COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Class Code: D37

Subject Code: ENG 11
Subject Description: Introduction to Linguistics (3.0 units)

UNIT 1
Morphology: The Words of Language Part 1
I. INTRODUCTION

This chapter is about words—their relationships, their constituent parts, and their internal
organization. We believe that this information will be of value to anyone interested in words, for
whatever reason; to anyone interested in dictionaries and how they represent the aspects of words
we deal with here; to anyone involved in developing the vocabularies of native and non-native
speakers of English; to anyone teaching writing across the curriculum who must teach the
characteristics of words specific to their discipline; to anyone teaching writing who must deal
with the usage issues created by the fact that different communities of English speakers use
different word forms, only one of which may be regarded as standard.

II. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

 Explain the features of Morphology;

 Characterize words by identifying its basic morphological structure; and
 Perform linguistic operations related to morphology.

III. MAIN CONTENT

1. Morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:

a. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.

b. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or
without meaningless remainders.
c. It recurs in different words with a relatively stable meaning.

The word unhappiness has 3 morphemes: {un-}, {happy}, {-ness} while the word
salamander is a single morpheme.

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one morpheme boy

desire
morph (“to change form”)

two morphemes boy + ish

desire + able
morph + ology

three morphemes boy + ish + ness

desire + able + ity

four morphemes gentle + man + li + ness

un + desire + able + ity

more than four un + gentle + man + li + ness

anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism

Exercise 1

Divide the following words by placing a plus sign [+] between their morphemes. (Some of
the words may be monomorphemic and therefore indivisible.)

Example: replaces = re + place + s

a. retroactive= retro+active
b. befriended= be+friend+ed
c. televise= Tele+vise
d. margin= margin
e. endearment= end+ear+ment
f. psychology= psycho+logy
g. unpalatable= un+palate+able
h. holiday= holy+day
i. grandmother= grand+mother
j. morphemic= morph+emic
k. mistreatment= mis+treat+ment
l. deactivation= de+activate+tion
m. saltpeter= salt+peter
n. airsickness= air+sick+ness

2. Allomorphs are morphs which belong to the same morpheme. For example, /s/, /z/ and
/əz/ in /kæts/ ‘cats’, /bægz/ ‘bags’ and / bʌsɪz/ ‘buses’ are allomorphs of the plural

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morphemes {(e)s}. Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that may be phonologically

or morphologically conditioned; e.g. {-en} as in oxen and children are allomorphs of
{plural} morpheme.

Our morphological knowledge has two components: knowledge of the individual morphemes
and knowledge of the rules that combine them. One of the things we know about particular
morphemes is whether they can stand alone or whether they must be attached to a base
morpheme.

3. Free morphemes are those that can stand on their own as independent words, e.g.
{happy} in unhappily, {like} in dislike, {boy} in boyhood. They can also occur in
isolation; e.g. {happy}, {like}

4. Bound morphemes are those that cannot stand on their own as independent words. They
are always attached to a free morpheme or a free form, e.g. {un-}, {-ly}, {dis-} {-hood}.
Such morphemes are also called affixes.

Bound morphemes are those that cannot stand alone as words; they need to be attached to
another morpheme; e.g. {con-}; {de-}, {per-} to be attached to {-ceive} as in conceive,
deceive, perceive.

affix is a bound morpheme attached to a stem or root

infix is a bound morpheme that is inserted in the middle of another morpheme

prefix is an affix that is attached to the beginning of a morpheme or stem

suffix is an affix that is attached to the end of a morpheme or stem

Exercise 2

Identify the free morphemes in the following words:

a. kissed= kiss
b. freedom= free
c. stronger= strong
d. follow= follow
e. awe= awe
f. goodness= good
g. talkative= talk
h. teacher=teach
i. actor= act

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Exercise 3

Underline the affix and identify what kind of affix is used. Write your answer after each item.
Write NA if the word does not have an affix.

1. predate= preffix
2. self-care= NA
3. driver= suffix
4. unsuccessfully= prefix, suffix
5. misinformation= preffix
6. prettier= suffix
7. abso-freakin-lutely=NA/infix
8. hardcopy= preffix
9. deliverance= suffix
10. unrecognizable= preffix, suffix

Morphologically complex words consist of a morpheme root and one or more affixes. Some
examples of English roots are paint in painter, read in reread, ceive in conceive, and ling in
linguist. A root may or may not stand alone as a word (paint and read do; ceive and ling don’t).

