Classes of Words

Morphology II Page 1
Classes of words
Some detail something about words that you will be already familiar with: words can be
divided into different classes or categories. It seems to be a universal property of languages
that they distinguish at least verbs from nouns, and in many languages other categories can be
distinguished as well, such as adjectives and prepositions.
All words belong to categories called word classes (or parts of speech) according to the
part they play in a sentence. The main word classes in English are:
- Noun
- Verb
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Pronoun
- Conjunction
- Determiner
- Exclamation
- Preposition
A. Noun
A noun is a word that identifies:
 a person (woman, boy, doctor, neighbour)
 a thing (dog, building, tree, country)
 an idea, quality, or state (truth, danger, birth, happiness).
B. Verbs
A verb describes what a person or thing does or what happens. For example, verbs describe:

 an action – run, hit, travel
 an event – rain, occur
 a situation – be, seem, have
 a change – become, grow, develop
The basic form of a verb is known as the infinitive. It’s often preceded by the word ‘to’:
- Molly decided to follow him.
- He began to run back.
C. Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes a noun, giving extra information about it. For example:
 a sweet taste
 a red apple
 a technical problem
 an Italian woman
D. Adverbs
An adverb is a word that’s used to give information about a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
When used with a verb, adverbs can give information about:
 how something happens or is done:
She stretched lazily.
He walked slowly.
The town is easily accessible by road.
 where something happens:
I live here.

She’s travelling abroad.
The children tiptoed upstairs.
 when something happens:
They visited us yesterday.
I have to leave soon.
He still lives in London.
E. Pronouns
Pronouns are used in place of a noun that has already been mentioned or that is already
known, often to avoid repeating the noun. For example:
- Kate was tired so she went to bed. - Kieran’s face was close to mine
- Michael took the children with him.
Subject
Pronoun
Object
Pronoun
Possessive
Adjectives
Possessive
Pronoun
Reflexive
Pronoun
I Me My Mine Myself
You You Your Yours Yourself
He Him His His Himself
She Her Her Hers Herself
It It Its Its Itself
We Us Our Ours Ourselves
You You Your Yours Yourselves
They Them Their Theirs Themselves

F. Prepositions
A preposition is a word such as after, in, to, on, and with. Prepositions are usually used in front
of nouns or pronouns and they show the relationship between the noun or pronoun and other
words in a sentence. They describe, for example:
 the position of something:
- Her bag was under the chair.
- The dog crawled between us and lay down at our feet.
- His flat was over the shop.
 the time when something happens:
- They arrived on Sunday.
- The class starts at 9 a.m.
- Shortly after their marriage they moved to Colorado.
 the way in which something is done:
- We went by train.
- They stared at each other without speaking.
Some prepositions are made up of more than one word, for example:
- They moved here because of the baby.
- We sat next to each other.
- The hotel is perched on top of a cliff.

G. Conjunctions
A conjunction (also called a connective) is a word such as and, because, but, for, if, or, and
when. Conjunctions are used to connect phrases, clauses, and sentences.
There are two main kinds of conjunction.
 Coordinating conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions join items that are of equal importance in a sentence:
- You can have ice cream or strawberries.
- He plays football and cricket.
- The weather was cold but clear.
 Subordinating conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions connect subordinate clauses to the main clause of a sentence:
- I waited at home until she arrived.
- He went to bed because he was tired.
H. Determiners
A determiner is a word that introduces a noun, such as a/an, the, every, this, those, or many (as
in a cat, the cat, this cat, those cats, every cat, many cats).
The determiner the is known as the definite article and the determiner a (oran) as the
indefinite article.
 Possessive determiners
Words like my, our, your, his, her, its, and their are known as possessive determiners. They
come before nouns and indicate ownership of the noun in question, as their name suggests:

- My leg hurts.
- James sold his business.
- Bring your children with you.
I. Exclamations
An exclamation (also called an interjection) is a word or phrase that expresses strong emotion,
such as surprise, pleasure, or anger. Exclamations often stand on their own, and in writing they
are usually followed by an exclamation mark rather than a full stop:
- How wonderful!
- Ow! That hurt!
Exclamations are also used to express greetings or congratulations:
- Hello!
- Well done, lads!

