’ of Words -
Morphology
Brief Overview

1. Reviewing what you might have learnt before

2. Necessary scaffolding to understand further topics in this course (e.g.

higher-level units of language)
What is morphology?
• Morphology is the study of word formation and word
grammar rules

• Flurb
• Meaning: fall down a flight of stairs

• Past tense?
• Flurbed

• The quality of tending to fall down a flight of stairs?

• The flurby child
 Morphemes
Joe / is / very / happy / because / he / found / a / cheap /er/ flat - morphemes

• Morpheme
• Smallest unit of language that carries meaning

• Giraffe, wiggle, yellow

• Re-, pre-, -ize, -er

• Simple words – one morpheme

• Giraffe
• Boy
• Slap

• Complex words – more than one morpheme

• Opposition
• Intellectual
• Postmortem
• Coffeeholic

• Conversate

• McDonaldization

• Simple or complex words?

 Bound Vs Free Morphemes
• Morphemes can be categorized by the bound vs free distinction

• Helpfulness

• Help – free
• -ful, -ness – bound

• In English, many complex words have a free morpheme as their ‘base’

Base Morphemes

• Coffeeholic
• Which is the base morpheme?

• Dermatitis
• Which is the base morpheme?

• In these two examples, one base morpheme can stand alone, while the
other cannot.
• Base morphemes can therefore also be bound or free
• i.e. bound base, or free base
• Coffeeholic

• Conversate

• McDonaldization

• Bound or free base morphemes?

Source: p.19 – Lieber, R. (2016). Introducing morphology. Cambridge University Press.

Column A contains words with free base morphemes

Column B contains words with bound base morphemes
Activity
• Worksheet 2

Question 1
• Identify the morphemes of the words
• Identify the base morpheme of each word
• Identify whether the base morpheme is bound or free
 Base Morphemes
• Passage
• Pass + age

• Superimpose
• Super + im + pose

• Optometry
• Opto + metry

• Refurbishment
• Re + furbish + ment
Derivation - Conversion
• The concept of forming new words using existing words is called derivation

• One way we can do this is through conversion

• Formation of new word from an identical word

• Chair
• to chair

• Table
• Tabling

• Fish
• To fish

• To kick
• A kick
• “That curry had a kick to it.”
Derivation - Affixation
• Another common way of forming new words using existing words is
affixation

• Prefix
• Morphemes that precede the base morpheme
• en-, il-

• Suffix
• Morphemes that follow the base morpheme
• -ance, -able

• In English, suffixes are the more common derivation process

 Affixes are Rule Based
• -ness
• What do you think is the rule for this suffix?
• Think about the lexical category of the base they can attach to, what the lexical category of the
newly formed word is, and what meaning does the affix contribute to the newly formed word

• Attaches to adjectives
• Redness, happiness, niceness
• -ness attaches to adjectives ‘x’ and produces nouns meaning ‘the quality of x’

• -ize
• Civilize, unionize
• -ize attaches to adjectives or nouns that mean ‘x’ and produces verbs that mean ‘make/put into x’
• Attach to adjectives or nouns (of two or more syllables where the final syllable does not carry
primary stress) (Phonology is sometimes important)
• Sometimes affix rules are a bit more complicated

• Un-
• Adjectives
• unhappy, *unsad, unlovely, *unugly, unintelligent, *unstupid

• Verbs
• untie, unwind, unhinge, unknot, *undance, *unyawn, *unexplode, *unpush

• Rule for attaching to adjectives

• attach adjectives with positive connotations

• Rules for attaching to verbs

• attach to verbs where the results that are not permanent
Cran Morphs
• -port

• -mit

• -ceive

• Do these morphemes have meanings?

• Not really

• These are examples of ‘cran morphs’

• Cranberry
• ‘Berry’ is definitely a morpheme that carries meaning, but the ‘leftover’ does not
Word Structure
• Morphemes are attached in a particular order

• Unhappiness
• Un + happy + ness

• Prefix: ‘un-’
• Suffix: ‘-ness’
• Base: ‘happy’

• Consider: What is the structural order of this word?

1. ‘Un-’ can only attach to adjectives or verbs and the result keeps the same lexical category
2. ‘-ness’ can only attach to adjectives, but turns the word into nouns
3. ‘Happy’ is an adjective
4. Therefore, ‘-un’ attaches to ‘happy’ first, and then ‘-ness’ attaches to ‘unhappy’
Morphology Tree Diagrams
• Repurify
• re + pure + ify

• ‘re-’ attaches to verbs

• ‘pure’ is an adjective
Activity
• Worksheet 2

• Question 2.
• Identify the structural order of the word formation and draw the tree diagram
depicting the order.

• http://www.uefap.com/vocab/build/building.htm
• A helpful website
• Optometry

• Opto
• Optometry
• Superimpose

• Pose
• Impose
• Superimpose
• Refurbishment

• Re
• Refurbish
• Refurbishment
Affix Rules
• There are way too many affix rules to cover, but most of them we can
figure out by intuition.

• http://www.uefap.com/vocab/build/building.htm
• List of common affix’s in academic English & their rules is a useful start
Derivation - Compounding
• Another derivational process

• Windmill
• Is there an affix in this word?
• Sky blue

• Compounding
• Words composed of two or more base morphemes

• May be phonologically based

• Blackboard – Try switching the stress between the two morphemes
• Bullshit

• Dogshit
• Low quality

• Batshit
• Crazy

• Apeshit
• Angry

• Chickenshit
• Scared
Compounds in our tree diagrams
 Compounds
• Compounds have heads
• Determines lexical item (parts of speech) and semantics

• English is predominately right-headed

• windmill, sky blue, stirfry

*the concept of heads is important for higher units of

grammar (e.g. phrases) too
• Conversion, affixation, and compounding are the most
productive ways of creating words in English.

