Morphology The Study of the Internal Structure of Words

What Is Morphology?  Many words can be broken down into smaller units  Morphology is the study of word formation  Morphologists identify different classes of morphemes, and study the patterns that occur in the combination of morphemes  E.G. : {re-} only comes before verbs

The Smallest Meaningful Unit  What does it mean to be the smallest meaningful unit in a language?  Divide the following sentence into the smallest meaningful units:  I have two dogs.  I / have / two / dogs.  I / have / two / dog / -s.

Morphemes  Meaningful units “I have two cats” “She wants to leave soon” “He walked across the room” “Her behavior was unbelievable”

Morphemes  Free  Can stand alone  {eye, think, run, apple}  Bound  Can not stand alone  Has to be attached to a free morpheme  {-able, un-, -s, -tion, -ly}

Morpheme Types  Root  The morpheme that is the semantic core  “unthinkable” “realization” “distrust”  Affixes  Bound morpheme that attaches to roots  {-s, un-, de-, -en, -able, -ize, -hood}  Base/Stem  Anything to which an affix is attached root {un.think.able} base

Affixes  The most common way to build new words  Prefix  Suffix  Infix  Affix

Prefixes  Prefix  An affix that attaches to the front of a root  {un-, dis-, de-, mis-}  Example: {in-} indecent

Prefixes  Karok [pasip]“Shoot!” [nipasip]“I shoot” [/upasip]“She/he shoots”  {pasip} “shoot  {ni-}“1st person singular”  {/u-}“3rd person singular” (Karok is a Hokan language of California. The language has been in decline, but some young people are working to keep their ancestral language alive.)Hokan

Suffixes  Suffix  An affix that attaches to the end of a root  {-able, -ing, -ed, -s}  Most common affix  Example: {-ful} careful

Suffixes  Mende [pElE]“house” [pElEi]“the house” [mEmE]“glass” [mEmEi]“the glass”  {-i}“the” (Mende, Bandi, and Loko belong to the southwestern group of Mende and are spoken in Sierra Leone/Liberia, northeastern Liberia, and north-central Sierra Leone, respectively.)

Infix  Infix  An affix that attaches within the root  No ‘standard’ English example, though examples exist in slang:  ‘abso-darn-lutely’  ‘un-freaking-likely’

Infix  Bontoc [fikas]“strong” [fumikas]“she is becoming strong” [fusul]“enemy” [fumusal]“she is becoming an enemy”  {-um-}“becoming” ( Bontoc is the name given by linguists to the language spoken in the municipality of Bontoc, Mountain Province in the northern Philippines. )

Affix  Affix  General term to cover all the previous terms  Affixes can attach to other affixes  boy. ish. ness  dis. en. tangle