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Abstract
Morphology has vital impact on the development and perception of English words. As a major
level of linguistic analysis it plays a considerable role in producing and building thousands of
English words. English derives a huge number of words on a daily basis from all the languages
of the world and morphology gives you an idea about the source of the words with rules and
In view of the above submission, this paper examines the significant contribution of morphology
to study of English language taking into cognizance that the morphology is the study of word
structure as well as word formation processes. Also, it reviews the usefulness of morphemic
The paper is divided into two sections; the first section reviews the concept of morphology,
morpheme, and word formation process. The second section focuses on scholarly review of
morphemic awareness, its relevance and the significant contributions of morphology to the study
of English Language.
Section 1.1: The Concept of Morphology
Morphology is defined as the study of the internal structure of words and the rules governing the
formation of words in a language (Celik, 2007; Yule, 2010). This implies that morphology
studies the internal structure of words. It tries to describe which meaningful pieces can be
combined to form words and the consequences of such combination on the meaning or
Within the domain of linguistics, the word morphology refers to the study of structure of words
in terms of morphemes, or minimal meaningful elements i.e., prefixes, roots, and suffixes
(Bloomfield, 1933), The meaning of a word is derived from the combined meanings of the
morphemes of that particular word. For example, a certain level of morphological awareness is
helpful in determining that the er in farmer denotes one who farms and the un in unhappy
According to Crystal, D. (1995) morphology is the study of the structure of words especially in
terms of morphemes. The word played has two structures or components; the verb „play‟ which
is the stem or root and the morpheme –ed. Morphemes incorporate roots, stems, prefixes, and
suffixes. They are the smallest parts of words that convey significance. Having the capacity to
use morpheme is integral to building an overwhelming vocabulary and grasping English content.
For an instance the addition of morpheme –age to words like marry and carry will derive new
Aronoff and Fudeman (2010, pp. 1-2) refer to it as “the mental system involved in word
formation” as well as a branch of linguistics that investigates words, their internal structure, and
how they are created. This implies that morphology is indeed part of a speaker‟s grammatical
knowledge of a language.
Invariably morphology is closely connected to the notion of words because it deals with how
words are formed, structure of words, and how they contribute to meaning of words. In other
words, morphology is the study of form, structure and meaning of words. Words such as take,
takes, took, taken, taking are regarded as the different forms of the lexeme „take‟. Also, as word
formation process, it is saddled with the responsibility of how words are generated and formed in
the lexicon as well as rules guiding the formation of words especially syntactic rules.
Crystal (1976:193) defines a morpheme as “the smallest bit of language which has a meaning”.
As the smallest meaningful unit of the grammar of a language, it cannot be broken down into any
other meaningful unit. It is the minimal unit used in building words in a language which cannot
be further split without altering its meaning. For example, “if you add a morpheme to an
utterance, or take away, by definition you alter the meaning of the utterance”. For example,
A morpheme we can say is the unit of meaning that includes a form like play, and units of
grammatical function which includes elements used to show tense, number and comparison. For
example, the word “players” consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is play,
another minimal unit of meaning is –er (marking “person who does something”), and the other
Morphemes are divided into two classes: Free and Bound Morphemes. Free morphemes are
morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words that make sense e.g. open and tour.
Bound morphemes are those forms that cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached
to another form e.g. re- as in reapply,-ist as in cultist, -ed as in looked, and-s as in cars. These
morphemes cannot make meaning on their own except they are either added to nouns as in {car}
+ {s}, or added to verbs as in {look} + {ed}. With this, one can conveniently argue that all
affixes in English are bound morphemes whether they are prefixes or suffixes. There are those
that are called bound base morphemes. They are not meaningful in isolation but have meanings
when combined with other morphemes. For example, „cran‟ in cran-berry, cran-apple, cran-
grape.
Word formation takes place in these two distinct realms of morphology; inflectional and
derivational.
Inflectional Morphology studies the way in which words vary (or inflect) in order to express
1997:90). Girl and girls for example are two forms of the same word; the choice between them,
singular and plural is a matter of grammar. Thus inflectional morphology treats the generation of
All inflectional features such as perfect aspect (-en), progressive aspect (-ing), gerundive (-ing),
tense (+ past, -past), comparative and superlative markers are generated by phrase structure rules.
