Chapter 6

MORPHOLOGY Study of the smallest elements of a word that make sense (in terms of meaning). Every single unit conveys meaning of its own (by qualifying other unit in various ways, or by standing on its own) Landholder Smallest Fixed Ships Land+hold+er small+est Fix+ed Ship+s In A The One Science Nose She

Let’s analyze one word “ The police reopened the investigation” Reopened has 3 Morphemes or units of either meaning or grammatical function open = unit of meaning re = unit of meaning (= again) -ed = unit of grammatical function (past tense)

And another… Tourists Also 3 Morphemes Tour = unit of meaning -ist = the ‘doer’ of the action -s = unit of grammatical function = indicates plural

Morphemes Free Morphemes Bound Morphemes Affixes Lexical Morphemes Functional Morphemes Derivational Morphemes Inflectional Morphemes Nouns Verbs Adjectives Articles/ Determiners Prepositions Pronouns Conjunctions Tense marker Quantity Marker Degree Marker Possession Marker Meaning Changer Grammatical Function Changer

Free and Bound Morphemes Free morphemes : can stand by themselves as single words Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Pronouns, Article (Determiners), as open and tour Bound morphemes: cannot stand alone and are attached to another form, as –re, -ist, -ed, All affixes are Bound Morphemes Affixes can be prefixes and suffixes

Stems un -dress -ed Prefix(before) Stem Suffix (BOUND) (FREE) (BOUND) The stem is technically known as the basic form to which the others are attached Let’s take a closer look at one example: u n d r e s s e d un -dress -ed Prefix(before) Stem Suffix (BOUND) (FREE) (BOUND) in this case

carelessness Another example care -less -ness Stem Suffix Suffix (FREE) (BOUND) (BOUND)

Practice! farmer, slowly, artist, friendly, tenderness, meaning, inspected

More about stems Please note that being a stem does not mean being necessarily a free morpheme Take a look at the words receive, reduce and repeat You can identify re- in these words and classify them as bound morphemes, right? However, that does not mean and we cannot say that –ceive, -duce and –peat are free morphemes They have no meaning by themselves In this case, they can be sometimes called bound stems, a kind of hybrid between free and bound morphemes

Lexical Morphemes Free morphemes fall into 2 categories Lexical Morphemes are words that carry ‘content’ of the messages they convey, like nouns, adjectives and verbs girl, man, house, tiger, table, sky, log (nouns) yellow, beautiful, sad, long, sincere (adjectives) pen, close, follow, stay, break, adjust (verbs) They are treated as an ‘open’ class of words, since we can add new words like them to the language

Functional Morphemes Functional Morphemes consist of the words in the language like conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns the, a, an, (articles) at, in, on, above (prepositions) he, she, her, we, that, these (pronouns) and, nor, or, but, so (conjunctions) Since we do not add affixes to the functional morphemes, they are called ‘closed’ class of words

Derivational Morphemes The bound morphemes we use to make new words or to make words of a different grammatical category from the stem. For example: Good (adjective) Goodness (Noun) Beg (Verb) Begin (Verb) Miss (Verb) Missile (Noun) Re-,Un-,Dis-,Pre-,Pro-,ex-,miss-,-able,-ish,-ful,-less,-ly etc.

Let’s take a closer look at some examples picture (Noun) + esque = picturesque (ADJ) sing (Verb) + er = singer (N) quiet (Adjective) + ly = quietly (ADV) vaccine (Noun) + ate = vaccinate (V) tall (Adjective) + ness = tallness (N) migrate (Verb) + ory = migratory (ADJ).

Exceptions, as usual… Not all derivational morphemes trigger a change in grammatical class. Many prefixes are like this. Take a look at these examples: friend (Noun) + ship = friendship (Noun) un + do (Verb) = undo (Verb) pink (Adjective) + ish = pinkish (Adjective) Cited from: http://www.everything2.com/node/1177723

Inflectional Morphemes These morphemes don’t form new words but they indicate aspects of the grammatical function of the words: singular vs plural, present vs past, comparative vs superlative etc. English has 8 inflectional morphemes or ‘inflections’: –’s, -s (2), -ing, -ed, -en, -est, -er

The 8 Inflectional Morphemes Try to find the 8 types of Inflectional Morphemes in the sentences below: Jim’s two sisters are really different. One likes to have fun and is always laughing. The other liked to read as a child and has always taken things seriously. One is the loudest person in the house and the other is quieter than a mouse.

And they are… Jim’s = -’s = Possessive Sisters = -s = Plural Likes = -s = 3rd person singular marker Laughing = -ing = Present participle Liked = -ed = Past tense Taken -en = Past Participle Loudest = -est = Superlative Quieter = -er = Comparative In English, all Inflectional morphemes are Suffixes

INFLECTIONAL DERIVATIONAL What is the most important difference between Derivational and Inflectional morphemes? Inflectional morphemes do not change the grammatical category of a word. (Old and Older are both adjectives) Derivational morphemes can CHANGE the grammatical category of a word. (Teach is a verb, Teacher is a noun)

The multitasker -er The Suffix – er, is both: Inflectional Morpheme as part of an adjective as in Quieter and also Derivational Morpheme as part of a noun as in Farmer [They look the same but they DON’T do the same kind of work] Which one changed the words above? To farm: verb Farmer: noun

Morphs and Allomorphs The form cars is made of 2 morphs: car + -s to indicate plural (one lexical morpheme car plus one inflectional morpheme -s) buses, also 2 morphs: one lexical bus and the inflectional morpheme will be -es, instead of –s, but it still indicates plural, right? “ bus + -es”

The Zero-Morph What is the plural form of “fish”?

The zero morph In this case, -s and –es are two morphs used to realize the inflectional morpheme plural They are called allomorphs of the same morpheme or a group of different morphs, all versions of the same morpheme ‘Allo-’ means “one of a closely related set” What about sheep, that can also indicate the plural of ….sheep? In this case we have the so called zero-morph as another allomorph of the morpheme ‘plural’ since there is no change in form to indicate more than one, yet you know that sheep can be both singular and plural “ sheep + Ø”

Man and Men With man an men, there is no addition of another particle but simply a change in form This is an irregular plural form since there is a vowel change from [ æ ] to [ ɛ ] This process represents the morph that changes the noun man from singular to plural men “man + plural”

Past Tense Formation The same process can be said of the past tense formation in the English language The allomorphs for the morpheme ‘past tense’ include –ed as in walk + ‘past tense’ = walked And also the special pattern irregular as in go + ‘past tense’ = went

Morphological analysis The lucky boys ran quickly Functional Lexical Lexical Lexical Lexical Derivational Inflectional Inflectional Derivational My sister’s friend asked the doctor about her annoying cough

Can you Establish Some rules for The following set of Aztec Tranformation? Aztec English Aztec English Nokali My house Nokalimes My houses Mokali Your house ?? ?? Ikali His house ?? ?? Nopelo My dog Nopelomes My dogs Mopelo Your dog Mopelomes Your dogs ?? His Dog ?? His dogs Nokwahmili My cornfield Nokwahimilimes My cornfields ?? Your Cornfield ?? Your cornfields My= His= Your= House= Dog= Cornfield=

Kanuri, Nigeria Adjective Noun excellent karite nəmkarite ‘excellence’ big kura nəmkura ‘bigness’ small gana nəmgana ‘smallness’ bad dibi nəmdibi ‘badness’ Can you establish the rule for these words?