This document discusses morphology and morphemes. It defines morphology as the study of the internal structure of words, and defines a morpheme as the smallest meaningful unit in a language. Morphemes can be free or bound. Affixes are bound morphemes that occur before or after a base. Derivational affixes change the part of speech or meaning of a word, while inflectional affixes do not change the part of speech or type of meaning. Derivation and inflection create paradigms, or sets of related words.

1. LANELANE 333333 --
MORPHOLOGYMORPHOLOGY
20122012 –– TermTerm 11
By:
Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar
http://SBANJAR.kau.edu.sa/
http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com
MORPHEMESMORPHEMES
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar1
1

2. WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar2
The study of the internal structure of
words is known as MORPHOLOGY.
“(The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with relationships
between words involving the morphemes that compose them is technically called
morphology, from the Greek word morphe ‘form, shape’ and morphemes can be
thought of as the minimal units of morphology)”. Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy,2002

3. •• form, shape, internal
structure of words and processes of word
formation.
•• Morpheme
THE BASIC UNIT
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar3
smallest,
undividable
meaningful unit.

4. A.
A morpheme is a short segment of language that
meet three criteria:
1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar4
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts
without violation of its meaning or without
meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in differing verbal environments with a
relatively stable meaning.

5. Examining the word straight/stret/
In the light of the three criteria , we find out that:
1. We recognize it as a word and can find it listed as such in
any dictionary.
2. It cannot be divided without violation of meaning; straight
/stret/ trait /tret/, rate/ret/, or ate/et/.The meaning of
these of these parts violate the meaning of straight.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar5
these of these parts violate the meaning of straight.
Furthermore, if we divide it in these ways , we will get the
meaningless remainders of /-s/, /st-/, or /str-/.
3. It recurs with relatively stable meaning in such
environments as straightedge, straighten, and a straight
line.
Thus straight meets all the criteria of a morpheme.

6. • A FREE MORPHEME is one that can be uttered
alone with meaning. Examples:
• bird
• happy
• A BOUND MORPHEME, unlike the free, cannot be
B.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar6
• A BOUND MORPHEME, unlike the free, cannot be
uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed
to one or more morpheme to form a word.
Examples:
• -s , -er
• re-, -ness

7. Classification of Morphemes
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar7

8. morpheme
free free root
bound
bound root
inflectional affixes
TYPES OF MORPHEMES
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar8
inflectional affixes
derivational affixes
affixes

9. C.
Another classification of morphemes puts them
into two classes:
Bases and affixes.
A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the
principal meaning : e.g. denial, lovable. Bases areprincipal meaning : e.g. denial, lovable. Bases are
very numerous and most of them are free
morphemes; but some are bound , like - sent in
consent. A word may contain one base and several
affixes.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar9

10. A base is a linguistic form that meets one or more of these
requirements:
1. It can occur as an immediate constituent of a word
whose only other immediate constituent is a prefix or
suffix. EXAMPLES: react, active, fertilize
2. It is an allomorph of a morpheme which has another
allomorph that is a free form. EXAMPLES: depth
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar10
allomorph that is a free form. EXAMPLES: depth
(deep), wolves (wolf)
3. It is a borrowing from another language in which it is a
free form or a base. EXAMPLES: biometrics,
microcosm, phraseology

11. 1. The first difficulty is that you have your own individual stock of morphemes. For
example, Tom may think of automobile as ,one morpheme meaning “car",
whereas Dick may know the morphemes auto(self)and mobile (moving), and
recognize them in other words like autograph and mobilize.
2. The second difficulty is that persons may know a given morpheme but differ in the
degree to which they are aware of its presence in various words. For example, the
agentive suffix (spelled –er, -or, -ar) meaning “one who, that which”, and recognize it
in words like singer and actor but what about in professor and sweater .
3. Another problem results from the fact that metaphors die as language changes. For
example, the morpheme –prehend– in apprehend used to mean “to arrest or seize”.
4. Additive meaning is a problem in itself. For example:
The morpheme pose (place) in :
‘pose a question’ and interpose ( place between)
suppose, repose
compose, depose, impose, propose
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar11

12. Roots and Affixes
• Morphemes are made up of two types: roots and affixes.
• Every word has at least one root and we can find them at
the center of word- derivational processes.
•They carry basic meaning from which the rest of the
sense of the word can be derived, e.g. morphemes such
as “green“, and “America“ are roots (these roots also
happen to be free forms, independent words.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar12
happen to be free forms, independent words.
• Roots like seg in segment, gen in genetics, card in
cardiac, cannot stand alone as words and we call them
bound root morphemes, as a distinct from free root
morphemes.
• All morphemes which are not roots are affixes.

