This document discusses descriptive syntax and word formation processes. It defines words and their components, called morphemes. There are two types of morphemes: free morphemes, which can stand alone as words, and bound morphemes, which cannot. Words are formed through processes like affixation, blending, clipping, and compounding. The document also outlines the eight parts of speech in English and provides examples of each.
6. DEFINITION OF WORD
A single distinct meaningful element of speech or
writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to
form a sentence.
TYPES OF WORDS
Some grammarians divide words into 2 categories.
1. Content words
2. Function words
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7. Content words: have clear lexical meaning → open
class →new words can be added
Function words: have a functional purpose →
closed class → new words cannot be added
Morphology
In linguistics morphology is the study how words
are formed and their relationship to other words in
same language.
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8. MORPHEMES
In many languages the words are made up of a
large number of elements. In linguistics from is
called “elements” but technically is called
“morphemes” .
Ex: peace (1 morpheme)
peaceful (2 morphemes)
peacefully (3 morphemes)
TYPES OF MORPHEMES
There are two types of morphemes:
1:Free morphemes
2:Bound morphemes
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9. FREE MORPHEMES
It is the smallest unit of language that cannot be further
divided .It can stand alone.
For example: New , Close, Rose
BOUND MORPHEMES
A bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand
alone as a word. In English bound morpheme includes
prefixes and suffixes
Ex: pre, un, ness, y
Examples of morphemes
action unchanged rainbow untrustworthy
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11. TWO TYPES OF FREE MORPHEMES
1:Lexical morphemes
2:Functional morphemes
TWO TYPES OF BOUND
MORPHEMES
1:Derivational morphemes
2:Inflectional morphemes
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12. LEXICAL MORPHEMES
It is the set of nouns, adjectives and verbs which
are meaningful and convey message is called
lexical morphemes.
For example: Ali, Good, Look
Functional morphemes
It is the set of functional words such conjunctions,
propositions and articles.
For example But, it, because, and, on, about 12
13. DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES
The use of affixes to make words of different
grammatical category is called derivational morpheme.
For example: By adding Derivational morpheme “ness”
in adjective “good” to noun ”goodness”
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES
The other set of bound morphemes which is not
used to create new words is called inflectional
morpheme. But it is used to show grammatical
function of a word if it is singular or plural, past
tense or not, if it is a comparative or possessive
from.
Shan’s eyes are beautiful. 13
14. ALLOMORPHES
Allomorphs are different form of morphemes in
which sounds and phonetic symbols are change but
meanings are same.
There are four types of allomorphs:
Additive allomorphs
Replacive allomorphs
Suppletive allomorphs
The zero allomorphs
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15. EXPLANATION OF TYPES
o Additive allomorphs:
Some difference in meaning,
Something added to a word. Adding the suffix or prefix in
a word.
o Replacive allomorphs:
some difference meaning, a sound
is replace to another sound in a word.
o Suppletive allomorphs:
some difference in meaning,
There is a complete change in the shape of a word.
o Zero allomorphs:
no change in the shape of a word but
have some difference in meanings. 15
16. PARTS OF SPEECH
The parts of speech indicate how the words function in
meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence.
There are 8 parts of speech in English language which
are listed below.
1:NOUN
2:PRONOUN
3:VERB
4:ADVERB
5:ADJECTIVE
6:CONJUNCTION
7:INTERJECTION
8:PREPOSITION 16
17. NOUN
A noun is a name of person, place, of a thing.
For example:
Man , Girl, House, Lahore.
There is 9 categories of noun.
Common, proper, compound, countable, uncountable,
collective, singular, plural, possessive
PRONOUN
Pronouns are used in place of noun that is already known
or has already been mentioned. This is often done in
order to avoid repeating the noun.
For example:
He, She , It ,You ,They.
There are 4 categories of pronoun: personal, possessive,
reflexive, demonstrative.
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18. VERB
A verb describes what a person or a thing does or what
happens.
For example:
jump, stop, drink , eat, run
He jumped from the mountain.
There are 4 categories of verb: auxiliary, lexical, regular,
irregular
ADVERB
An adverb is a word that is used to give information
about verb adjective.
For example :
slowly, Hardly, Beautifully, Exclusively, Slowly.
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19. CONJUNCTION
“A word that joins together sentences, clauses,
phrases, or words.”
For example:
some common conjunctions are: And, But
and although.
INTERJECTION
A spoken word, phrase, or sound that expresses
sudden or strong feeling.
For example:
“oh” , “alas” , and ”wow” . 19
20. PREPOSITION
A word or group of words that is used with a noun,
pronoun , or noun phrase to show direction,
location or time or to introduce an object.
For example: the preposition are, on, in, of ,at.
The keys are on the table.
The movie starts in one hour.
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21. PROCESS OF WORD FORMATION
Sounds or letters are combined to form a word. The
creation of new word is called word formation
Affixation
Prefixes and suffixes
Backformation
Blending
Clipping
Compounding
Etymology
Borrowing
Coinage
Conversion
Derivation
Acronyms
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22. AFFIXATION
An affix is a process of attached a word before, after or
within a word stem to form a new word. e.g.
Hope→Hopeful
Happy →Unhappy
Man → Men
Some affixes have to be added to the start of the word (
un, dis, mis) these are called prefixes.
New → Renew
Like → dislike
Some affixes have to be added to the end of the word (
full, less, ness) these are called suffixes.
Beauty → Beautiful
Use → useless 22
23. BACK FORMATION
The process of removing of an affix or suffix to
create a new word.
For example:
Editor → Edit
Blending
The process of mixing two or more words to make
one often. The meaning of that single word had the
same meaning.
International, police → Interpol
Information, entertainment → Infotainment
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24. ETYMOLOGY
“the study of the origins of words and the way in which
their meanings have changed throughout history”
Clipping
The process of shortening a word but its meaning
remains the same e.g.
Examination → Exam
Compounding
“ The process of combining of two or more words to make
a new word is called compounding”.
For example:
Girl + Friend → Girlfriend
Fast + Food → Fast food
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25. BORROWING
The process of adoption of few words for another
use. It is often taken from one language to another.
For example :Cambric, Duck.
Coinage
The process of inventing a new term by using
another word formation process. It is often a person
or a place e.g. Hoover, Jeans, Asprin.
Conversion
A change in the function of a word for example
when a noun come to be used as a verb is known
as conversion. e.g
Bottle, Butter is used as verbs in conversion.
Have you buttered the toast? 25
26. DERIVATION
It is the process of creating a new word from an old
word by adding a prefix or suffix.
e.g. Paint → Paintable.
Acronyms
Acronyms are new words formed from the initial
letters of a set of other words these can be formed
such as CD ( computer disk). The pronunciation
consists of saying each separate letters e.g. Zip
(zone, improvement plan) SMEDA (small and
development authority) medium enterprises
MCB (Muslim commercial bank).
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27. CONCLUSION:
To sum up the discussion , we learnt that without
this process we are unable to make any word or
sentence. This process helps us to make
grammatical structure of sentence and also makes
new words.
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