Morphology Talib M. Sharif Omer Asst. Lecturer, English Department November28,

Outline  Morphology  Orthographic words  Lexicology  Words and morphemes 2

Morphology What is morphology ? Morphology is the area of grammar that is concerned with the formation of words. Morphology can be termed as the study of morpheme. It is the study of the internal structure of words. 3

Orthographic words An orthographic word is considered as an abstract unit which has a written sequence of words with a white space between each of them. For example, Ice-cream as one orthographic word, Landowner, pocketknife. However, Land owner as two orthographic words 4

Lexicology Lexicology is the study of words(dictionary form) or standard of words in a language. Lexicon: the collection of words (internalized dictionary) which every speaker of a language has. Lexeme: is an abstract unit of the lexicon of a language which more or less readily identifiable meaning or function. Obviously lexemes prevalent regardless of any inflectional endings, walk, walking, dog, dogs 5

Activity Which ones of the following words belong to the same lexeme? See Boy Sees Tall Taller Seeing’ Boys Tallest Saw Seen 6

Words and morphemes WORDS  In traditional grammar, words were used to be the fundamental unit of analysis. A word can be defined as the smallest language item that can occur on its own( Thornbury,2006). For example, wallpaper, tarpaulin. It is the smallest unit of the syntax (Aronoff,2013). Norman(1981) ‘A word is the smallest segment of speech that can be used alone’. 7

Words However, the matter is really complex ! what about (not, a, the, with)! What counts as a word? 8

Types of words Content words VS. Functions words: A- Content words B -function words 9

Types of words Content words: that have meaning, refer to objects, events, and abstract concepts to convey information. happy, sad, pen, book, ideology, unruly 10

Types of words Function words: also have meaning but in a different way (Function words are best defined by their grammatical functions). For example, the, an 11

The combination of words -Simple words -Compound words -Complex words 12

The combination of words  Simple words: consists of a single free morpheme such as car, hit, wide  Compound word: it composes two simple words (2 or more simple words). Examples: doghouse, outside, undergraduate, Happy-go-lucky  Complex words: it contains two bound forms or abound or a free form. Examples: '' exclude'' Examples for bound and free form is '' telephone'', 13

Morpheme What is morpheme? 1-A morpheme is the smallest indivisible units of semantic content or grammatical function. 2-Morphemes are the minimal units of meaning or grammatical function that are used to create new words. 14

Morpheme For example, Uncle, Under,book, car, house e.g. collectors, helpers carpet ! 15

Issues with the 1 st & 2 nd definitions There are many complex English morphemes can be broken down and some of them may have not independent meaning such as (Untidy- Unable, Cranberry, cran) 16

The general criteria of morphemes 1-It is a word or part of a word that has meaning. 2-It cannot be decomposed into further smaller meaningful parts without violation with its meaning. 3-They have the same meaning in different environments. 17

Activity Classify the following words: use S for simple and Cx for complex f and C for compound words. 1-enable 11-airsrikes 2-purist 12-afternoon 3-refusal 13-butterfly 4-pure 5-nudge 6-bicycle 7-oyster 8-sweetheart 9- cars 10-pickpocket 18

Question Can a morpheme be represented by a single word ? Can a word be represented by a single morpheme? 19

Ends & Thanks Any comments and questions? 20

References Stageberg, N(1981) An introductory to English Grammar. USA morphology 21