13. • There are three rules that differ affixes from roots:
1. They do not form words by themselves, they have to be added on to a stem.
2. Their meaning, in many instances, is not a clear and specific as is the meaning of roots,
and many of them are completely meaningless.
3. Compared with the total number of roots the number of affixes is relatively small.
• In English, all the productive affixes are either attached at the end of the stem
(also known as suffixes) or they are attached at the front of the stem (also known
as prefixes).
• Examples of Common Prefixes:
Cont., Roots and Affixes
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar13
• Examples of Common Prefixes:
1. co + occur “occur together”, peri + meter “measure around”
2. mid + night “middle of the night”, re + turn “turn back”
3. mis + treat “treat badly”, un + filled “not filled”
• Examples of Common Suffixes:
1. act + ion “state of acting” , child+ ish “ like a child”
2. act + or “person who acts” , child + hood “sate of being a child”
3. act + ive “pertaining to being in action”, child+ less “without a child”

14. E.
An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs
before or within or after a base.
Affixes are of three types:
1. prefixes,1. prefixes,
2. infixes,
3. suffixes.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar14

15. 1. Prefixes are those bound morphemes that occur before a
base, as in import, prefix, reconsider. Prefixes in English are a
small class of morphemes, numbering about 75.
2. Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within
a word. In English, infixes are rare. Occasionally they are
additions within a word.additions within a word.
3. Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, like
shrinkage, failure. Suffixes may pile up to the number or
three or four e.g. in ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘formalizers’formalizers’: the base: the base formform + the+ the
four suffixesfour suffixes --al,al, --izeize,, --erer,, --ss, whereas prefixes are
commonly single, except for the negative un- before
another prefix.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar15

16. • Free vs. bound (affixes)
• Bound morphemes
• Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs
derivational
inflectional
Cont.,
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar16
• Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs
allomorph allomorph allomorph
morph morph morph
/id/ /d/ /t/
morpheme
‘past tense’

17. • Roots: the irreducible core of a word
• Affixes: a morpheme that only occurs
when attached to some other morpheme
• Stems: part of a word that exists before
Cont.,
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar17
• Stems: part of a word that exists before
any inflectional affixes
• Bases: any unit to which affixes of any kind
can be added (derivational, inflectional)

18. Free morphemes = free root, i.e. morphemes that
constitute words by themselves, e.g., girl, boy, …
A ROOT is the heart of a word, i.e. the morpheme
that gives the word its central meaning: For
example, un-happi-ness("happy" is the root).
Cont.,
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar18
example, un-happi-ness("happy" is the root).
Roots are usually free: they can appear as
independent words (like "happy") .
But not always: e.g. ceive in conceive.

19. Root: lexical content morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts, e.g., paint in
paint-er, read in re-read, ceive in con-ceive. In English, a root may be a free root (e.g.,
paint, read) or a bound root (e,g., -ceive, huckle-). Thus it may or may not stand alone as a
word.
Stem: a root morpheme is combined with an affix, which may or may not be a word, e.g.,
painter, -ceive + er.
Base: to mean any root or stem to which an affix is attached.
V
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar19
V
Adj Af Af
bright en ed
Base for -ed
Root & Base for -en

20. • Note: affixes are always bound morphemes.
• In English, roots tend to be free morphemes.
• However, this is not always the case--
• For instance: blueberry, blackberry…
• but: cranberry, raspberry.
• What do [cran-], and [rasp-] mean?
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar20
• What do [cran-], and [rasp-] mean?
• Bound roots in English are called cranberry
morphemes (technical term).

21. • Cranberry morphemes are bound root
morphemes.
•They have no independent meaning.
•They also have no parts of speech
• Some more examples:
• perceive, receive, deceive
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar21
• perceive, receive, deceive
• -ceive?
• infer, refer, defer
• -fer?
• commit, permit, submit
• -mit?

22. 1. Noun plural
2. Noun singular possessive
3. Noun plural possessive
4. Present third-person
The inflectional affixes can be schematized as follows:
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar22
4. Present third-person
singular
5. Present participle
6. Past tense
7. Past participle
8. Comparative
9. Superlative

23. •The words to which these affixes are attached are called stems .
•The stem includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes.
•Thus the stem of cowboys is cowboy and that of beautified is beautify.
•The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes in the
following ways:
1-They do not change the part of speech.
Example: cold , colder (both adjectives)
2-They come last in a word.
Cont.,
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar23
2-They come last in a word.
Example: shortened.
3-They go with all stems of a given part of speech.
Examples: He eats , drinks.
4-They do not pile up; only one ends a word.
Example: working.
An exception is {-s pl ps}, the plural possessive of the
noun, as in “the students’ worries”.