5. Root Morpheme is combined with an affix, it forms a stem. Other affixes can be added
to a stem to form a more complex stem, as shown in the following:

root Chomsky (proper) noun

stem Chomsky + ite noun + suffix
word Chomsky + ite + s noun + suffix + suffix

root believe verb

stem believe + able verb + suffix
word un + believe + able prefix + verb + suffix

root system noun

stem system + atic noun + suffix
stem un + system + atic prefix + noun + suffix
stem un + system + atic + al prefix + noun + suffix + suffix
word un + system + atic + al + ly prefix + noun + suffix + suffix + suffix

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Exercise 4

Derive the stem from the given root in Column A. Follow the description in Column C. Write
your answer in Column B.

Column A Column B Column C

(Root) (Derived Stem/Word) (Description)
use Use+ful verb + suffix
stable un+stable prefix + adjective
speak un+speak+able prefix + verb + suffix
copyright un+copyright+able prefix + noun + suffix
suffice in+suffice+ent prefix + verb + suffix
element element+ary noun + suffix
develop develop+er+s verb + suffix + suffix
establish prefix+prefix+verb+suffix+suffix+suffix

6. Inflectional morphemes are those that never change the form class of the words or
morphemes to which they are attached. They are always attached to complete words.
They cap the word; they are a closed-ended set of morphemes - English has only 8
inflectional morphemes.

-s third person sing. pres. She stay-s at home.

-ed past tense She stay-ed at home.
-ing progressive She is stay-ing at home.
-en past participle She has eat-en at home.
-s plural She wrote novel-s.
-‘s possessive Marie’s car is new.
-er comparative This road is long-er than that.
-est superlative This is the long-est road.

7. Derivational morphemes are those that are added to root morphemes or stems to derive
new words. They usually change the form class of the words to which they are attached;
they are open-ended, that is, there are potentially infinite number of them; e.g. actual + {-
ize}  actualize; help + {-ful}  helpful; {un-} + lucky  unlucky.

Inflectional Derivational

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Grammatical function Lexical function

No word class change May cause word class change
Small or no meaning change Some meaning change
Often required by rules of grammar Never required by rules of grammar
Follow derivational morphemes in a word Precede inflectional morphemes in a word
Productive Some productive, many nonproductive

Exercise 5

Put a plus sign [+] after the word is inflected and equal sign [=] if the word is derived.

a. humans j. within s. elements

b. such k. trance t. tend
c. climate l. bowed u. the
d. erred m. although v. speech
e. working n. transit w. Indo-European
f. sabotage o. mine x. as
g. shrink p. morphology y. thought
h. adverse q. Persians z. some
i. linkage r. unkind

Exercise 6

Write the one proper description from the list under B for the italicized part
of each word in A.
A B
(3)a. terrorized (1) free root
(1)b. uncivilized (2) bound root
(4)c. terrorize (3) inflectional suffix
(2)d. lukewarm (4) derivational suffix
(6)e. impossible (5) inflectional prefix
(6) derivational prefix
(7) inflectional infix
(8) derivational infix

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Exercise 7

There are many asymmetries in English in which a root morpheme combined with a prefix
constitutes a word, but without the prefix is a nonword. A number of these are given in this
chapter.

a. Following is a list of such nonword roots. Add a prefix to each root to form an existing
English word.

Words Nonwords
__nondescript_________ *descript
___incognito________ *cognito
___unbeknownst________ *beknownst
___inpeccable________ *peccable
___inpromptu________ *promptu
___nonplussed________ *plussed
___indomitable________ *domitable
___innomer________ *nomer

b. There are many more such multimorphemic words for which the root morphemes do not
constitute words by themselves. Can you list five more?

-Fracture
-Portable
-Oppose
-Service
-Relate

Exercise 8

The following are some verb forms in Chickasaw, a member of the Muskogean family of
languages spoken in south-central Oklahoma.6 Chickasaw is an endangered language. Currently,
there are only about 100 speakers of Chickasaw, most of whom are over 70 years old.

sachaaha “I am tall”
chaaha “he/she is tall”
chichaaha “you are tall”
hoochaaha “they are tall”
satikahbi “I am tired”

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chitikahbitok “you were tired”

chichchokwa “you are cold”
hopobatok “he was hungry”
hoohopobatok “they were hungry”
sahopoba “I am hungry”

a. What is the root morpheme for the following verbs?

(1) “to be tall” =chaaha
(2) “to be hungry” = hopoba
b. What is the morpheme meaning:
(1) past tense =tok
(2) “I” =sa
(3) “you” =chi
(4) “he/she” =cha

c. If the Chickasaw root for “to be old” is sipokni, how would you say:
(1) “You are old” =chisipokni
(2) “He was old” =sipoknitok
(3) “They are old” =hoosipokni

This material is exclusively for Northeastern College students ONLY. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or
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