This document provides an overview of morphology and defines what constitutes a word. It discusses several definitions of a word, including orthographic, phonological, semantic, and syntactic definitions, and the problems with each. It also describes the differences between words, morphemes, and lexical items. Key topics covered include affixation, compounding, bound vs free morphemes, inflectional vs derivational morphemes, and the formation of complex words through processes like affixation.

1. English Morphology – Lecture
1
David Brett
Antonio Pinna
University of Sassari 2007

2. A definition of morphology
• The area of grammar concerned with the
structure of words and with relationships
between words involving the morphemes
that compose them

3. What is a word?
• An orthographic definition
• A phonological definition
• A semantic definition
• A syntactic definition

4. An orthographic definition
• Words as units in the writing system:
words are uninterrupted strings of letters
• For ex. writing is a word because there are
blank spaces surrounding it

5. Problems with this definition:
• Can you make a list of punctuation marks?
• Can you think of instances of words
characterized by different spellings?
• What about compound nouns?

6. How many words are there in the
following sentences?
• a. John’s girl friend lives in a high-rise
apartment building.
• b. Mary’s a policewoman in the United
States.
• - Is John’s in a. above one or two words?
• - Is Mary’s in b. above one or two words?
• - Is high-rise in a. above one or two
words?

7. The orthographic word may not
coincide with our intuitions:
• Compound nouns: apartment building,
parking ticket, ground floor, United States.
• Phrasal verbs: get up, look after, put up
with.

8. A phonological definition
• Words as phonological units: spoken in
isolation each word can only have one
main stress
• E.g. Words as elements of the system
The underlined characters indicate the
main stress

9. Problems with this definition:
• Function words (i.e. words such as as, of,
the) do not seem to have a main stress;
• Clitics (i.e. ‘s in the example below) do not
seem to have a main stress-
• Ex. Jane’s in the garden: ‘s, in, the are not
stressed.

10. A semantic definition
• Words as meaningful units:
• a. Words express unified concepts
• b. Words are the minimum meaningful
units of a language

11. Problems with these definitions:
• Concepts can be expressed by noun
groups or larger units; for ex. the man who
lives next door or that beautiful summer
morning of 1985 when we drove to the
beach on an old CV2
• Function words may not have an easily
identifiable meaning (for ex. can you
specify the meaning of the?)

12. 4. A syntactic definition #1
• Words as syntactic units: words are the smallest
syntactic elements in a sentence:
• a. They belong to certain word classes (and follow the
rules of these syntactic categories)
• Words can be grouped into 2 main categories:
• 1. Open-class words: classes of words which can
contain an infinite number of words
• (i.e. nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
• 2. Closed-class words: classes of words which
contain a limited number of words
• (i.e. pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary and
modal verbs, conjunctions, determiners)

13. 4. A syntactic definition #2
• b. Only words (and groups of words) can be
moved to a different position in a sentence
• 1. She can ride the bike
• 2. Can she ride the bike?
• 1. She brought the can opener.
• 2a. The can was brought by her opener. ✘
• 2b. The can opener was brought by her. ✓

14. The relationship between words and
meanings
Words with unpredictable meanings:
dog, door, desk, book, pen, …
Words with predictable meanings
Complex words: unhappy, helpful, madly, …
E.g. The relationship between the sequence of letters cat and its
meaning [domestic feline] in English is the result of a convention.
Whenever this association form-meaning is the result of a
convention, the meaning of a word is unpredictable on the basis of
its form.
Exception: onomatopoeic words
splash resembles the sound of a liquid hitting something;
beep resembles a short high sound, like the sound of a car horn.

15. Non-words and meanings
• entities that are larger than a word with
unpredictable meanings
– Idioms: pull someone’s leg; kick the bucket; …
– Collocations: hard work, white coffee, white-collar
worker …
– Proverbs: All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
birds of a feather flock together, a bad
workman blames his tools, …

16. The difference between words and
lexical items
Words are the smallest syntactic units in a
sentence (i.e. words are grammatical
entities)
• Lexical items are semantic units whose
meanings are unpredictable; they may be
larger than words, but often they can
coincide with them (i.e. lexical items are
semantic entities)

17. Taking words apart
• Why is the meaning of the following words
predictable to a certain extent?
• unbelievable, capitalistic, mismatched,
disproportional, misunderstanding,
irregularity.
• lighthouse, shoplift, team manager,
apartment building, concentration camp,
low-flying, cupboard, sickness benefit.

