M.

Larsen/ES

UNIT 2. THE MORPHEME

Exercise 1: Some of the words below contain suffixes. Identify the suffixes by underlining them.

a. happiness b. unkind c. freedom d. flowers e. brother f. Blackboard

Exercise 2: Some of the words below contain prefixes. Identify the prefixes by underlining them.

a. unable
b. discourage
c. establish
d. receive
e. strawberry
f. amoral

Exercise 3: Identify the stem/root in the words below by underlining it and (ii) state which syntactic category it belongs to.

Example: friend-ly; Noun

a. lamps; Noun

b. kindness; Adjective

c. hinted; Verb

d. players; Verb

e. editors; Verb

f. grandfathers; Noun

Exercise 4: For each of the following bound morphemes, determine whether it is derivational or inflectional and give two
words in which it appears:

Example: –able: derivational; eatable; readable

a. –ity; derivational; flexibility, ability

b. –s : inflectional; cars, parks
c. un– : inflectional; unvoiced, unbelievable
d. –ing : derivational; bouncing, worrying
e. –al : derivational; accidental, adjectival
f. –er : derivational; astronomer, plumber
g. –ed : inflexional; expected, united

Exercise 5: The component of the morphologically complex words below have been separated by a hyphen (–). Indicate which of
these morphemes are bound and which are free and which of the bound morphemes are inflectional and which derivational.

Example: hit: free ; –s: bound, inflectional

a. en–courage–ment -> en-: bound, derivational; courage: free ; -ment: bound, derivational
b. king–dom–s -> king-: free; -dom-: bound, derivational; -s: bound, inflectional
c. stud–ent–hood -> stud-: free; -ent-: bound, derivational; -hood: bound, derivational
d. anti–soviet–ism -> anti: bound, derivational; -soviet-: free; -ism: bound, derivational
e. bi–annu–al–ly -> bi-: bound, inflectional; -annu-: free; -al-: bound, derivational; -ly: bound, derivational
f. read–ing–s.-> read-: free; -ing-: bound, derivational; -s: bound, inflectional
Exercise 6: Divide the following words into the smallest meaningful units and describe how the words are formed, i.e. describe the
morphological processes (derivation, inflection) involved.

Example:

Unhappiness :

root: happy +addition of prefix "un-” >unhappy (derivation) / addition of suffix "–ness" > "unhappiness" (derivation)

a. kingdoms :
-root: king + addition of suffix “-dom-” > kingdom (derivation) / addition of suffix “-s” > “kingdoms” (inflection)
b. discourages :
-root: courage + addition of prefix “dis-“ > discourage (derivation) / addition of suffix “-s” > “discourages” (inflection)
c. forgetful :
-root: forget + addition of suffix “-ful” > “forgetful” (derivation)
d. Submitted:
-root: submit(t)* + addition of suffix “-ed” > “submitted” (anflection)
*we add double ‘t’ because the last syllable is not stressed.

Exercise 7:  Sort the suffixes in the words below according to their class-changing function. The categories include the
following: (NOMINAL, VERBAL, ADJECTIVAL, ADVERBIAL SUFFIXES)

a) N>N
b) V>N
c) A>N
d) N/A>V
e) N>A
f) V>A
g) N/A>Adv

(There are two examples of each suffix.)

broaden   syntactic   width   idealism

participant   falsehood   closure   straighten
rhetorician   clockwise   refusal   vaccinate
gangster   stardom   warmth   tireless
twofold   trial   accidental   selfish
advisory   likelihood   friendless   politician
conservatism   mobster   kingdom   facilitate
inhabitant   contradictory   boyish   seizure
manifold   stepwise   thankless   global
historic   penniless

Exercise 8: Sort the prefixes in the words below into the following seven categories according to meaning

   a.      Time: post- date; post- election, fore-warm, fore-shadow

   b.      Number: bi- focal; poly- gon; bi-sexual; poly-glot
   c.      Place: out- door, sub-way, sub-floor, out-house
   d.      Degree: ultra-conservative, hyper- thyroidism, hyper-activity, ultra-violet
   e.      Privative: dis- close, dis-arm, de-frost, de-militarize
   f.      Negative, : mal-adjusted, mal-practice, non-entity, non-smoker
   g.      Size: mega-size, macro-cosm, macro-economics, mega- losaur

Each category has two prefixes. After you have classified the prefixes, use a dictionary to identify whether the prefix is native
English, Latin, or Greek in origin.

 postdate  maladjusted  macrocosm  forewarn

 bifocal  outdoor  hyperactivity   demilitarize
 megawatt  defrost  polyglot  nonentity
 disclose  foreshadow  macroeconomics  malpractice
 polygon  bisexual  postelection  nonsmoker
 subway  disarm  megalosaur  outhouse
 ultraconservative  hyperthyroidism  subfloor  ultraviolet

Native English: bi-, mal-, non-, out-

Latin: post-, sub-, ultra-, de-
Greek: fore-, poly-, hyper-, mega-,
macro-

Exercise 9: Analyze the following words using the model given below:

(in case of doubt look up the word in a dictionary: http://www.oed.com/

Prefix Stem/base Suffix(es)

inequality in- equal -ity
hospitalization - hospital- -iz, -ation
dysfunctional dis- function -al
invisibly in- visib -ly
inconsiderate in- consider -ate
uninteresting un- interest -ing
postcolonial post- Coloni- -al
undercooked under- cook -ed
unlikelyhood un- like -ly-, -hood
transcontinental trans- continent -al
relationship - relation -ship
ungrammatical un- gramm -atic-, -al
asymmetrical a-, sym- metr -ic-, -al
reinforcement re-, in- force -ment
hypersensivity hyper- sens -ivi, -ty
prototypical proto- typ -ic, -al
unfriendliness un- friend -li, -ness
unforgettable un- forget(t) -able
interdependance inter- depend -ance
impropriety im- propr -ie, -ty
monotheism mono- the -ism
Hospitalization, dysfunctional, invisibly , inconsiderate, uninteresting, postcolonial undercooked unlikelihood transcontinental
relationship ungrammatical asymmetrical reinforcement hypersensitivity prototypical unfriendliness unforgettable
interdependence impropriety monotheism

Exercise 10: Identify cases of

– inflection

– Derivation

– Inflection and derivation

amoral, readable, boys, boy’s, defrost, kingdom, employer, exwife, insane, asking, greatest, outlive, nationality, girls,
syntactic, promising, unproblematic, foreigners, player, maladjusted, contained, essential, enable, father´s, criteria,
inexcusable, categories, complexity, psycholinguistics, doing,earlier, modernize, distortion, usually, additional, children’s,
systematic, fatalistic, relationship, governmental, greatest, unbeatable, kindness, disobey, cows, globalization

inflection Derivation Inflection and derivation

A-moral (prefix)
Read-able (suffix)
Boy-s (suffix)
Boy-s (suffix)
De-frost (prefix)
King-dom(suffix)
Employ-er (suffix)
Ex-wife (prefix)
In-sane (prefix)
Ask-ing (suffix)
Great-est (suffix)
Out-live (prefix)
Nation-al(suffix)-ity(suffix)
Girl-s(suffix)
Sint -ac (suffix) –tic(suffix)
Promis-ing (suffix)
Un-(prefix)problem-atic(suffix)
Foreigners?
Play-er
Mal(prefix)-adjust-ed(suffix)
Contain-ed(suffix)
Essential?
En-able(prefix)
Father’s (suffix)
Criteria?
In (prefix)-ex (prefix)