Morphology is the study of word structure and classification. It examines the smallest meaningful units of language called morphemes, which can be free-standing words or bound affixes. There are two types of morphemes: free morphemes that can stand alone as words, and bound morphemes that must be attached to other morphemes. Bound morphemes are further divided into derivational morphemes, which change a word's meaning or part of speech, and inflectional morphemes, which change a word's grammatical function but not its core meaning. There are various word-formation processes in morphology, including compounding, acronym formation, borrowing, clipping, blending, and using names

1. Morphological Change

2. Morphology
is the branch of linguistics
that studies the structure
and classification of words
and the units that make up
words

3. Morphemes
The smallest meaningful units
of a language.

4. Morpheme & word
 A morpheme and a word are not equivalent
terms.
Ex.
“coat” – 1 morpheme
(monomorphemic word)
“coats” – 2 morphemes
 Coat is word and so is coats
 -s is a morpheme, but it definitely is not a
word

5. Two Types of Morpheme
1. Free morphemes – are
morphemes that can stand alone
ex. phone, play, run
2. Bound morphemes – are
meaningful grammatical unit that
cannot occur alone and must be
attached to another morpheme
ex. tele, -er, -ing

6. Free Morpheme
 a free morpheme may also be a
root
 a root is a morpheme, usually but
not always a free morpheme.
 words can be built by adding
morphemes to the root
 These words are called affixes

7. Kinds of Words
1. Open classes of words (content
words)- are types words that grow in
number in a language.
 Nouns, adjectives, verbs and
adverbs
2. Closed classes of words (Function
words) – are types of words the growth
of which is very limited.
 Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions,
interjections

8. Bound morphemes
 Added bound morphemes are called
affixes
Types of affixes:
1. Prefix-added before a root (un-
happy)
2. Infix-added inside a root (fan-
damn-tastic)
3. Suffix-added after a root (happi-
ness)
4. Circumfix-added surrounding the

9. Types of bound morphemes
 A bound morpheme can be classified on the
basis of the function it serves
1. Derivational morphemes – are bound
morphemes that change the meaning or lexical
category (part of speech) of a word.
For example:
happy → unhappy
 Both words are adjectives, but the meaning
changes.
quick → quickness
 The affix changes both meaning and word class -
adjective to a noun.

10. Types of bound morphemes
2. Inflectional morphemes – are
bound morphemes that do not
change the essential meaning or
lexical category of a word. They
change grammatical functions.
For example:
 Cat → cats (-s plural marker)
 walk → walking (-ing tense
marker)

11. 8 inflectional bound morphemes
1. The plural marker (-s)
 Both chairs are broken”
2. The possessive (-’s and –s’)
 “The chair’s leg is broken”
3. The third person, present singular (-s)
 “He waits”
4. The progressive (-ing)
 “He is waiting”

12. 8 inflectional bound morphemes
5. The past tense (-ed) “He waited”
6. The past participle (-en) “I had eaten”
7. The comparative (-er) “He was faster”
8. The superlative (-est) “He was the fastest”

13. Types of Word-Formation Processes
 Compounding-is creating a word with more than
one root
 Veggie burger
 Sideburns
 brunch
 Acronyms- are words that are formed from the
first letter or letters of more than one word
 NASA
 LAN

14. Types of Word-Formation Processes
 Foreign word borrowing
 French: recipe, route, menu
 Arabic: sofa, magazine, alcohol
 Clipping- is deleting a section of a word to
create a shortened form
 Photo from photograph
 Sculpt from sculpture

15. Types of Word-Formation Processes
 Blending-is the process of taking two or more
words (compounding), clipping parts off one
or more of the words, and the combining them
 Motel (motor hotel); sitcom (situation comedy)
 Using people’s names
 Sandwich from John Montagu, the fourth Earl of
Sandwhich (1718-1792)
 Erotic from Eros (Greek god)
 Trade names
 Aspirin
 Pampers, Colgate