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESS
A morphological process which fungction to make one word or inflection distinct from
another.Most languages that are agglutinative in any way use suffixation. Some of these
languages also use prefixation and infixation. Very few languages use only prefixation, and none
employ only infixation or any of the other types of morphological processes listed below.
Glossary Link Morphology is the study of how words are formed. Many words are
simply a Glossary Link stem with no other morphemes added, such as table. Words that are
composed of more than one Glossary Link morpheme have undergone some type of
morphological process.
Morphological processes alter stems to derive new words. They may change the word’s
meaning (derivational) or its grammatical functions (inflectional). There are several different
types of processes, not all of which are present in all languages. Some of these are
concatenative morphology: putting morphemes together
non-concatenative: modifying internal structure of morphemes
A. Concatenative
1. Compounding
Compounding can be used to Glossary Link form new words through combining two
stems as in the words blackbird or housekeeper. Compounds can be composed of many parts of
speech.
noun-noun such as horseshoe
noun- verb such as trouble-shoot
adjective –verb or high-jump
adjective-adjective such as bittersweet

adjective-noun such as jumping bean
verb-noun such as spelling bee
verb-preposition such as push-up
preposition-verb such as out-cast
N + N → N : lawn mower
P + N → N : up shot
N + V → V : blow dry
P + Adj → Adj : over grown
⇒The category of the right-most word determines the category
of the whole compound
⇒ We call this part the HEAD of the compound
In English, the head of the compound is always the rightmost
word (English is right-headed in this respect). Other languages
might not have the head to the right, g t ot a e t e ead t e g t, but to the left (left-headed).
2. Affixation
One of the most common morphological processes, affixation involves the attachment
of morphemes to a stem. There are several types of affixes, classified in terms of where they
attach to a stem: beginning, end, middle, or around. Prefixes attach to the beginning of a stem.
For example, the morpheme (un-) attaches to stems in such words as unbelievable or unkind.
Suffixes attach to the end of stems, such as the plural morpheme ( –(e)s) in English: languages,
bushes. Turkish uses the plural morpheme (–lar): kitap ‘book’ kitaplar ‘books.’

Only prefixation and suffixation are found in English, but other languages display additional
affixation processes.
These include infixes, in which Glossary Link case a morpheme is inserted within another stem
morpheme rather than at the word edge.
The following examples from Leti (Blevins 1999) provide an example:
Nominalizing –ni -> in Leti
kaati (to carve) k-ni-aati (carving)
kasi (to dig) k-ni-asi (act of digging)
kakri (to cry) k-ni-akri (act of crying)
Finally, a Glossary Link circumfix is a morpheme with two parts, one that attaches to the
beginning of the word/stem, and one to the end.
A common example is the past tense in German, which is formed by affixing a verbal Glossary
Link root with ge- and –t. Thus lachen (laugh) becomes gelacht (laughed). Circumfixation can
also be seen the simultaneous prefixation and suffixation.
B. NON-CONCATENATIVE
1. Reduplication
Another morphological process seen in some of the languages of the world is
reduplication. In this case a morpheme or a part of a morpheme is copied and attached to
astem. Full reduplication results from copying the entire segment, while partial reduplication
takes only part of the segment. Reduplication can serve many functions in languages, from
making plural forms to forming more intense or diminutive forms of words. Here are a few
examples from various languages:
Full Reduplication in Thai (intensification)

