Morphology

WORDS AND LEXEMES; WORD -FORMATION

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 MORPHOLOGY
Morphology refers to word structure.
There are two types of morphological phenomena in English:
◦ Inflectional morphology: Morphology which produces a new word-form,
but the same basic semantic meaning, as only new gramatical content is
added: plural markings, verbal markings (past tense; 3rd. Person present
tense; gerunds, etc…)
◦ Word-formation morphology
◦ BUT BEFORE….WHAT IS A Word….??

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PLAN OF THE SESSION
1. Introduction: Words, and the English lexicon.
2. Autonomous learning goals.
3. WORD-FORMATION and morphology

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1.Introduction: Words and the English lexicon.
2. Autonomous learning goals.
3. WORD-FORMATION and morphology

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INTRODUCTION:THE ENGLISH
LEXICON

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1. What is a word?
Let's try to decide how many words there are in this passage from The
Tempest (V.i.88) by Shakespeare:

(1) Where the bee sucks, there suck I

In a cowslip's bell I lie.
Shakespeare:The Tempest (V.i.88)

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1. What is a word?
Another problem we face in counting words is HOMONYMY. That is one
same form which represents several lexemes:

(2) If I tell thee a lie, spit in my face

Shakespeare: Henry IV Pt 1 (II.iv)
(3) Who loves to lie with me?
Shakespeare: As You Like It (II.v)

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1. What is a word?
Another one is compounding:
(4) School-boy = School boy = Schoolboy (?)
Word forms:
◦ Come-comes-came (different word-forms of one lexeme)
◦ Homonymy: lie-(lied-lied): lie-(lay-lain)

◦ INFLECTION AND HOMONYMY ADD NEW WORD-

FORMS TO THE LEXICON BUT ONLY HOMONYMY
ADDS NEW LEXEMES.

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1. What is a word?
Lexemes
◦ Shakespeare:

◦ 30.000: WORD-FORMS
◦ 20.000: LEXEMES/BASES/HEADWORDS

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2. How many words… ?

How many words do you know in English?

◦ A maximum of 25,000
◦ 20,000 for undergraduates with L1 English
◦ High school is about learning words
◦ (3/7 PER DAY!!, hence how many per year ? )

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(5) 'I am sure,' cried Catherine, 'I did not mean to say
anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should
not I call it so?'
'Very true,' said Henry, 'and this is a fine/nice day, and
we are taking a very invigorating/nice walk, and you
are two very attractive/nice young ladies. Oh! it is a
very useful/nice word indeed! - it does for every
thing.'
Jane Austin Northanger Abbey Chapter 4

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Passive and active vocabulary
Passive INTO active vocabulary

◦ Nice=fine
◦ Nice=invigorating
◦ Nice=attractive
◦ Nice=useful

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3. Types of words

 THERE ARE FOUR DIFFEREN TYPES OF HEADWORDS/LEXEMES

 HIGH – FREQUENCY
 MID FREQUENCY (ACADEMIC)
 TECHNICAL
 LOW-FREQUENCY

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3. Types of words

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 High frequency 2,000 words in English = 80% of most texts
 The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (with 2,000 words explains ALL the words in it)
 2,000 (after 5 years of foreign language learning/at 6 years of age if English is
your L1).
 They occur in very different kinds of material.
 They are rather short on the whole.
 Most common words: ‘The’ (6% of most texts)
 Next come: ‘a, to, up, this, these, she, he, am, have, can’.

 If you are an EFL learner, like we are, one knows 2,000 words at a B.2.2. level, so you all know the
words which are necessary to understand 80% of all texts.

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 Mid-frequency words:
 University/Academic List of words (800 in total): 10% in any given academic
text
 Students would know 90% of any text.
 They are not technical/specialised:
 ‘conserve, energy, efficient, design, device’.
 They reoccur in academic texts.

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Technical words:
◦ Although possibly frequent in some texts, they are not likely to occur in daily life.
◦ They account for 5% of the words.
◦ They include: ‘lever, pivot, fulcrum, torques, constituent, phrase, monotransitivity’ (the Glossary
terms you learn on this course).
◦ Many are of a Greek, Latin and French origin.

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Low-frequency words:
◦ They do not occur again in the text and are unlikely to be met again for a
long time.
◦ They make up about 5% of most academic texts.
◦ ‘crowbar, bewildering, see-saw’.

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4. How many in
English?
 The Webster’s Dictionary= 128,000 words
 2,000 high-frequency words 80%
 ---800 mid-frequency (university) 10%
 ------- Technical words 5%
 --------Rest
 ---200 low-frequency words 5%

 DO WE NEED TO LEARN THE LOW FREQUENCY WORDS?

Perhaps the answer is NO…
 ENGLISH KEEPS GETTING NEW WORDS, PROBABLY 500 PER
YEAR….FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES WE WILL STUDY IN A MINUTE..

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PLAN OF THE SESSION
1. Introduction: The English lexicon.
2. Autonomous learning goals.
3. WORD-FORMATION and morphology (Week 2)

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AUTONOMOUS LEARNING
GOALS
• So, what is the conclusion regarding
the goals that you must set for yourselves,
what do you want to learn on an English
course?
1: ...................
2: ...................
3: ...................
4: ...................
5: ...................

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AUTONOMOUS LEARNING
GOALS
1. You want to be sure to know the high-frequency word.
2. You want to be sure to know the university level words.
3. You want to be sure to have some technical vocabulary of
different topic areas.
4. You want to have strategies to deal with the low-
frequency words as they occur.
5. You want to build your passive and active knowledge of
vocabulary. Be able to recognise a word and recall its
meaning.

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HOW CAN WE BEST REMEMBER
WORDS?
1: Strategies for dealing with new words. Find their meaning (your own
resources/dictionaries).
2: Organise your own vocabulary notebook
3: Recognition. Short term memory.
4: Recollection. Long term memory.

