MORPHOLOGY AND SEMANTICS-SOME IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

1.MORPHOLOGY
· Morphology: Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure and
formation of words. It focuses on how words are built from smaller units of meaning,
known as morphemes. For example, in English, the word unhappiness can be broken
down into three morphemes: un- (negation), happy (root), and -ness (noun-forming
suffix).

· · Morpheme: A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language. It cannot

be broken down further without losing its meaning. For instance, in the word cats,
there are two morphemes: cat (the root, meaning the animal) and -s (a plural marker).

· · Morph: A morph is the physical or phonological realization of a morpheme.

While morphemes represent abstract units of meaning, morphs are their actual spoken
or written forms. For example, the plural morpheme in English can be realized as the
morph -s (as in cats), -es (as in dishes), or other forms depending on the word.

· · Allomorph: Allomorphs are the different realizations or variants of a morpheme

that occur in specific contexts. These variants have the same function or meaning but
differ in form. For example, the English plural morpheme has three allomorphs: /s/ (as
in cats), /z/ (as in dogs), and /ɪz/ (as in buses).

· · Lexically Conditioned Allomorphs: These are allomorphs whose occurrence is

determined not by phonological rules but by the specific lexical item they appear
with. In other words, the choice of allomorph is unpredictable and must be learned for
each word. For example, the past tense morpheme in English can be /-t/ (as in kept), /-
d/ (as in played), or other forms like the irregular went for go.

 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHONEME AND MORPHEME

Phoneme Morpheme
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound A morpheme, , is the smallest unit of
in a language that can distinguish meaning in a language.
meaning between words.
Phonemes themselves do not carry Morphemes carry meaning on their own,
meaning, but changing a phoneme can and they may consist of one or more
change the meaning of a word. phonemes
For example, in English, the words bat For example, in the word unhappiness,
and pat differ in their initial phonemes: there are three morphemes: un-
/b/ vs. /p/. This sound difference leads to (negation), happy (root meaning), and -
a change in meaning, though neither /b/ ness (a suffix that turns the adjective into
nor /p/ has meaning on its own. a noun).

 Free and Bound Morphemes

1 Free Morphemes: These are morphemes that can stand alone as independent
words. They carry meaning by themselves without needing to be attached to other
morphemes. For example, words like book, run, and happy are free morphemes
because they can exist on their own as meaningful units.
2 Bound Morphemes: Bound morphemes cannot stand alone as words and must be
attached to a free morpheme to convey meaning. These are typically affixes such as
prefixes and suffixes. For example, -s (as in cats), un- (as in unhappy), and -ed (as in
walked) are bound morphemes, as they must be attached to a root word to make sense.

Circumfixes, Interfixes and Transfixes

Circumfixes, interfixes, and transfixes are types of affixes used in word

formation, but they differ in how they attach to a root or base word.

Circumfixes: Circumfixes are affixes that attach both at the beginning and the
end of a root word simultaneously to form a new word or change the meaning.
Both parts of the circumfix must be present for the word to make sense. An
example comes from the German word ge-liebt ('loved'), where ge- is attached
to the beginning, and -t to the end of the root lieb (love), together forming the
past participle.

Interfixes: Interfixes are elements that are inserted between two morphemes,
often to connect compound words or to make the sound smoother between
them. Interfixes usually don’t carry meaning on their own. For example, in the
German compound word Schönheit ('beauty'), the interfix -e- appears between
schön (beautiful) and -heit (a nominal suffix indicating a state or quality).

Transfixes: Transfixes are a type of affix found in languages like Arabic and
Hebrew, where a set of consonants (usually three or four) remains constant in
the word, and the vowels are inserted in between these consonants to form
different words. For example, in Arabic, the root k-t-b relates to writing, and
by inserting vowels, you get forms like katab ('he wrote'), kitāb ('book'), and
kutub ('books').

INFLECTION AND DERIVATION

1. Inflection: Inflection involves modifying a word to express grammatical

features such as tense, number, gender, case, mood, or aspect, without
changing the word's core meaning or its grammatical category (e.g., noun
stays a noun, verb stays a verb).

Example:


o Walk → walks (plural form of the verb to agree with a singular
subject).
o Child → children (plural form of the noun).
o Run → ran (past tense of the verb).

2. Derivation: Derivation is the process of creating a new word by adding

affixes (prefixes or suffixes) to a base word, which often results in a change
in meaning and sometimes a change in the word’s grammatical category.
 Example:

o Happy → unhappy (prefix un- changes the meaning).

o Teach → teacher (suffix -er turns the verb into a noun).
o Nation → national (suffix -al turns the noun into an adjective).