di: (to be good) dí:di: (to be extremely good)
Here the entire word is copied and added to the stem.Partial Reduplication in the
Niutao Glossary Link dialect of Tuvaluan (verbs have different forms when used with singular
and plural subjects)
Singular Plural
mafulimafufuli = turned around
kaikakai = eat
apuluapupulu = capsize
In this example the penultimate Glossary Link syllable is copied and inserted between the initial
and second syllables
Apophony a morphological process consisting in replacing word-internal segments (two
consonants or two vowels) Result: inflectional or derivational oppositions: singular / plural,
present/ past, verb / noun. English: fling / flung
• Vowel modification
–‘strong’ verbs in English: begin – began, ring – rang, sing – sang, [i:] – [ou] speak –Spoke
–Plural of some English nouns: [u(:)] – [i:] foot – feet, goose – geese, tooth – teeth [au] – [ai]
• Consonant modification
–Noun/Verb in English: wreath – wreathe, [f] – [v]
belief – believe, [s] – [z] advice – advise, [s] – [d] defence – defend, offence – offend, [t] – [d]
bent – bend, ascent – ascend
• Mixed modification

– more than one segment, e.g. English present/past: catch – caught, seek – sought, teach –
taught,Verb / Noun: live – life, bath –bathe, breath – breathe, cloth - clothe
• Total modification (suppletion):
go – went, good – better – best.

Other Types Of Word Formation
1. Rhyming compounds (subtype of compounds)
These words are compounded from two rhyming words. Examples:
lovey-dovey
chiller-killer
There are words that are formally very similar to rhyming compounds, but are not quite
compounds in English because the second element is not really a word--it is just a nonsense
item added to a root word to form a rhyme. Examples:
higgledy-piggledy
tootsie-wootsie
This formation process is associated in English with child talk (and talk addressed to children),
technically called hypochoristic language. Examples:
bunnie-wunnie
Henny Penny
snuggly-wuggly
GeorgiePorgie
Piggie-Wiggie
Another word type that looks a bit like rhyming compounds comprises words that are formed
of two elements that almost match, but differ in their vowels. Again, the second element is
typically a nonsense form:
pitter-patter
zigzag
tick-tock
riffraff
flipflop
2. Derivation
Deriviation is the creation of words by modification of a root without the addition of other
roots. Often the effect is a change in part of speech.

3. Blending
Blending is one of the most beloved of word formation processes in English.It is especially
creative in that speakers take two words and merge them based not on morpheme structure
but on sound structure. The resulting words are called blends.
Usually in word formation we combine roots or affixes along their edges: one morpheme comes
to an end before the next one starts. For example, we form derivation out of the sequence of
morphemes de+riv+at(e)+ion. One morpheme follows the next and each one has identifiable
boundaries. The morphemes do not overlap. But in blending, part of one word is stitched onto
another word, without any regard for where one morpheme ends and another begins. For
example, the word swooshtika 'Nike swoosh as a logo symbolizing corporate power and
hegemony' was formed from swoosh and swastika. The swoosh part remains whole and
recognizable in the blend, but the tika part is not a morpheme, either in the word swastika or in
the blend. The blend is a perfect merger of form, and also of content. The meaning contains an
implicit analogy between the swastika and the swoosh, and thus conceptually blends them into
one new kind of thing having properties of both, but also combined properties of neither
source. Other examples include glitterati (blending glitter and literati) 'Hollywood social set',
mockumentary (mock and documentary) 'spoof documentary'.
The earliest blends in English only go back to the 19th century, with wordplay coinages by Lewis
Carroll in Jabberwocky. For example, he introduced to the language slithy, formed from lithe
and slimy) and galumph, (from gallop and triumphInterestinglygalumph has survived as a word
in English, but it now seems to mean 'walk in a stomping, ungainly way'.
Some blends that have been around for quite a while include brunch (breakfast and lunch),
motel (motor hotel), electrocute (electric and execute), smog (smoke and fog) and
cheeseburger (cheese and hamburger). These go back to the first half of the twentieth century.
Others, such as stagflation (stagnation and inflation), spork (spoon and fork), and carjacking
(car and hijacking) arose since the 1970s.
Here are some more recent blends I have run across:
mocktail (mock and cocktail) 'cocktail with no alcohol'
splog (spam and blog) 'fake blog designed to attract hits and raise Google-ranking'
Britpoperati (Britpop and literati) 'those knowledgable about current British pop music'
4. Clipping
Clipping is a type of abbreviation of a word in which one part is 'clipped' off the rest,