Words like broken, breaking, breaks and broke are created by the syntactic morphological
processes. At the surface structure, inflectional features are incorporated into words. These
Derivational Morphology is the study of word formation processes which occur in the lexicon.
According to Jackson (1985:34), the term derivational refers to the creation of new words by
means of the addition of an affix to a stem. Derivation is a lexical process which actually forms a
new word out of an existing one by the addition of derivational affix. For an instance the suffix –
ance and –ion may be added to verbs accept and instruct to realize acceptance and instruction. In
view of this, derivational morphology studies the way in which new items of vocabulary can be
Derivational morphemes are lexically introduced. In the lexicon, there are rules which attach
morphemes to stems and words to form new words. The words production, management and
remarkable are lexically derived from the words produce, manage and remark. The output of
lexical word derivational is the input to syntax. Production, management and remarkable are
inserted into the phrase markers as words at the level of deep structure.
Section 2.1: Morphemic Awareness:
More recently, morphological awareness has begun to receive attention as another linguistic skill
that impacts language learning. According to Carlisle (2000) it is the ability to parse words and
analyze constituent morphemes for the purpose of constructing meaning. Morphemes are the
smallest units of meaning in our language. Given that morphemes occur in spoken and written
written morphemes, including an understanding of what written affixes (i.e., prefixes and
suffixes) look like orthographically and the rules that govern how affixes attach to base words or
roots.
Guo, Y. & etal (2011) are of the view that morphological awareness is the explicit knowledge of
the way in which words are built up by combining smaller meaningful units, such as prefixes,
roots, and suffixes (p. 160). Invariably, morphological awareness helps learners to identify the
smallest meaningful units of language such as free and bound morphemes as well as inflectional
and derivational markers. This is especially important when learners often have difficulty in
reading and grasping academic vocabulary, partly due to the fact that there are many
phonological and morphological differences between English and many other languages..
knowledge about the pairing of sound and meaning in a language and the word formation rules
that guide the possible combination of morphemes. For example the word „beautiful‟, learners
who are morphologically aware understand the relationship between the base beauty and the
suffix -ful, their individual meanings, and how they can be combined to form the word beautiful.
They would further understand the parallels to other words ending in –ful, for example healthful,
morphologically complex words into their constituent morphemes (word meaning parts)” (p. 45).
It further involves understanding the function of the component morphemes. To return to our
example, the morphologically aware learner knows, if only subconsciously, that words ending in
–ful are usually adjectives, and are generally interpreted as “full of X”, etc.
Apel (2014) argues for a more comprehensive definition of morphological awareness that
includes awareness of spoken and written forms of morphemes as well as awareness of the
meaning of affixes and changes in meaning, spelling, and syntactic class that affixes bring to
stem words. For example the word operate functions as a verb whereas operation as a noun. Such
a definition according to him helps explain how morphological awareness helps in language
learning.
Language
Recent research suggests that learners with an awareness of word-formation processes tend to
have larger vocabulary and better reading comprehension (Kieffer and Lesaux, 2008; Kieffer and
In context, morphological analysis can help anybody to infer the meaning of some words, and, at
the same time, to learn new words easier than without it. Whether they are words we see in signs
on the street, or read in a written text, or hear in spoken messages. Knowing the terminations of
the words and its meanings can come in handy for English Teachers and students when they do
not know exactly the meaning of some words or they do not have a dictionary at hand.
The importance of being used to affixes and suffixes and the role they play in words helps the
English learners see the flexibility of language. With morphological knowledge, students can
take the notion of the meaning in the word “like” and transform it into a number of possibilities
(unlike, likely, unlikely, likable, unlikable, likeness, unlikeness) to express their message more
Morphological awareness can help English language students to familiarize with lexical
derivations and with the meaning or morphemes. They will be able to distinguish, for instance,
that the suffixes “-ment” or “-ness” form a noun, or that the suffix “-ly” forms an adverb.
Ultimately, thye will be able to realize that, at some extent, the English language has a certain
morphological logic people have to observe, know in order produce new words. These new
morphology, on the ability that we humans would have to perfectly produce and understand
It is unarguably that the students of English need to establish a sound knowledge base in
understanding the structure of words and word formation processes. Developing an awareness of
English morphology becomes imperative as this will enable learners understand how words
enter a language, what they consist of and how they are formed by combining prefixes, suffixes,
and roots.