In these cases, derivation changes the word’s meaning or its grammatical

category (e.g., verb to noun, noun to adjective).

PARADIGMATIC AND SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONSHIPS

Paradigmatic relations involve the relationship between linguistic units (like

words or phrases) that can substitute for one another in a particular context. These
elements belong to the same category and share similar grammatical roles but are
mutually exclusive in a given slot in a sentence. (this is a vertical relationship)

Example: In the sentence She is reading a book, the word book can be replaced
by other nouns like magazine, newspaper, or novel without changing the
grammatical structure:

o She is reading a magazine.

o She is reading a novel.

Here, book, magazine, and novel are paradigmatically related because they are all
nouns and could substitute for each other.

Syntagmatic Relations:

Syntagmatic relations involve the relationship between linguistic units that co-
occur( occur side by side) in a sequence (or string) to form larger structures like
phrases or sentences. It describes how elements combine and interact with each
other in linear order. Syntagmatic relations are based on combination—how words
combine in a meaningful sequence. (This is a horizontal relationship )

 Example: In the sentence She is reading a book, the words she, is, reading, a,
and book are syntagmatically related because they are combined in a linear
order to form a grammatical and meaningful sentence. Changing the order
(e.g., reading she is a book) would make the sentence ungrammatical.

WORD FORMATION

Word Formation refers to the process by which new words are created in a language.
It involves various linguistic techniques that alter or combine existing words or
morphemes to form new lexical items.Some of its types are

1.Compound Formation: Compounding is the process of combining two or more

independent words (or morphemes) to create a new word with a specific
meaning.Example: Toothbrush (from tooth + brush), sunflower (from sun + flower).
2.Derivation:

Derivation involves the creation of new words by adding affixes (prefixes or

suffixes) to a base word or root. It often results in a change of meaning and sometimes
a change in the word’s grammatical category.

Prefixation: Unhappy (prefix un- + root happy), dislike (prefix dis- +

root like).

Suffixation: Example: Happiness (root happy + suffix -ness), teacher

(root teach + suffix -er).

Infixation:Infixation involves inserting an affix within the root of a

word. This process is rare in English but common in other languages.
In colloquial English, some infixation occurs for emphasis, such as un-
freaking-believable.

3. Clipping:Clipping is the process of shortening a longer word by

removing part of it, usually without changing its meaning or
function.Example: Gym (from gymnasium), ad (from advertisement), doc
(from doctor).

4.Blending:Blending is the process of creating a new word by merging parts

of two or more existing words, typically by combining the beginning of one
word with the end of another.

 Example:
o Brunch (from breakfast + lunch).
o Motel (from motor + hotel).

5 Acronyms:Acronyms are formed by taking the initial letters of a phrase or

series of words and combining them to create a new, pronounceable word.

 Example:
o NASA (from National Aeronautics and Space Administration).Unlike
abbreviations, acronyms are pronounced as a single word rather than as
individual letters.

3. Back-Formation: Back-formation occurs when a new word is created by

removing an affix (usually a suffix) from an existing word, often resulting in
a change in word class.

 Example:
o Edit (from editor).
o Donate (from donation).
4. Metanalysis Metanalysis refers to the process where a word or phrase is
reinterpreted as incorrect division of two word are often taken together in
terms of pronounciation .

 Example:
o An apron (originally a napron; the n from napron was reanalyzed as
part of the article, resulting in apron).
o Whitsun from white sun

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

Universal Grammar (UG) is a theory in linguistics proposed by Noam Chomsky. It

suggests that the ability to acquire language is innate(inborn) to humans and that all
human languages share a common underlying structure. According to this theory, the
differences between languages are superficial, and all languages operate under a set of
universal principles, which are part of the genetic material of humans.

Innate Language Faculty: UG posits that humans are born with a pre-
programmed set of grammatical rules and structures that form the foundation
for learning any language. This innate knowledge allows children to acquire
language rapidly and efficiently, despite the complexity of linguistic input.

Common Principles: UG suggests that all languages share certain universal

principles or constraints (e.g., principles of syntax, such as sentence structure
or word order). These principles apply across languages, though they can be
manifested in different ways (e.g., subject-verb-object in English vs. subject-
object-verb in Japanese).

 Children exposed to different languages—be it English, Mandarin, or Swahili

—quickly learn the specific rules of that language by adjusting the
parameters in their minds based on the input they receive. This quick and
universal acquisition of language supports the idea of an innate, shared
grammatical structure.