and the remaining word now means essentially the same thing as what the whole word means
or meant.
For example, the word rifle is a fairly modern clipping of an earlier compound rifle gun,
meaning a gun with a rifled barrel. (Rifled means having a spiral groove causing the bullet to
spin, and thus making it more accurate.) Another clipping is burger,formed by clipping off the
beginning of the word hamburger. (This clipping could only come about once hamburg+er was
reanalyzed as ham+burger.)
5. Acronyms
Acronyms are formed by taking the initial letters of a phrase and making a word out of it.
The classical acronym is also pronounced as a word. Scuba was formed from self-contained
underwater breathing apparatus. Occasionally, not just letters but a whole or part syllable
can be used in the formation of an acronym. Examples:
radar - RAdio Detection And Ranging
gestapo - GEheimeSTAatsPOlizei, German for 'Secret National Police'.
These can be thought of as a special case of acronyms. Another special case is one in which the
initial letters form the acronym, but they are still pronounced as letters rather than according
to the rules of English spelling. Many organization names of of this type. Examples:
NAACP
UN
IMF
Memos, email, and text messaging are modes of communication that give rise to both clippings
and acronyms, since these word formation methods are designed to abbreviate. Some
acronyms: NB – Nota bene, literally ‘note well’. Used by scholars making notes on texts. (A large
number of other scholarly acronyms from Latin are used, probably most invented in the
medieval period or Renaissance, not originally in Latin)
BRB – be right back (from 1980s, 90s)
FYI – for your information (from mid 20th century)
LOL – laughing out loud (early 21st century) – now pronounced either /lol/ or /el o el/; has
spawned compounds like Lolcats).
ROFL – rolling on the floor laughing

SUMMARY
 The main of word classes in English are:
- Noun
- Verb
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Pronoun
- Conjunction
- Determiner
- Exclamation
- Preposition
 Morphological Posses
A morphological process is a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to fit its
syntactic and communicational context.
Concatenative (linear)
- Incorporation
- Affixation
- Reduplication
- Suppletion
Non-concatenative (Internal)
 Internal Changes
 Compound
Compounding forms a word out of two or more root morphemes. The words are called
compounds or compound words.In Linguistics,
compounds can be either native or borrowed.

- Native English :
mailman (composed of free root mail and free root man)
mail carrier
dog house
fireplace
fireplug(a regional word for 'fire hydrant')fire hydrant
dry run
pick-up trucktalking-to
- Borrowed Latin and Greek
Photograph
Iatrogenic
and many thousands of other classical words.
 Rhyming compounds (subtype of compounds)
These words are compounded from two rhyming words. Examples:
lovey-dovey
chiller-killer
the second element is not really a word--it is just a nonsense item added to a root word to form
a rhyme. Examples:
higgledy-piggledy
tootsie-wootsie
 DerivationDeriviation is the creation of words by modification of a root without the
addition of other roots. Often the effect is a change in part of speech.
 Blending
Blending is one of the most beloved of word formation processes in English.It is
especially creative in that speakers take two words and merge them based not on
morpheme structure but on sound structure. The resulting words are called blends.
 Clipping
Clipping is a type of abbreviation of a word in which one part is 'clipped' off the rest,

and the remaining word now means essentially the same thing as what the whole word
means or meant.
 Acronyms
Acronyms are formed by taking the initial letters of a phrase and making a word out of
it. The classical acronym is also pronounced as a word. Scuba was formed from self-
contained underwater breathing apparatus.

Classes of Words

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