This document discusses morphology and defines key morphological terms. Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and their formation. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. There are two types of morphemes: bound morphemes, which cannot stand alone as words, and free morphemes, which can. Affixes like prefixes and suffixes are bound morphemes that can change the meaning or part of speech of words. Derivational morphemes form new words while inflectional morphemes indicate grammatical functions. Understanding morphology helps with reading, spelling, and vocabulary development.

1. Morphology By
Fromkin, Rodney,Nina ,Yule and Finnegan
Adopted By
Syeedah Sajidah Tabassum

2. Key point:
 Morphology
 Morpheme
 Bound Morphemes
 Derivational Morphemes
 Inflectional Morphemes
 Free Morphemes
 Content word and Function words
 Affixes

3.  Morph from ancient Greek word ‘Morphos’ ,means
shape or change and ‘ology’ from Logos ,referes to
knowledge or the study of something
 Morphology is the study of shape of the word OR
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of
word.(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 98-99))
 Morphology is the study of Morphemes

4.  Morpheme is a smallest unit of meaning that can not be
divided further into smaller units ,for example ‘girl’ and
orange can not be divided into more unit so each one is single
morpheme (Finnegan [2011] )
 Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of the word which
makes a sense ,e.g. boys (sense of number),walked, (sense of
grammar or tense),taller(sense of comparative degree),
goodness , uncontrolably.
 Being the unit of meaning morpheme is abstract as meanings
are abstract.

5. Recap
 We learn that morpheme is a unit of meaning ,e.g.
important by attaching with a morpheme unimportant
(means not important ).
 We learn morpheme is not divisible, e.g. Un is a morpheme
by dividing it further as u n we get two sounds /u/ , /n/
 We learn morpheme is abstract ,only mental representation
as meaning of meaning is abstract.

6. Morpheme
Bound Roots Free
Derivational Inflectional Lexical Functional
Affixes Suffixes

7. Root is a morpheme around which affixes are attached to
form new words
Root is a morpheme that may or may not stand as a
word for example paint and ceive in Painter and
Receive
Base linguists sometimes use the word base to mean
any root to which an affix is attached
Stem is a point when further affixation is not possible
e.g. receiver ( re ceive r)

8. Characteristics of Bound Morphemes
 Bound morphemes can not stand by themselves.
 Bound morphemes are not words by themselves and
must combine with other morphemes to be a word
 Can not stand alone to convey meaning
 Bound morpheme can have one or more syllables
For example:
,lect,dis, rupt , ceive,peat,pre,un,s,es,ing,ed,er,est,ly.

9. Characteristics of Bound Morphemes
 Bound morphemes can not stand by themselves.
 Bound morphemes are not words by themselves and
must combine with other morphemes to be a word
 Can not stand alone to convey meaning
 Bound morpheme can have one or more syllables
For example:
lect,dis, rupt , ceive,peat,pre,un,s,es,ing,ed,er,est,ly.

10. Bound Morphemes
Derivational Inflectional
Affixes only suffixes
Prefixe /Suffixes/ infixes/circomfixes

11. Derivational morphemes all affixes are derivational
morphemes s. These are added to the base to make
new words. Derivational morphemes may or may not
change the grammatical category for
example ‘good’ is an adjective and by attaching with a
derivational suffix ness it makes a noun goodness but
friend is a noun and by attaching with a derivational
suffix ship it becomes a noun friendship .

12. Class maintaining bound morphemes
1. Noun to noun: friendship ,kingdom ,American
2. Verb to verb : undo , recover ,believes
3. Adjective to adjective :pinkish, illegal ,unhappy
Class changing bound morphemes
1. Noun to verb: moralize ,Vaccinate , hasten
2. Verb to noun: acquittal, clearance,singer
3. Adjective to noun: tallness, goodness, freedom
4. Verb to adjective: readable , creative

13. Derivational morphemes may cause a change in the
pronunciation of consonant sounds. For example when
we add –ity to specific(pronounce /specifik / a / k/
sound) we get specificity(pronounced specifisity with
/s/ sound
Specific ..adjective
Specifically …adverb
Specificity …. noun

14. Derivational morphemes may cause a change in the
pronunciation of vowel sounds, For example, sane
/sein/ to Sanity /saenty/ by attaching ity
Derivational morphemes are added both at the
beginning or at the end of the base for example desire is
a base we can add suffix desirable or we can
add a prefix undesirable .

