MORPHOLOGY AND WORD FORMATION by BUSUNGU JOSEPH

MORPHOLOGY AND WORD FORMATION

Ø This is the branch of linguistics which deals with the study of internal structure of words. It deals with how words are formed (word formation.

Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

Morphemes

Ø A morpheme is the smallest meaningless unit of language which cannot be divided or disintegrated further.

Types of morphemes

Ø There are two major types of morphemes namely;

i.                   Free morphemes

ii.                Bound morphemes

Free morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which can stand alone in a sentence.

Ø Free morphemes are divided into two types namely;

i.                   Lexical morphemes and

ii.                Grammatical morphemes

Lexical morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which can stand alone and convey lexical meaning. i.e they are meaningful by themselves

Ø Lexical morphemes include all the content words (major word classes) which are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

Ø Look at these examples; mango, beautiful, run, bravely. All these words communicate meaning individually and a person can understand.

Grammatical morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which can stand alone in a sentence but they cannot carry a lexical meaning.

Ø Grammatical morphemes include all minor word classes like pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

Ø Look at the following examples; he, the, on, despite, hurray!

Ø The above examples are free morphemes as can stand alone in a sentence without any inflections but they cannot carry lexical meanings

Bound morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which cannot stand alone in a sentence. They should be attached to other word in order to add grammatical meaning.

Ø Bound morphemes are divided into two types namely;

i.                   Inflectional morphemes and

ii.                Derivational morphemes

Inflectional morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which do not change the meaning and word class of the word when added to it. They only add grammatical meaning.

Ø The inflectional morphemes in English language are –s, -es, -ies, -d, -ed, -en, -ing, -er and –est.

Ø For example, in the word books, -s is added to show plural but the word class and meaning remains the same.

Functions of inflectional morphemes

i.                   To mark plurality

For example,

ü Cow                cows

ü Mango             mangoes

ü Book                books

 

ii.                To show possession or genitive

For example,

ü This is john’s bed

ü Machame girl’s secondary school

ü Laboratory’s apparatus

 

iii.             To mark tense aspect of the verb

a.     Present simple

ü She cooks soup

ü He goes to uhuru market

ü The lion tries to climb the tree

b.     Simple past

ü They finished the meal

ü She baked her breads for sale

ü They played a football match and won

c.      Present progressive

ü He is going to win the medal

ü They are swimming now

ü Mabondo is insulting me

d.     Present perfect and past perfect

ü He has eaten pizza

ü They had spoken nonsense

ü They have taken my sandals

 

iv.               To show comparative and superlative degree

ü Small               smallest

ü Big                   biggest

ü Short               shorter

ü Tall                  taller

NB:

Ø Some suffixes can function as inflectional or derivational depending on the uses.

Ø For example, -er is an inflectional when it is used to show comparison bad in some environment it derives words into other parts of speech.

Ø Look at the following examples where –er has been used as a derivational morpheme;

ü Teach              teacher

   V                       N

ü Kill                  killer

V                        N

ü Paint               painter

   V                        N

Derivational morphemes

Ø These are morphemes which change the word class or meaning or both when added to a word.

Ø Derivational morphemes include both prefixes and suffixes

Ø Look at the following examples,

ü Week          weekly

    N                Adv.

ü Smart          smartly

    N                Adv.

ü Care            careful

   N                  Adj

ü Beauty        beautiful

   N                   Adj

ü Kind           kindness

 Adj                  N

ü Magic         magically

   Adj                 Adv.

ü Solve          solvable

   V                  Adj

Ø In the above examples, -ly, -ful, -ness, –ally and –able are derivational morphemes as they derived words to different word classes.

Ø Derivational morphemes are divided into two types namely;

i.                   Class changing derivatives and

ii.                Class maintaining derivatives

 

Class changing derivatives

Ø These are affixes which change the word class as described in the above examples. They change a word to other parts of speech.

Class maintaining derivatives

Ø These are affixes which do not change the word class but they change the meaning of word within the same part of speech.

Ø Look at the following examples,

ü King                              kingdom

CN                                     AN

ü Kin                                kinship

CN                                     AN

ü Leader                           leadership

  CN                                    AN

ü Chief                              chiefdom

  CN                                    AN

NB:

CN stands for concrete noun

AN stands for abstract noun

Ø In the above examples, the derivatives –dom and –ship are class maintaining suffixes since did not derive the words to other word classes but changed the meaning of respective words

Ø Class maintaining derivatives also include both prefixes and suffixes.

Ø Look at the following examples,

ü Possible                impossible

    Adj                         Adj

ü Trial                     retrial

  N                            N

ü Group                  subgroup

    N                            N

ü Connect               disconnect

     V                            V

ü Tie                        untie

 N                           N

MORPH

Ø This is the actual realization of the morpheme

Ø For example, the word “tooth” has 1 morph and 1 morpheme while the word “teeth” has 1 morph and 2 morphemes which are tooth + plural resulting into teeth.

Ø The word “parents” has 2 morphs which are parent + s and 2 morphemes which are parent + plural(s).