18. Complex words: affixation
• Words can be composed of identifiable smaller parts, morphemes,
put together in a systematic fashion, so that the meaning of the
whole can reliably be determined on the basis of the meaning of the
smaller parts.
• un-believe-able, anti-capital-ist-ic, de-colony-al-ize-ation, dis-proportion-
al, mis-under-stand-ing, ir-regul-ar-ity.
• This group contains words which are divisible into:
• a component that carries most of the meaning (e.g. believe, capital,
colony, proportion, etc.)
• other elements that are associated with it to add some other aspects
of meaning (e.g. –able in believable = something or someone is
capable of being believed; un- in unbelievable = something or
someone is not capable of being believed).
• The process through which these words are formed is called
affixation.

19. Word compounding
• B. lighthouse, shoplift, team manager, apartment
building, concentration camp, low-flying, cupboard,
sickness benefit.
• Group B contains words which are divisible into two
other words.
• These component words can be found independently in
an English dictionary, but when they associate they form
a compound word
• The meaning of the union is not necessarily a function of
the meaning of the two combining words. For ex. a
lighthouse is neither a light nor a house. This process is
called word compounding.

20. Word compounding: exercise
• How many compund words can you create with
the following words?
bag
car
box
case

21. Hand-, body-, air-, sick-,
punch-, sleeping
bag
Sports, estate,
company, courtesy,
car
Mail-, post-, letter-,
telephone, gear-box
Book-, suit-, brief-,
display, lower
case

22. A morpheme must
– be identifiable from one word to another
– However, consider:
Attack
Stack
Tackle
Taxi (/tæksi/)

23. A morpheme must
– Also contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word
Believ-able
Eat-able
Read-able
Work-able
N.b. this extra meaning is not necessarily equal in all
cases, e.g. readable, does not mean ‘can be read’ in a
literal sense, but rather ‘enjoyable to read’.

24. How can I recognise a
morpheme?
Morphemes must be identifiable from one
word to another: identifying affixes:
– un- : uncomplicated, unhappy, unclear, …
– -able: variable, changeable, solvable, …
– de- : deselect, dethrone, detoxify, …
– -al: cultural, federal, liberal, modal, …
– -ize: computerize, realize, …

25. Identifying the core element:
• Happy: un-happy, happi-ness, happi-ly;
• Change: change-able, chang-ing, un-chang-
ed;
• Select: de-select, select-ion, select-ive-ly;
• Liber-: liber-al, liber-al-ism, liber-ate, liber-ty;
• Oper-: oper-ate, oper-at-ion, oper-at-ion-al

26. Distinguishing between
morphemes:
• Bound and free morphemes:
• Free morphemes can occur on their own:
– happy, change, select, green, house, …
• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to
other morphemes:
– Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …)
– liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-, …
• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al

27. Bound morphemes as core
elements: words derived from Latin
Circul- Circular Liber- Liberty
Circulation Liberation
Circulator Liberalize
Circulatory Libertine

28. Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin
receive deceive conceive perceive
revert convert pervert
relate collate translate
reduce deduce conduce
Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme?
Or prefix + bound morpheme?

29. General tendency
• The core vocabulary of English is
generally composed of words of Anglo-
Saxon origin
• There is a general tendency for core
elements to be free morphemes
• E.g. Hand
• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,

30. What is the difference between
these two sets of complex words
Fair-ly
Fast-er
Sing-ing
Open-ed
Car-s
Write-s
Big-gest
Treat-ment
Rude-ness
Un-kind
Fam-ous
Use-less
Help-ful
Ir-regular
Red-dish

31. Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest
• These affixes do not change the word
class, but rather contribute to meeting
grammatical constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes

32. Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular
These affixes do not necessarily change the class
of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g.
fame (n.)> famous (adj.)
• Furthermore, the semantic element is notably
higher. These morphemes are called:
Derivational morphemes

33. Derivation with –ful and –less
• Which words can be derived by adding the
following suffixes
-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup,
Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope,
Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,

34. -ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Care
Fate
Friend
Use
Spoon
Age
Cheer
Delight
Cease
Colour
Bag
Child
Help
Play
Defence
Taste
Cup
End
Hope
Effort
Tact
Penny