Downed it and enjoy

1. Morphology
Introduction:
Morphology comes from a Greek word meaning ‘shape’ or
‘form’ and is used in linguistics to
denote the study of words, both with regard to their
internal structure and their combination or
formation to form new or larger units.
Word:
‘Word’ is a term in common everyday use but one which
linguists cannot easily define. Is
isn’t for example one word or two? And how about mother-
in-law? It denotes one concept but
is formed out of three recognisable ‘words’: mother, in and
law. Linguists therefore prefer
other terms, referring to morphs, morphemes and lexemes
when talking about ‘words’.

2. Morpheme Types
• Morphemes are defined as the smallest
meaning-bearing units in language. These are
abstract
• units, realized in actual language by a morph,
or if there are various ways of realizing one
• morpheme by its allomorphs.

3. Counti…
• If morphemes are free they will coincide with what we call
a
• word, but morphemes can also be bound in which case
they are less than a word (although
• they carry meaning). The free morphemes are generally
also referred to as lexemes, and the
• bound ones as affixes. (Note that lexemes can be simple i.e.
consisting of just one free
• morpheme or complex consisting of 2 or more morphemes
of which at least one is free.)
• Affixes which come in front of a free morpheme are
prefixes, and those which come after are
• suffixes.

4. Example
• TREE
tree is an example of a free morpheme as it can
stand on its own and has a lexical meaning. -s
on the other hand is simply a letter (technical term:
graph) / sound (technical term: phone)
which turns the lexeme tree into a plural. It is a
separate morpheme as it contributes
(grammatical) meaning to the whole: trees. The -s
cannot stand on its own and is therefore a
bound morpheme, a suffix.

5. Inflection
• Bound morphemes which carry grammatical
(or functional) meaning are called inflectional
• affixes and their function is to create new
forms of existing lexemes. In English these are
• always suffixes, i.e. there are no inflectional
prefixes in English. It is generally claimed that
• there are only eight such inflectional affixes
left in English, making Modern English an
• analytic language.

6. Word Classes
• We tend to distinguish between.
• open word classes,
• Nouns
• full verbs
• adjectives
• Adverbs
• closed word classes

7. Conti..
• Pronouns
• Prepositions
• Determiners
• modal (verb)s,
• Auxiliaries
• primary verbs
• conjunctions