• They are all derivational processes.

• Is there a difference in meaning between these two structures?

An observer of arctic cats Cat observer that lives in the arctic

Why tree diagrams are important!

Inflection
• Inflection is another morphological process

• Inflection is the change of word form to fit different grammatical contexts

• Number
• Tense
• Person, Gender (Not in English)

• Cases of inflection in English are relatively simple compared to other

languages
 Inflection for Tense

• ‘-ed’ for past tense

• Visited

• No inflection for future tense

• Future tense is marked by usage of a form of the auxiliary verb “will”
Inflection for Aspect
• Aspect
• The way the event occurs in time

• Perfect vs. Imperfect

• I ate the apple
• I am eating the apple
Inflection for Voice

• Active vs Passive

• The cat chased the mouse.

• The mouse is chased by the cat.

• Be + past participle (-ed)
Inflections by lexical categories

• Noun inflection
• -s for plural
• ‘s or s’ for possession (the genitive)

• Verb inflection
• -ing, -ed

• Adjectives and adverbs

• -er, -est
• Quiet, quieter, quietest
 More on inflections
• In English, inflections are usually suffixes (added to end of the base)

• Irregular inflections are often changes in the internal stem of the word
• Feet-foot, mouse-mice, child-children

• Irregular inflections are closed class

• No new words have irregular inflections, all new words must follow regular inflection rules
• Staycationing, Googled (Geegle?)
 Inflection Vs Derivation

Inflection Derivation
• Does not change part of speech • Sometimes changes part of speech
• Adds grammatical meaning • Adds lexical meaning
• Related to syntax • Produces new lexemes
• What if a word has derivational and inflectional affixes?

• Derivational affixes are closer to the base morpheme

• Inflectional affixes are added last

p.108, Lieber, R. (2016). Introducing morphology. Cambridge University Press.

Activity
• Worksheet 2

• Question 3

• You can again refer to:

• http://www.uefap.com/vocab/build/building.htm
• Morphology

• Morph
• Morphology
• Influencers

• Influence
• Influencer
• Influencers
• Unneighborly

• Neighbor
• Neighborly
• Unneighborly
• Reestablishment

• Establish
• Reestablish
• Reestablishment

• Why not?:
• Establish
• Establishment
• Reestablishment

• Re- doesn’t attach to Ns

• Deadline Fighter
• Green toy store

• Store
• Toy store
• Green toy store

• Or?
 ENGL540
Analytical Perspectives
in English Grammar
The study of Syntax - Constituents and Phrases

Dr Rickey Lu
Dept of English and Communication, PolyU
Syntax
• Study of form, position, grouping of elements in sentences

• Study of phrases, clauses, and sentences (the ‘levels’ of grammar in

question)
What is a sentence?

a grammatical unit of one or more words that expresses an independent

statement, question, request, command, exclamation, etc., and that
typically has a subject as well as a predicate, as in ’John is here.’ or ’Is
John here?’ … (dictionary.com)
• A (theoretical) question, is a sentence simply a string of words, one after
another?

• Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

• If a sentence is just a string of words, all the below should work (e.g. be
grammatical) too

• Old Sam sunbathed beside a

• Old Sam sunbathed beside
• Old Sam sunbathed
• Old Sam
• Old
 Structure
• Structure is an important concept in syntax

• It is an underlying assumption and implies

that something is:

1. Divisible into parts

2. Different kinds/types of parts
3. Each part is arranged in a particular way
4. Each part has a specific function of the whole
 Structure

• Imagine the components of a home

• E.g. Living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, stove, toilet, sofa, bed, dining
table, television

• Only certain ways of fitting and grouping these components together

constructs a “home”
Syntacticians assume that there is a hierarchical structure to sentences:

1. Divisible into parts

2. Different kinds/types of parts
3. Each part is arranged in a particular way
4. Each part has a specific function of the whole
Studying Syntax

• Understanding why some strings of words are well-formed

(grammatical) and why some are ill-formed (ungrammatical) is one of
the major points of investigation in syntax
Some Key Terms

Immediate
Constituent

Hierarchical Structure:

1. Divisible into parts (Constituents)

2. Different kinds/types of parts (Constituent Categories)
3. Each part is arranged in a particular way
4. Each part has a specific function of the whole (Function)
 Analyzing Syntax:

1. Analyzing/Categorizing linguistic expressions into constituents

• (What are the parts?)

2. Identifying the categories of the constituents

• (What kinds of parts are they?)

3. Determining the functions of constituents

• (What do the parts do?)
• Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

• How do we explain why this particular order works and not others?
• *Stream old Sam sunbathed beside a
• *Sunbathed old beside stream a Sam

• Words are not the immediate constituents of a sentence – something

lies between
• Sentences are more structured than just words one after another

• Certain words belong with others

• Words work in groups

• These groups are called phrases

• Phrases are the immediate constituents of sentences

Phrases should be somewhere

between the S and the individual
words
• *Stream old Sam sunbathed beside a
• *Sunbathed old beside stream a Sam

• Theoretically, these sentences are ungrammatical because words have been moved
away from positions where phrases can be formed (they were moved away from their
phrases)

• There are rules about the categories of words that can combine to form phrases

• Categories show why replacing certain words with other words work, while others do
not

• Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

• Old Sam sunbathed beside a road.
• The question is: How do we identify constituents?