Morphology

Talking about morphology means talking about words and their “anatomy”. Morphology studies the
internal structure of words. Words can be defined as grammatical units that function according to
grammatical rules and morphology is also called the grammar of the words.

1. Mental dictionary or mental lexicon

Our mental dictionary contains information about meaning of words, combined with information about
their grammatical properties. The first interpretation corresponds to what linguists defined as word types,
“particular words”, whereas the second interpretation corresponds to what linguists defined as word
tokens, “occurrences of words”. Words are distinct from units of sounds such as phonemes and syllables in
that they carry meaning. They are also distinct from sentences in that they are stored in our mental lexicon
as lexical entries or lexemes. Our ability to create new words has its limits. Not all word classes accept new
members. There are open classes that frequently adopted new members, and closed classes that usually
do not adopt new members. This corresponds to an important distinction between two groups of word
classes. The firs groups contains word classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These word
classes are called content words. They are also known as lexical classes. Lexical classes are usually open,
because they regularly adopt new members. The second group contains word classes such as determiners,
preposition and conjunctions. These word classes are called function words. They are also known as
grammatical classes. Grammatical classes are usually closed as the rarely adopt new members.
Morphologist assume that words are not only physically made up of sounds but also of smallest meaning-
beating units. The linguistic term for any smallest meaning-beating unit of language is morpheme.
Morphemes may carry lexical information but also grammatical information. ( ex pag. 80) The minimum
number of morphemes in a word is exactly one, as in book. As to the maximum number of morphemes,
there is no limit at least not theoretically. Some morphemes are identical with words. They can combine
with other morphemes or stand alone. These morphemes are called free morphemes. Others, such as
plural endings or morpheme un- in word such as unkind only appear in combination with free morphemes
and never on their own. They are called bound morphemes. Bound morphemes are usually affixes,
morphemes that are attached to other morphemes. Affixes play an important role in various morphological
process. On the one hand, we use affixes to express grammatical information; on the other hand, we use
affixes to build new words.

Lexical or derivational affixes are used in word formation processes, for the creation of new words, whereas
grammatical or inflectional affixes are usually used in inflectional processes that add grammatical
information. In contemporary English affix classes tend to be closed. Some bound morphemes appear only
in particular words. For instance , cran- and –huckle, appear only in cranberry and huckleberry. Such
morphemes are called unique morphemes. Linguists call any form to which an affix it attached a base. If a
word is stripped of all its affixes, the remaining part is called root. Roots are always singles morphemes that
cannot be morphologically analysed any further. Affixes may either carry grammatical information or
contribute to the formation of new words. There are different type of affixes, depending on where they are
attached to a base. Prefixes are affixes that are attached to the beginning of a base. Suffixes are attached to
the end of the base. Most affixes in English are prefixes and suffixes. Infixes are inserted into a base. In
English, the only linguistic items that are used for infixation are swear words such as blooming, bloody and
fucking. Circumfixes are attached both to the beginning and to the end of a base. Some linguists prefer to
interpret circumfixes as a combination of a prefix and a suffix. There are no circumfixes in English. This type
of affixes may occur when English words are borrowed into another language. These process may also be
interpreted as combinations of prefixastion and suffixation or even as combinations of infixation and
suffixation.

2. Morphemes and allomorphs

Allomorphs are variants of morphemes. Morphological rules are responsible for the actual realization of
morphemes depending on phonological context. There are 2 major groups of morphological processes.
Inflectional processes are the morphological processes that add grammatical information to existing words.
Some linguists use the term morphology only for such processes. Morphological processes that create new
words are called word formation processes. In English, the most important word formation processes are
derivation and compounding.

1. Inflection

This kind of internal change reflects traces of other types of plural formations that were productive in
earlier periods of English. When a morpheme is replaced with an entirely different morpheme to mark a
grammatical contrast, this is called suppletion.

2. Word formation

Word formation processes may make words change their lexical class. Usually the right-hand morpheme in
a complex English word determines its lexical class. This determining morpheme is often called the head. In
English, the most productive word formation processes are derivation and compounding. When a new
lexeme is formed by adding an affix to an existing word, this morphological process is called derivation. The
English language uses mainly prefixes and suffixes for its derivational processes. Derivational prefixes
modify the meaning of English words and their lexical class. Derivational suffixes often make English words
change their lexical class. The derivational suffix –ly turns most adjectives into adverbs; derivational suffixes
may produce new words with different meanings.

Conversion occurs when a word comes to belong to a new word class without the addition of a physical
affix. This process is sometime called zero-derivation. Many English words exist both as nouns and as verbs,
such as smell, taste, hit, walk, bottle, interview or text. Its sometime hard to determine which grammatical
category they belonged to first.

Compounding is another major word formation process. This process combines at least 2 existing words to
form a new word. In English, most compound words are nouns, verbs or adjectives. There are only a few
compounds in other lexical classes, such as the preposition compounds into and onto. Usually the head of a
compound determines its lexical class. English compound may be written either as one word, or as two
words. Occasionally its hard to determine the compound type, especially with neologisms. Its also often not
easy to distinguish compounds from syntactic groups and phraseologisms. If the meaning of a compound
can be guessed by combining the meanings of its components, its called an endocentric compound. Often
the head of a compound is specified by the elements to the left. These compounds are also refered to as
determinative compounds. Exocentric compounds such as paperback or redneck have meanings that
cannot be guessed by combining the meaning of their components. Other types of word formation
processes include blending, clipping and back-formation. Blends combine non-morphemic parts of words
into a new word as in brunch, motel.

1. Clipping is a word formation process that creates new words by shortening existing words
2. Back-formations are special types of clipping where a supposed or real affix is removed and the
results looks as if the longer word had been derived from the shorter word. Another type of
shortening process results in so-called initialisms, which can be subdivided into alphabetisms and
acronyms. Initialisms usually consist of the first letters of the words that make up the name of
something. Whereas alphabetisms such as U.S.A, EU, BBC, CNN, or SMS are spoken as individual
letters, acronyms such as UNESCO, NATO, radar or laser are pronounced as a single word. Mixed
cases such as CD-ROM are also possible.
3. Word manufacture or coinage is used, to create product names; its also used by writers of fiction
for characters or items that exist only within their text, for example hobbit in John RR. Tolkien s the
lord of the rings.