Morphology Dr Sabri alkatib

MORPHOLOGY :
THE STRUCTURE OF
WORDS
Dr. Sabri Elkateb
sabrimail@gmail.com

• We all have an internal
mental dictionary called a
lexicon
• Morphology is the study of
words (the study of our
lexicon)
• To look at morphology, we
must consider both form and
meaning
Overview

The area of grammar concerned with the
structure of words and with relationships
between words involving the morphemes
that compose them
MORPHOLOGY

What is a word?
• An orthographic definition
• A phonological definition
• A semantic definition
• A syntactic definition

A phonological definition
• Words as phonological units: spoken in isolation
each word can only have one main stress
• E.g. Words as elements of the system The
underlined characters indicate the main stress
An orthographic definition
• Words as units in the writing system: words are
uninterrupted strings of letters
• For ex. writing is a word because there are blank
spaces surrounding it

A semantic definition
• Words as meaningful units:
• a. Words express unified concepts
• b. Words are the minimum meaningful
units of a language
Words as syntactic units: words are the smallest
syntactic elements in a sentence
A syntactic definition

MORPHOLOGY
• Morphology deals with the
structure of complex words and
parts of words, also called
morphemes, as well as with the
semantics of their lexical
meanings.
• Understanding how words are
formed and what semantic
properties they convey through
their forms

Free and Bound Morpheme
 Analysis at a morphological level is
concerned with structural elements of
meaning called morphemes. Morphemes
are classified into two types:
– Free Morphemes
– Bound Morphemes

– Free Morphemes:
girl, boy, mother, etc. These are words with a
complete meaning, so they can stand alone as
an independent word in a sentence.
- Bound Morphemes:
These are lexical items incorporated into a word
as a dependent part. They cannot stand alone,
but must be connected to another morpheme.
• Bound morphemes operate in the
connection processes by means of
derivation, inflection, and
compounding.

DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• Derivation is concerned with the way
morphemes are connected to existing lexical
forms as affixes.
• We distinguish affixes in two principal types:
• 1. Prefixes - attached at the beginning of a
lexical item or base-morpheme – ex: un-, pre-,
post-, dis, im-, etc.
• 2. Suffixes – attached at the end of a lexical
item ex: -age, -ing, -ful, -able, -ness, -hood, -ly,
etc.

EXAMPLES OF MORPHOLOGICAL
DERIVATION
• a. Lexical item (free morpheme): like (verb)
+ prefix (bound morpheme) dis- dislike (verb)
• b. Lexical item: like (verb)
+ suffix –able = likeable
+ prefix un- =unlikeable
+ suffix –ness = unlikeableness

• 3. Lexical item: like
+ prefix un- = unlike
+ suffix –ness = unlikeness
• 4. Lexical item: like
+ suffix –ly = likely
+ suffix –hood =likelihood
+ prefix un- =unlikelihood

Derivational affixes can cause
semantic change:
Prefix pre- means before; post- means after; un-
means not, re- means again.
Prefix = fixed before; Unhappy = not happy = sad;
Retell = tell again.
Prefix de- added to a verb conveys a sense of
subtraction; dis- and un- have a sense of
negativity.
To decompose; to defame; to uncover; to discover.

INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• Inflection is a morphological process that
adapts existing words so that they function
effectively in sentences without changing
the category of the base morpheme.
English has the following inflectional
suffixes:

VERB INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES
• 1. The suffix –s functions in the Present Simple
as the third person marking of the verb :
to work – he work-s
• 2. The suffix –ed functions in the past simple as
the past tense marker in regular verbs:
to love – lov-ed

3. The suffixes –ed (regular verbs) and –en (for
some regular verbs) function in the marking of the
past partciple and, in general, in the marking of the
perfect aspect:
To study studied studied / To eat ate eaten
4. The suffix –ing functions in the marking of the
present participle, the gerund and in the marking of
the continuous aspect:
To eat – eating / To study - studying

NOUN INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES
• 5. The suffix –s functions in the marking of
the plural of nouns:
dog – dogs
• 6. The suffix –s functions as a possessive
marker (saxon genitive):
Laura – Laura’s book.

ADJECTIVE INFLECTIONAL
SUFFIXES
7. The suffix –er functions as comparative
marker:
quick – quicker
8. The suffix –est functions as superlative
marker:
quick - quickest

Derivational affixes can mark
category change
• The derivational suffix –able derives an adjective
from a verb, implying an ability with a passive
relation with its stem:
Eatable means able to be eaten
(commestibile), not able to eat.
• Suffix –er derives a noun from a verb, indicating a
human agent or an inanimate instrument:
Speaker ; Baker

• The suffixes –ful and –less derives an
adjective from a noun.
• -ful indicates addiction, abundance;
• -less indicates subtraction, reduction:
careful = full of care
careless = with no care

• The suffixes –ure and –age derive e noun
from a verb:
To fail – failure
To marry – marriage
• The suffix –hood derives an abstract noun
from a concrete noun, the suffix –ness
derives an abstract nounfrom an adjective.
Child – childhood = bambino/infanzia
Good – goodness = buono/bontà

• The suffix –ly derives an adverb from an
adjective (but also adjs can end in –ly):
Quick – quickly
Easy – easily
but: lonely (adjective)
• The suffix –ing derives a noun from a
verb:
To write – writing.