24. The common characteristics of derivational suffixes are :
1.The words with which derivational suffixes combine is
an arbitrary matter. For example, when the noun is derived
from the verb adorn we must add ment-, no other will do.
2.In many cases, but not all, a derivational suffix changes
the part of speech of the word to which it is added. For
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar24
the part of speech of the word to which it is added. For
example, the noun act becomes an adjective by the
addition of –ive.
3.Derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word;
that is, after a derivational suffix one can sometimes add
another derivational suffix.

25. In grammatical study, it is often necessary to
examine families of related words. Such
families are linguistically known as paradigms.
A paradigm is a set of related forms having the
same base but different affixes.
DerivationDerivation & Inflection& Inflection
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar25
same base but different affixes.
• There are two kinds of paradigms:
1.
2.

26. • The derivational paradigm is a set of related words composed of the same base
morpheme and all the derivational affixes that can go with this base.
Example: Some examples of noun-marking derivational suffixes are –hood, -ship, -ness,
and –ment. Words having these endings are recognized, even in isolation, as nouns.
(1999, Herndon)
•A class of words with similar inflection rules is called an inflectional paradigm. Typically
the similar rules amount to a unique set of affixes. The inflectional paradigm is formed
by words to which the inflectional suffixes are attached.
1. Inflectional suffixes do not change the part of speech.
Derivation & InflectionDerivation & Inflection
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar26
1. Inflectional suffixes do not change the part of speech.
2. Inflectional suffixes come last in a word when they are present.
3. They go with all stems of a given part of speech.
4. They do not pile up as one inflectional morpheme closes a word.
Example: the inflectional paradigm for the class form (NOUNS) is made up as follows:
Base (singular)Base (singular) Base FormBase Form + plural+ plural Base FormBase Form + possessive+ possessive Base FormBase Form +Possessive+Possessive pluralplural
student students Student’s Students’

27. Derivation vs. InflectionDerivation vs. Inflection ((11))
DerivationDerivation changeschanges thethe
the word categorythe word category and/orand/or
the type of meaning of thethe type of meaning of the
word, so it is said toword, so it is said to
create a new word.create a new word.
InflectionInflection does notdoes not
change eitherchange either the wordthe word
grammaticalgrammatical category orcategory or
the type of meaning foundthe type of meaning found
in the word.in the word.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar27
create a new word.create a new word.
e.g. suffixe.g. suffix ––mentment inin
governmentgovernment
in the word.in the word.
e.g. suffixe.g. suffix ––ss inin booksbooks

28. Derivation vs. InflectionDerivation vs. Inflection ((22))
A derivational affix must combine with the base beforeA derivational affix must combine with the base before
an inflectional affix.an inflectional affix.
e.g.e.g. neighbourneighbour (base) + hood (DA) + s (IA)(base) + hood (DA) + s (IA)
== neighbourhoodsneighbourhoods== neighbourhoodsneighbourhoods
The following combination is unacceptable:The following combination is unacceptable:
neighbourneighbour (base) + s (IA) + hood (DA)(base) + s (IA) + hood (DA)
= *= *neighbourshoodneighbourshood
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar28

29. Derivation vs. InflectionDerivation vs. Inflection ((33))
An inflectional affixAn inflectional affix isis more productive than a derivationalmore productive than a derivational
affix.affix.
e.g. the inflectional suffixe.g. the inflectional suffix ––ss can combine with virtually anycan combine with virtually any
noun to form a plural noun.noun to form a plural noun.noun to form a plural noun.noun to form a plural noun.
On the otherOn the other hand, thehand, the derivational suffixderivational suffix ––antant cancan
combine only with Latinate bases.combine only with Latinate bases.
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar29

30. Describe the italic affixes:
1) impossible
2) terrorized
3) terrorize
4) desks
1) Derivational prefix
2) Inflectional suffix
3) Derivational suffix
4) Inflectional suffix
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar30
4) desks
5) dislike
6) humanity
7) fastest
4) Inflectional suffix
5) Derivational prefix
6) Derivational suffix
7) Inflectional suffix

31. Describe the italic affixes:
8) premature
9) untie
10) darken
8) Derivational prefix
9) Derivational prefix
10) Derivational suffix
11) fallen
12) oxen
13) faster
14) lecturer
11) Inflectional suffix
12) Inflectional suffix
13) Inflectional suffix
14) Derivational suffix
Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar31

32. Dr. ShadiaYousef Banjar32