Morphology (302) What’s a Word

A Word n John kicked Tom n walad, bint, kursi n A boy picks his friend’s nose n That boy picks his friends’ noses

What’s a word n Words: Written > spaces –But.. misleading Compounds – mother-in-law, looking glass Simple or complex –(friend, promised, carefully) Spoken nitakupenda I will you love

Lexical Categories! n Noun = boy, girl, table n Verb = run, kick, love n Adverb = quickly, amazingly, yesterday n Adjective = fast, big, happy n Preposition = on, under, next And so on

Smaller units friend, friend’s, friends, friends’s, friendly, friendship, friendlier, befriend friend – friend-s smallest unit with a meaning = morpheme friends, cats, dogs, dolphins, flowers, cars repeat, replay, redo, reopened, received

Number of units unsightly # of graphemes # of phonetic segments # of syllables # of morphemes

Internal structure n Hopelessly n *hopelyless n *lyhopeless n *lesshopely n *hopelyless

Free vs. Bound n bookshelf > book - shelf n Outbid > out - bid n reopened > re-open-ed n friend, promise, open, big n -s, -ed, -ing, -ly, -er, -ish, -ness n ? Hopelessly n Less vs. -less

Criteria for a morpheme n Meaningful darken vs. garden n Recurrence bigger vs. teacher n Regular interchange bigger and biggest