Morphology, the study of meaning, forms and structure of words is of very pivotal both to the
study and understanding of English language. English morphology includes knowledge of both
The significant contribution of morphology to the study of English Language is outlined thus:
a. The Contribution of Morphology to Word Recognition (English words)
All languages have a set of words which is the basis to understand and make sentences (Miller,
1991). Morphology has vital impact on the formation, meaning and structure of English words; it
alludes to the utilization of or the investigation of morphemes, the parts of words that pass on
significance. Morphemes as a constituent structure of words play a pivotal role both in word
processing. It underlies the productivity of the word formation process as well as fits into the
In terms of English, morphemes supply the crude materials for making new words, and the
dexterity of morphemes gives some portion of the generative force of the English Language.
Numerous new words are promptly reasonable on the grounds that they are made out of well-
known morphemes. For example the –er morpheme which often denotes performer of an action
(noun) when added to an action word can be used to create different new words such as singer,
dancer, farmer, learner and others. Also, the inflectional markers such as –en (past participle) –
ed/d ( past tense), -es/s (plural marker), -ing ( progressive and gerundive ) all help in recognition
of English words.
More than half of the words in English are morphologically complex (Anglin, 1993; Goulden,
Nation, & Read, 1990; Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Morphologically complex words are more
common in written language (and especially academic language) than in spoken language, and
the proportion of such words increases as frequency decreases. Thus, with each grade children
encounter an increasing number of morphologically complex words. The majority of these have
meanings that can be inferred from the meanings of their component parts (Nagy & Anderson,
1984), and so recognizing the morphological structure of words should aid children in
interpreting and learning them. And in fact, children‟s awareness of the morphological structure
Vocabulary gives us the opportunity to obtain the knowledge, to produce and comprehend the
language (Anglin, 1993; Laufer and Nation, 1999). Vocabulary learning is subjectively
requesting, consolidating the capacity to guide implications and realistic structures, the capacity
to insert words into sentential and talk structures, and the capacity to apply words to its present
reality.
Kuo and Anderson (2006) recommended that morphological mindfulness is interlaced with
phonological mindfulness, syntactic mindfulness, and vocabulary information. They also added
ability.
Anglin (1993) suggested that readers can take part in morphological investigation to break down
new words into constituent morphemes and in this way build their vocabulary items.
Nagy and Anderson (1984) estimate that 60% of the unfamiliar words a reader encounters in text
have meanings that can be predicted on the basis of their component morphemes. A reader with
a better grasp of word formation processes will be able to infer the meanings of these words and
will therefore learn more of them, as well as understand the text better.
Research in the field has shown the importance of morphological awareness to understanding
words and building vocabulary; it has shown that that more successful word-learners use
morphological analysis to understand and learn new words. It has also shown that, for the
acquisition of new vocabulary in English, learners, regardless of age or native language, benefit
word meanings after the meaning has been inferred or explained, hence aiding the process of
The knowledge of morphology is correlated with reading ability. However, the relationship
ability in a number of ways. This is because a substantial proportion of the words in English have
meanings that are predictable from the meanings of their parts (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). For an
instance –er morpheme attached the verb can be predicted to be a noun (the doer of an action).
d. Contribution to Writing
Another utility of morphology is that it helps us to have better writing skills. Knowledge of
lexical morphology could help a writer manage syntactic choices by assisting with the fluent
change of verbs into nominalizations, or the reverse, via manipulation of suffixes. Examples:
Additionally, morphological instruction has also been shown to improve learner's use of
Obviously, learners use their morphological skills not only to retrieve words they know but also
to construct novel morphological forms to fit the developing syntax of their sentences for
example solidize, presumably by analogy with crystallize. If students can manipulate words that
they already know by altering suffixes, they may be better able to express their intended meaning
more precisely and succinctly. Thus, morphemes may serve as a bridge that relates the word
level to the sentence level, with word-level manipulations assisting with sentence-level syntax.
Conclusion
successful word-learners use morphological analysis to understand and learn new words,
improve their reading and writing skills. Conclusively, morphology is a valuable instructional
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