Ø Hence, a morph is a physical form as it appears to the word i.e the physical appearance of the word.

TYPES OF MORPH

Ø There are three types of morphs namely;

ALLOMORPH

Ø This is the different realization of the same morpheme

Ø The same morpheme can be realized differently depending on the environment

Ø It refers to any of the variants or different forms of a morpheme

Ø Allomorphs should occur in a complementary distribution. This is to say, they should occur in different environments but performing the same function.

 

Allomorphs of free morphemes

Ø These are allomorphs which occur in the free morphemes. i.e words which can stand alone in a sentence.

Ø The allomorphs of free morphemes are;

i.                   Allomorph of indefinite articles

ü Indefinite articles á’ and án’ occur in different environments but serve the same functions.

ü ‘An’ comes before a vowel sound while á’ comes before consonant sound.

ü Look at the following examples,

Article an	Article a
An orange An hour An apple An axe	A tree A hoe A boy A chair

 

ii.                Allomorph of the linking verb morpheme BE

ü A morpheme BE has various forms

ü Take for example two forms “was” and “were”. The two occur in different environment but perform the same function of marking past tense.

ü “Was” represents singular while “were” represents plural but all are the allomorphs of the linking verb BE.

ü Look at the following examples,

Was	were
He was dancing She was eating magimbi It was running to me	They were dancing They were eating magimbi They were running to me

 

Allomorphs of bound morphemes

Ø These are allomorphs which occur in bound morphemes. i.e. affixes which cannot stand alone without being attached to free morphemes.

Ø These are as follows

i.                   Allomorphs of the negative prefix {in-}

ü The negative prefix {in-} has three allomorphs which are {im-}, {in-} and {iŋ-}. All these occur in different environment as follows;

                        

In-	Im-	Iŋ-
This appears with the adjective stem that begins with the sound of alveolar stops like /d/ and /t/. for example, -indefinite -indelicate -intolerance etc.	This is used before bilabial sounds like /b/, /p/ and /m/ For example, -Imbalance -Impossible -immature	This is used before velar stop sounds like /k/ and /g/. for example, -Ingratitude /iŋgrӕtɪtju:d/   -Incomplete /ɪŋkəmpli:t/   -Incompatible

 

ii.                Allomorphs of the plural (-s)

ü This has three (3) allomorphs which are {-s}, {-z} and {-iz}. All these occur in complementary distribution. Means where one occurs the other cannot occur.

ü All these can occur in the following environment

-s	-z	-iz
This is used after all voiceless sounds except affricatives and sibilants. NB: sibilants are sounds produced with friction causing hissing sounds like /s/, /z/, /ʒ/ and /ʃ/. More examples, - cats /kӕts/ - books /bυks/ - plates /pleɪts/	This is used after all voiced sounds except affricatives and sibilants. Examples of the voiced sounds include; /d/, /g/, /b/ etc. More examples, Bags /bӕgz/ Beds /bedz/ Dogs /dɒgz/	This is used after affricatives and sibilants. For example, Churches /tʃʒ:tʃɪz/ Judges /ʤʌʤɪz/ Houses /hɑƱsɪz/

 

iii.              Allomorphs of the past tense {-ed}

ü The past tense {-ed} has three allomorphs which are {-d}, {-id} and {-t}.

 

ü they occur in different environment as follows;

-d	-id	-t
This is used in the verb ending with voiced sounds except –d itself. For example, Live /lɪvd/ Judged /ʤʌʤd/ Cleaned /kli:nd/	This is used when the verb ends in the sound –d or –t. for example, Needed /ni:dɪd/ Waited /weɪtɪd/ Planted /plӕntɪd/	This is used in the verbs ending with all voiceless sounds except –t itself. For example, Helped /helpt/ Cooked /kυkt/ Bake /beɪkt/ Forced /fↄ:st/

Ø The central technique used in the identification of morphemes is based on the notion of distribution. We classify a set of morphs as allomorphs of the same morpheme if they are in complementary distribution.

Ø Morphs are said to be in complementary distribution if

(i)                            They represent the same meaning or serve the same grammatical function and

(ii)                          They are never found in identical contexts.

Ø So, the three morphs /d/, /id/ and /t/ which represent the English regular past tense morpheme are in complementary distribution.

Ø Each morph is restricted to occurring in the contexts specified

Ø Hence, they are allomorphs of the same morpheme.

 

Exercise 1

1.     What are the functional morphemes in the following sentence?

When he arrived in the morning, the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic bag full of books.

2.          (a)      List the bound morphemes in these words: fearlessly,                                                                                                       misleads, previewer shortened, unhappier

(b)             Which of these words has a bound stem: construct, deceive, introduce, and repeat?

(c)              Which of these words contains an allomorph of the morpheme “past tense”: are, have, must, sitting, waits?

3.     What are the inflectional morphemes in these expressions?

(a)              Have you eaten yet?

(b)             Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?

(c)              She’s younger than me and always dresses in the latest style.

(d)             We looked through my grandmother’s old photo albums.