A Part of Pure Linguistics: Morphology
4:46:00 PM
Morphology is the study of word
formation, of the structure of words.
Morphology
is the study of word formation – how words are built up from smaller pieces.
When
we do morphological analysis, then, we’re asking questions like, what pieces
does this word have? What does each of them mean? How are they combined?
Types of morphemes
Morpheme A
morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning we have – that is, the smallest piece
of a word that contributes meaning to a word.
Example The
word trainings has 3 morphemes in it: train-ing-s.
To
break a word into morphemes, try starting at the beginning of the word and
seeing how far into the word you need to go to find a sub-part of the word that
has some meaning.
Morpheme
is classified into two categories, are:
Free A free morpheme is one that can stand
on its own – that is, it’s an entire word.
Examples à
the,
cat, run, pretty, trapezoid
Free
morphemes may appear with other bound morphemes attached to them; crucially,
though, they don’t need to have other morphemes on them.
Bound A bound morpheme cannot stand on its own,
but rather must be attached to a free morpheme whenever you say it.
Examples à
re-,
un-, -est, -er, -fer
(see below)
Some
morphemes are roots and others are affixes.
Root The
primary piece of meaning in a word, to which affixes can be added. In English,
a root is often a word itself.
Examples à cat, pretty, -fer
Affix A
morpheme which attaches to roots (or stems), changing their meaning in regular
ways.
Examples à re-, un-, -est, -er, ing, -s
Affixes
are generally either prefixes or suffixes.
Prefix An affix that goes before a root. Examples: re-, un-
(re-read, un-loved)
Suffix An affix that goes after a root. Examples: -est,
-er, -s (quick-est, quick-er, read-s, book-s)
Here
is some of the evidence for the distinction between inflectional and
derivational affixes (the book has more):
Inflectional Affixes
|
Derivational Affixes
|
All are suffixes
|
May be either suffixes or
prefixes
|
Have a wide range of
application. E.g. most English nouns can be made plural, with {PLU}
|
May have a wide or narrow range
|
All native to English (since
Old English was spoken around 500-1000 AD)
|
Many were adopted from Latin,
Greek, or other languages. (Though others, especially the suffixes, are
native, including {ful}, {like}, {ly}, and {AG})
|
Inflectional Affixes
English
has only eight inflectional affixes:
{PLU}
= plural Noun -s boys
{POSS}
= possessive Noun -’s boy’s
{COMP}
= comparative Adj -er older
{SUP}
= superlative Adj -est oldest
{PRES}
= present Verb -s walks
{PAST}
past Verb -ed walked
{PAST
PART} = past participle Verb -en driven
{PRES
PART} = present participle Verb -ing driving
Notice that, as noted above, even irregular forms
can be represented morphologically using these morphemes. Example the irregular plural sheep is written as {sheep} + {PLU}, even though the
typically form of {PLU} is not used here. Similarly, better = {good} + {COMP};
drove = {drive} + {PAST}.
Derivational Affixes
There
are an indefinite number of derivational morphemes. For example, the following
are some derivational
suffixes:
{ize}
attaches to a noun and turns it into a verb: rubberize
{ize}
also attaches to an adjective and turns it into a verb: normalize
{ful}
attaches to a noun and turns it into an adjective: playful, helpful
{ly}
attaches to an adjective and turns it into an adverb: grandly, proudly
A
different {ly} attaches to a noun and changes it into an adjective: manly, friendly
English
also has derivational
prefixes, such as:
{un},
{dis}, {a}, {anti}, all of which indicate some kind of negation: unhappy, dislike, atypical, anti-aircraft.
References:
1 comments
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BalasHapus