Morphology How to build words

What is a morpheme? Morphology is the organization of morphemes into words. –The morpheme is the smallest meaningful (invested with meaning—or a definition) unit of language. –Can be as small as one syllable. –Can be one word. –Can be an affix (a syllable that comes before, within, or after a word that enhances or changes its meaning)

Structure of Morphemes Morpheme is just as abstract as the phoneme. –One morpheme can have numerous allomorphs (alternate phonetic realizations of a morpheme dependent upon the phonetic context of the morpheme). {-s} plural can be an /s/, /z/, or / əz/ depending on the context: –/s/ after a voiceless consonant: [kæts] –/z/ after a voiced stop, liquid, or nasal: /dɔgz/ –/ əz/ after a fricative or affricate: /ʧərʧəz/ –Ø for words such as deer that form the plural w/ no change

Derivation of Morphemes Multi-morpheme words result from the combination of morphemes. Derivation describes the “operations” on morphemes that result in words. –Derived word: boyish [bɔɪɪʃ] (adjective) Stem: Boy (noun) [ bɔɪ] (a “simple word”) Affix: -ish (adjectival suffix) [ ɪʃ] –Derived word: slowly [sloli] (adverb) Stem: slow (adjective) [slo] (a “simple word”) Affix: -ly (adverbial suffix) [li]

Morphological Categories Morphemes described based on their grammatical functions: –Content morphemes have a meaning understood in and of themselves: {boy}, {dog}, {cake}, {ice} Derivational morphemes, which change the part of speech and/or the meaning of stem morphemes also belong to the “content” category {ness}, –Functional morphemes only reflect grammatical information or grammatical relationships: {and}, {-s plural}, {-ed past tense}, {-er comparative}

Categories, cont’d. Morphemes are also described by their distribution and their “rules of association” –Free morphemes can stand on their own or combine with other morphemes appropriate to their part of speech {bird}, {bird}{s}, {black}{bird} –Bound morphemes can not stand on their own, but must combine with specific morphemes in order to make sense. {-s plural, combines with nouns only}, {bird}{s}

Categories, cont’d. Functional Morphemes are also described according to their function: –Inflectional morphemes modify the grammatical function of a word (verbal tense, person, number, aspect, possessive, comparative, superlative) {walk}{ed} (past tense) {walk}{s} (3rd person verb) {walk}{ing} (present participle) {walk}{ed} (past participle) – more clearly seen {drive}{en} {bird}{s} (plural) {Lolly}{‘s} (possessive) {tall}{er} (comparative) {tallest}{est} (superlative}