Chapter 1
Morphology: An Introduction
Learning Objectives:
The students are expected to be able to define morphology, its scope and the
rationale in learning morphology.
Indicators:
1. To define morphology
2. To explain the scope of morphology
3. To explain the rationale of learning morphology
What is Morphology?
The word morphology has been used in the English language since a long
time ago especially in biology. It refers to “the branch of biology that deals with
the form of living organisms and their parts, and the relationships between their
structures”. The word morphology has its base from the Greek word ‘morph’ that
means ‘shape, form’ and ‘ology’ that mean ‘the study of thing’. Morphology tells
how words are formed and it focuses on studying words.
Carstairs-McCarthy (2002) states that morphology is the area of grammar
concerned with the structure of words and with relationships between words
involving the morphemes that compose them. While Yule (2010) mentions that
morphology is a study of basic forms in a language.
According to crystal (1980:232-233), morphology is a branch of grammar
that studies the structure or the form of words, particularly through the use
morpheme. In general, morphology is divided into two field : the study of
1
inflection (Inflectional morphology) and the study of word formation (lexical or
derivational morphology). If the emphasis is in the technique of analyzing words
into morphemes, especially as practiced by American linguists in the 1940s and
1950s, then the term morphemic is used.
According To Bauer (1983:33), Morphology studies the internal structures
of word form. in morphology, the analyst divides word form into its constituent
formatives (most of which are morphs in the form of root or affixes), and to
explain the sequence of each formative. Morphology can be divided into two
branches, such as inflectional morphology and word formation (also called lexical
morphology). Inflectional morphology studies various form of lexeme, while word
formation studies new lexemes from certain bases. Word formation can be further
divided into derivation and compounding (or composition). Derivation is
concerned with the formation of new lexemes through affixation, while
compounding is concerned with the formation of new lexeme from two or more
potential stems. Derivation can also sometimes be devided into class maintaining
derivation and class changing derivation. Class maintaining derivation is the
derivation of new lexeme whose class is the same as the base from which the
lexeme is formed, while class changing derivation produces lexemes whose class is
different from its base. Compounding is usually divided according to the class or
category of words of the compound words that are produced into compound nouns,
compound verb, compound adjective, etc.
O’Grady & Dobrovolsky (1989 ; 89-99) state that morphology is a
component of generative transformational grammar which studies the internal
structure of words, especially complex words. Furthermore, they distinguish
between general morphology which applies for all languages and specific
morphology which only applies for a particular language. The theory of general
2
morphology is concerned with accurate discussion of what kinds of morphological
rules that can be found in natural languages.
Morphology and Its Scope
After defining what morphology is, it is important to define the scope of the
study. It is indeed talking about words but the scope may be larger than what we
think. In morphology, we learn about the structure of words, which means that we
learn about parts of the words (later we will know it is called morpheme), how to
form the words from a single lexeme through affixation (we will learn it through
inflectional and derivational morphology), how words are formed (productivity of
words) and how its parts can contribute to its meaning.
The Importance of Studying Morphology
Morphology is generally described as the study of the internal form of words
and the rules of the organization of words in a language. It is piece of our
grammatical knowledge in a language. Like linguistic knowledge, it will
commonly be unconscious knowledge. English students need to determine
knowledge based on understanding word formation processes and the structure of
words. By establishing a sensibility of English morphology, English teachers will
be able to assist their students easily understand how words enter a language, what
their compositions are, and how they are formed by modifying and combining
roots, prefixes, and suffixes. According to the current studies, students will get a
better reading comprehension and larger vocabulary if they have awareness on
word formation processes. Therefore, morphology would be an important
pedagogical guidance for language students to elaborate and apply vocabulary
imaginatively.
3
The purpose of studying morphology is to identify the field of morphology;
the internal form of words, the classification of words, and also the base and the
modification of words’ meanings. Studying morphology is not only for students of
linguistics, but also for English students in general and those for English teacher
education programs especially.
The importance of morphology in grammar is to study words forms and to
study sentence structure. A language will be classified according to the principles
of the grammar which hold for them. Linguists believe that there is a relationship
between every components of grammar. As a study of the form of words,
morphology works as a program to link various constituent of a language. The
generative grammar transformational does not have strong relationship with
morphology. They could not draw clear differences between aspects of morphology
and the theories of syntax and phonology.
Morphology is an investigation into the nature of linguistic systems, and
thus human, natural language. Morphology, for example, clearly demonstrates that
linguistic structure has two axes, a syntagmatic axis and a paradigmatic axis.
Morphology is also used to gain a better grasp of the nature of linguistic rules and
the internal organization of natural language grammar. As a result, we may learn
more about the architecture of the human language faculty as well as the nature of
rule-governed innovation in the domain of language.
Also, one of linguists ‘purposes in studying morphology is to create a
typology of languages: what are the dimensions along which languages differ, and
how are these dimensions of variation related and restricted? Do all languages have
morphology, and if so, what sorts of morphology do they have? Is it possible to
explain the morphological similarities and differences between languages?
4
Grammarians also express the speaker’s knowledge in some rules. By
adding -ize as an attachment, new words will be formed as a productive
morphological process in which the word formation has considerable deliberation.
As the example, the adjective ‘social’ can be changed into a verb by adding -ize,
and thus compose a new word ‘socialize’. It has different meaning and different
classification. This rules states that one of the most important components of
grammar like noun, verb, adjective or adverb in a base word has a modification, it
will change a base word into a new word by adding suffix in it. There is also
another type of rule says that a productive morphological process may change the
shape of several morphemes, called adjustment rule.
It is the responsibility of linguists to describe and analyze the world's
languages as correctly and insightfully as possible. As a result, they must deal with
morphological phenomena of a language and, require a set of description tools.
Morphology provides such tools in the form of a set of analytic ideas.
Finally, morphology can help us understand how linguistic rules work in
language perception and production, as well as how linguistic knowledge is
mentally represented. This topic is illuminated by both psychological and historical
facts. Thus, morphology contributes to the larger goals of cognitive science, which
investigates human cognitive abilities.