15. Derivational morphemes have clear semantic content –
means when a derivational morpheme is added to a base
it adds meanings for example addition of ify to pure,
purify means “to make pure” and the addition of cation
Purification means “the process of making pure”

16. Recape
 Derivational morphemes are bound to attach with other
morpheme for the clarity of their meanings , e.g. s , es , ly
,ed un , im ,er , est , dis , re and so on , have no meanings ;
 Derivational morphemes are class maintaining , e.g. teach is a
verb and teaches is a verb too;
 Derivational morphemes are class changing , e.g. teach is a
verb and teacher is a noun ;

17. Recape
 Derivational morphemes may cause a change in the
sound of the word , e.g. specific(pronounce /specifik /
a / k/ sound) and specificity(pronounced specifisity
with /s/ sound and sane /sein/ to Sanity /saenty/ by
attaching ity
 Derivational morphemes add to the meanings , e.g. addition
of ify to pure, purify means “to make pure”

18. Affixes
 Prefixes
 Suffixes
 Infixes
 Cicumfixes

19.  Prefixes are morphemes added at the beginning of root
and add to the meaning of the base word.e.g. re, pre un,
im ,de, in the following words
Repeate
Preposition
Uneducated
Impossible
Degrade
Insufficient
Injustice and so on.

20. Suffixes are added at the end of root to indicate the number,
tense or part of speech (grammatical category of speech)
Noun + s (Plural as sisters)
Noun + ’s ( possessive as jim’s)
Verb +s (3rd person present singular as likes)
Verb + ing (present participle as laughing)
Verb +ed (past tense liked)
Verb +en (Past participle as taken)
Adjective +est (superlative as loudest )
Adjective +er (comparative as quieter)

21. Circumfixes :Morphemes that are attached to a base
morpheme , both initially and finally are called
circumfixes. For example in Chickasaw , the negative is
formed with both a prefix ik and suffix o
Chokma means “ he is good” and ikchokmo means
“he is not good”

22. Infixes : Morphemes that are inserted into root
morphemes are called Infixes for example in Bontoc,
spoken in Philipines , the noun fusul is a noun means
enemy becomes verb by inserting an infix mu as
fumusul means “to be an enemy”
Note: Word affix is used to refer prefixes, suffixes infixes
and circumfixes

23. Inflectional morphemes
 Class maintaining
 Add to the meaning of the word ,e.g. possession ,
number ,time , degree .
 Only eight in numbers in English
 These are only suffixes

24. Inflectional morphemes examples
Let me tell you about Jim's two sisters
One likes to have fun and is always laughing
The other liked to study and has always taken things
seriously
One is the loudest person in the house and the other is
quieter than a mouse
Note: All inflectional morphemes are Suffixes

25. Inflectional
 Grammatical function
 No word class change
 Small or no meaning change
 Often required by rules of
grammar
 Follow derivational
morphemes in a word
productive
Derivational
 Lexical function
 May cause word class
change
 Some meaning change
 Never required by the rules
of grammar
 Precede inflectional
morphemes in a word
 Some productive many
nonproductive

26.  Characteristics Free Morphemes:
• can be used alone as word;
• do not depend on any other segment to be a word.e.g
nouns, adjectives ,verbs, adverbs;
• can stand all alone to convey meanings.
 Can have one or more syllables
 Compound words, which are made of two free
morphemes that keep their meanings .e.g. sailboat,
whiteboard ,armchair,

27. Open class words: content or lexical words which are
most meaningful in the sentence for example
• Noun –person ,place, thing or idea
• Adjectives-attribute of the noun
• Verbs –action or state of being
• Adverbs—add description to the verb

28. Close class words: functions words serve as a
grammatical function :
 Conjunctions: or, and ,but ,so
 Prepositions : in ,on ,at ,to
 Pronouns : his, her ,them
 Expletives : there , it

29. Open class wirds
The Content Words carry real-world meaning.
Close class word
The Function words carry only grammatical
meaning.
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 78-80)

30.  Auxiliaries : has , have
 definite articles : the a an
 Compound words: made up of two free morpheems .e.g.
sailboat, whiteboard ,armchair,
Practice:
Underline the free morpheme in the following words: Refill,
misunderstand hopefulness , masterful , unhappy , childhood ,
adventurous ,Antidisestablishmentarianism,

31. Morphological awareness complements and extends
phonological awareness. How:
 Students learn the grammatical category of words;
 Students learn that some syllables are meaningful word
units;
 Students learn that common prefixes and suffixes have
meanings;
 Students are able to use morphemes to spell and read
words.

32. Morphological awareness is the understanding that words are made up of
meaningful units /bits/segments/elements such as :
prefix-- root/stem ---infix—suffix
Segmenting words into morphemes for example:
 Projector :
• pro ject tor
 Undivided :
• un divide ed
 Autobiography:
• auto bio graphy
 Misplaced :
• mis place ed

33.  Best strategy for teaching vocabulary
 Segmenting word into morphemes to teach
grammatical category of speech

34. Antidisestablishmentarianism
STEM: stable or establish
Suffixes: -ment, -arian, -ism
Prefixes: dis-, anti-