The relationship between words and
meanings
Words with unpredictable meanings:
dog, door, desk, book, pen, …
Words with predictable meanings
Complex words: unhappy, helpful, madly, …
E.g. The relationship between the sequence of letters cat and its
meaning [domestic feline] in English is the result of a convention.
Whenever this association form-meaning is the result of a
convention, the meaning of a word is unpredictable on the basis of
its form.
Exception: onomatopoeic words
splash resembles the sound of a liquid hitting something;
beep resembles a short high sound, like the sound of a car horn.

Non-words and meanings
• entities that are larger than a word with
unpredictable meanings
– Idioms: pull someone’s leg; kick the bucket; …
– Collocations: hard work, white coffee, white-
collar worker …
– Proverbs: All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
birds of a feather flock together, a bad
workman blames his tools, …

The difference between words and
lexical items
Words are the smallest syntactic units in a
sentence (i.e. words are grammatical
entities)
• Lexical items are semantic units whose
meanings are unpredictable; they may be
larger than words, but often they can
coincide with them (i.e. lexical items are
semantic entities)

Taking words apart
• Why is the meaning of the following words
predictable to a certain extent?
• unbelievable, capitalistic, mismatched,
disproportional, misunderstanding,
irregularity.
• lighthouse, shoplift, team manager,
apartment building, concentration camp,
low-flying, cupboard, sickness benefit.

Complex words: affixation
• Words can be composed of identifiable smaller parts,
morphemes, put together in a systematic fashion, so
that the meaning of the whole can reliably be determined
on the basis of the meaning of the smaller parts.
• un-believe-able, anti-capital-ist-ic, de-colony-al-ize-ation,
dis-proportion-al, mis-under-stand-ing, ir-regul-ar-ity.
• This group contains words which are divisible into:
• a component that carries most of the meaning (e.g.
believe, capital, colony, proportion, etc.)
• other elements that are associated with it to add some
other aspects of meaning (e.g. –able in believable =
something or someone is capable of being believed; un-
in unbelievable = something or someone is not capable of
being believed).
• The process through which these words are formed is
called affixation.

Word compounding
• B. lighthouse, shoplift, team manager, apartment
building, concentration camp, low-flying, cupboard,
sickness benefit.
• Group B contains words which are divisible into two
other words.
• These component words can be found independently in
an English dictionary, but when they associate they form
a compound word
• The meaning of the union is not necessarily a function of
the meaning of the two combining words. For ex. a
lighthouse is neither a light nor a house. This process is
called word compounding.

Word compounding: exercise
• How many compund words can you create with
the following words?
bag
car
box
case

Hand-, body-, air-, sick-,
punch-, sleeping
bag
Sports, estate, company,
courtesy,
car
Mail-, post-, letter-,
telephone, gear-
box
Book-, suit-, brief-,
display, lower
case

A morpheme must
– be identifiable from one word to another
– However, consider:
Attack
Stack
Tackle
Taxi (/tæksi/)

A morpheme must
– Also contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word
Believ-able
Eat-able
Read-able
Work-able
N.b. this extra meaning is not necessarily equal in all
cases, e.g. readable, does not mean ‘can be read’ in a
literal sense, but rather ‘enjoyable to read’.

How can I recognise a
morpheme?
Morphemes must be identifiable from one
word to another: identifying affixes:
– un- : uncomplicated, unhappy, unclear, …
– -able: variable, changeable, solvable, …
– de- : deselect, dethrone, detoxify, …
– -al: cultural, federal, liberal, modal, …
– -ize: computerize, realize, …

Identifying the core element:
• Happy: un-happy, happi-ness, happi-ly;
• Change: change-able, chang-ing, un-
chang-ed;
• Select: de-select, select-ion, select-ive-ly;
• Liber-: liber-al, liber-al-ism, liber-ate, liber-
ty;
• Oper-: oper-ate, oper-at-ion, oper-at-ion-al

Distinguishing between
morphemes:
• Bound and free morphemes:
• Free morphemes can occur on their own:
– happy, change, select, green, house, …
• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to
other morphemes:
– Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …)
– liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-, …
• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al

Bound morphemes as core
elements: words derived from Latin
Circul- Circular Liber- Liberty
Circulation Liberation
Circulator Liberalize
Circulatory Libertine

Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin
receive deceive conceive perceive
revert convert pervert
relate collate translate
reduce deduce conduce
Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme?
Or prefix + bound morpheme?

General tendency
• The core vocabulary of English is
generally composed of words of Anglo-
Saxon origin
• There is a general tendency for core
elements to be free morphemes
• E.g. Hand
• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,

What is the difference between
these two sets of complex words
Fair-ly
Fast-er
Sing-ing
Open-ed
Car-s
Write-s
Big-gest
Treat-ment
Rude-ness
Un-kind
Fam-ous
Use-less
Help-ful
Ir-regular
Red-dish

Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest
• These affixes do not change the word
class, but rather contribute to meeting
grammatical constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes

Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular
These affixes do not necessarily change the class
of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g.
fame (n.)> famous (adj.)
• Furthermore, the semantic element is notably
higher. These morphemes are called:
Derivational morphemes

-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup,
Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope,
Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,
Derivation with –ful and –less
• Which words can be derived by adding the
following suffixes

-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Care
Use
Cheer
Colour
Help
Taste
Hope
Tact
Fate
Spoon
Delight
Bag
Play
Cup
Friend
Age
Cease
Child
Defence
End
Effort
Penny

Morphology Dr Sabri alkatib

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Morphology Dr Sabri alkatib