This document defines morphology and discusses the key concepts in word structure and formation. It explains that morphology studies the structure of words and how new words are derived. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning, and can be free or bound. Free morphemes stand alone as words, while bound morphemes like prefixes and suffixes must be attached to other morphemes. The document also distinguishes between inflectional and derivational morphemes and their functions in language.

1. MORPHOLOG
Y
(Linguistics)

2. Morphology in Linguistics
- The study of structure of the
words and word formation.
A. Word Structure
1. Morpheme
2. Free Morpheme (Lexical & Functional)
3. Bound Morpheme (Inflectional & Derivational)
4. Contractible Morpheme

3. Morphemes
- The smallest meaningful unit in
the grammar of a language.
A. Free Morpheme
• The type of morpheme that can
stand alone as words by
themselves
EXAMPLE
friend boy tree
*Free morphemes have two
categories

4. 1. Lexical Morpheme
• Referred also as OPEN CLASS
because we can add morphemes
to these words.
• These are nouns, verbs and
adjectives.
EXAMPLE
girl (n.) jump (v.) red (adj.)
boy (n.) look (v.) pink (adj.)

5. 2. Functional Morpheme
• Words that do not have clear
meaning but has grammatical
functions.
• These are conjunctions,
prepositions, articles,
auxiliaries and pronouns.
• Referred also as CLOSED
CLASS because it cannot be
added to other morphemes.
EXAMPLE
he she we but nor

6. B. Bound Morpheme
• These are AFFIXES that must
be attached to the word.
AFFIXES
a) Prefix - unclean
b) Infix - nowadays
c) Suffix - adjustment
*Bound morphemes have also two
categories, Inflectional and
Derivational morphemes

7. 1. Derivational Morpheme
• changes the part of speech of
the word when added to the
free morpheme but there are
some exceptions.
Example of Class Changing
pay (v.) - payment (n.)
pay (v.) - payer (n.)
Example of Class Maintaining
pink (adj.) - pinkish (adj.)
do (v.) - undo (v.)

8. List of Derivational Morphemes
• Prefixes – re-, pre-, un-, ex-,
mis-, co- etc.
• Suffixes - -ish, -less, -ly… etc.

9. 2. Inflectional Morpheme
• Morphemes that are used to
indicate aspects of the
grammatical function of a word.
EXAMPLE
boy’s boys
cleaned cleaning cleans
taken simplest
heavier

10. List of Inflectional Morphemes
-in English we have 8 Inflectional
Morphemes.
• Noun – Possessive noun (‘s),
Plural form (s).
• Verb – 3rd person singular (s),
Progressive verb (-ing), Past
tense (-ed), Past Participle (-en).
• Adjective – Comparative (-er),
Superlative (-est).

11. 4. Contractible Morphemes
- these are auxiliary modals such
as will, shall, have, had and would.
- these can be contracted in
informal style of language.
Example
I will – I’ll
They had – They’d

12. Root and Stem
• Root words are the basic part of
a word that carries meaning.
• Stem is when a root morpheme
is combined with affix
morpheme.
EXAMPLE
root: teach
affix : -er
stem: teacher

13. Bound Root
• These are root morphemes
which cannot appear on its own.
EXAMPLE
re-ceive dis-suade
Bound morphemes Bound root

14. Segmenting words into its
constituent morphemes.
EXAMPLE
repayment
re – pay – ment
prefix root suffix

15. Morphological Description
a) The difference between
Inflectional and Derivational
Morpheme?
• Inflectional morpheme never
change the grammatical
category of the word.
Old (adj.) older (adj.)
b) While Derivational Morpheme can
change the grammatical category
of a word.

16. Morphological Description
Identify the morphological
description of the sentence below.
The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog.

17. Summing up
• Morphology is the study of word
structure and word formation.
• The smallest meaningful part of the
word is called morpheme.
• Morphemes have two classification
these are Free and Bound Morphemes.
• Free morphemes categories are Lexical
and Functional Morphemes.
• Bound morphemes includes Inflectional
and derivational morphemes

18. Thank You!
-Renedict 