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HOW CAN WE BEST REMEMBER
WORDS?

Own resources.
1. Dictionary use.
2. Organisation of your vocabulary notebook.
3. Short term memory. Mnemonic techniques.
4. Long term memory. Reuse by reading, writing, speaking.

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1: ...................
2: ...................
3: ...................
4: ...................

PLAN OF THE SESSION

1. Introduction: The English lexicon.
2. Autonomous learning goals.
3. WORD-FORMATION and morphology

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 MORPHOLOGY
There are two types of morphological phenomena in English:

◦ Inflectional morphology: Plural markings, verbal markings (past tense; 3rd.

Person present tense; gerunds, etc…)
◦ Inflectional morphology is added to root morpheme, and constitutes bound morphemes which
are added to the base lexeme in the form of suffixes.
◦ Word-formation morphology

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 Word formation
in English
There are three very common processes of word formation in English,
that is, of making new words
◦ 1. Derivation:
◦ 1.1. Prefixation
◦ 1.2. Suffixation
◦ 2. Compounding
◦ 3. Conversion

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 1.Derivation
1.1. Prefixation
◦ An affix is placed before the base of the word:
◦ I.e. ‘unscientific’

1.2. Suffixation
◦ An affix is placed after the base of the word:
◦ I.e. ‘cleanliness’

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2. Compounding
Compounding
◦ Two base forms are added together, with or without a hyphen:
◦ ‘lifestyle’; ‘self-assured’; ‘self-awareness’

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Compounding with Nouns
◦ It is often the result of a cohesive semantic relation between a modifier and a
noun, which fuses into a compound with a single referent:
◦ a) Written as separate words: Head waiter
◦ b) Joined by a hyphen: Record-player
◦ c) Written as a single word: Software

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Compounding with Adjectives

◦ Many adjectives have compound forms :

◦ Noun + adjective: duty-free goods
◦ Adjective + noun: long-distance calls
◦ Adverb + adjective: evergreen trees
◦ Adverb + adverb:well-off person

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3. Conversion
Conversion
◦ A word changes its class without any change of form
◦ ‘clear’ (adjective) becomes ‘to clear’ (verb)
◦ ‘tippex’ (noun) becomes ‘to tippex’ (verb)
◦ ‘fax’ (noun) becomes ‘to fax’ (verb)
◦ ‘text’ (noun) becomes ‘to text’ (verb)

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Word formation
in English
There are also four less common ways of making new words

1. Reduplication
2. Clippings
3. Abbreviations and acronyms
4. Blends

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4. Reduplication
1. Reduplication
◦ A type of compound in which both elements are the same or
only slightly different
◦ I.e. ‘wishy-woshy’, ‘teeny-weeny’; ‘win-win’

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5. Clippings

2. Clippings

◦An informal shortening of a word, often to

a single syllable
◦ ‘I.e. ‘ad’, ‘gents’, ‘temp’ ...

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6. Abbreviations &
Acronyms
3. Abbreviations and acronyms
◦ Some are read as individual letters:
◦ BBC (B-B-C) =British Broadcasting Corporation
◦ IRA (I-R-A)=Irish Republican Army
◦ MP (M-P)=Member of Parliament
◦ UN (U-N)=United Nations
◦ PM (P-M)=Prime Minister
◦ MP (M-P)= Member of Parliament
◦ PLO (P-L-O)=Palestine Liberation Organisation

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 Some are used in the organisation of language:
◦ etc /et'setr/
◦ i.e. (I-E) = that is to say
◦ PTO (P-T-O) = Please Turn Over
◦ e.g. (E-G) = for example
◦ NB (N-B) = Please Note.
◦ P.S. = Post scriptum

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 oSome abbreviations are only written
forms; they are still pronounced as
the full word:
Mr = Mister, Mz = Miz
Dr = Doctor
St = Saint, or Street (!)

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 Acronyms
◦ Words formed from the initial letter of the words that make up the
name, they are read as whole words
◦ I.e. ‘Yuppie’, ‘dinkie’, ‘asap’
◦ NATO / AIDS /
◦ OPEC

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Some have become very normal as words People do not think
of them as acronyms any longer, so they are not written in
capital letters:
◦ yuppie (or yuppie) (=Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Person)
◦ Radar = radio detecting and ranging
◦ Dinkie = double income, no kids
◦ Asap = as soon as possible
◦ OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

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7. Blends
4. Blends
◦ Two words merge into each other
◦ I.e. ‘brunch’ (for breakfast and lunch)

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UPF.C.PÉREZ
IDIOMA 1-
2/2019
 TASK 1: TEXTING...
WORK IN PAIRS: :
CU
CU2NITE
CUL8R
WAN2CU
GR8
RUOK?
YURL8?
NE MSG?
XLNT
RNG B4GO

42
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UPF.C.PÉREZ
IDIOMA 1-
2/2019
 ANSWER
CU See you!
CU2NITE See you tonight!
CUL8R Call you later!!
WAN2CU Want to see you!
GR8 Great!
RUOK? Are you OK?
YURL8? Why are you late?
NE MSG? Any message?
XLNT Excellent
RNG B4GO Ring before you go!

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GLOSSARY

Prefixation: (adjectives)
Suffixation: (adjectives)
Compounding (nouns; adjectives)
Conversion
Reduplications
Clippings
Abreviations & Acronyms
Blends

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Weeks-2,3 UPF.C.PÉREZ IDIOMA 1-2/2019 45
HOMEWORK
Read:
Language Learning tip I: Vocabulary

Do worksheet:
HOMEWORK_SELF - 3 Morphology 1-2 (BUT SEE ALSO THE SV_ppt)

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