Morphology & Syntax Dr. Eid Alhaisoni

Basic Definitions Language : a system of communication by written or spoken words, which is used by people of a particular country or area Linguistics : The study of language in general and of particular languages, their structure, grammar and history Applied Linguistics : The scientific study of language of it relates to particular problems.

The Branches of Linguistics Morphology : It is the study of internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed. Phonetics : The study of speech sounds Phonology : The study of the way speech sounds form patterns

Syntax : It is the study of sentences and their structure. Semantics : The study of the linguistics meaning of morpheme, words, phrases and sentences Pragmatics : The study of the way in which language is used to express what somebody really means in particular situations.

Morphology Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies internal structure of words. Before we can examine the structure of words we must know what MORPHEME is : a short segment of language That meets 3 criteria:

1) It is a word or part of a word that has meaning 2) It can’t be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without meaningless reminders. 3) It recurs (repeats) in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning

On these 3 criteria : EX. 1) re write 2) boy / boyish / boyishless 3) (a) straight / street / (b) Trait / tret / (c) Ate / et /

Another classification of morphemes : the concept occurs when a list of meanings can vary in source without changing meaning. BASES : (a base morpheme ) is the part of word that has the principal meaning. It is allomorph of a morpheme

NOTES Note 1 : Most of bases in English are free morphemes but some are bound such as, sent in consent, dissent and assent Note 2 : A word may contain one base and one or more affixes Ex. Readability free bound

Note 3 : A good number of bound bases in English come from Latin and Greek Such as : sent in sentiment Sent in consent

AFFIXES An affixes is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a base There are three kinds of affixes : 1)prefix 2)infix 3)suffixes Prefix : are those bound morphemes that occur before a base As in : import reconsider

There are 75 prefix in English language 2)infix : are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word Ex. Un get at able preposition English doesn’t have infix

3)Suffix : are bound morphemes that occur after a base Ex. Noisy movement