MORPHOLOGY: THE

MINIMAL UNITS OF
MEANING
 MORPHOLOGY: The words
of the Language
How many words do know in Acehnese /
Bahasa / English/ etc. ?
How are they formed?
Estimated :Child of 6: 13,000, High
School Graduate: 60,000.
Thecatsatonthemat vs Uncharacteristically
Lexicon: Mental Dictionary (Greek:
Dictionary)
THE STUDY OF INTERNAL
STRUCTURE OF WORDS,
AND OF THE RULES BY
WHICH THE WORDS ARE
FORMED.
CONTENT AND FUNCTION WORDS
CONTENT WORDS : Denote concepts
such as objects, actions, attributes,
ideas we can think about, e.g. Children,
build, beautiful, seldom, ect. Open
Class Words: Facebook (noun), blog
(noun, verb), frack (verb), online (adj.,
adverb), blingy (adjective) we can
regularly and do add words to these
classes.
CONTENT AND FUNCTION WORDS
FUNCTION WORDS : Do not have clear
lexical meanings or obvious
concepts associated with them;
Conjunctions (an, or, but),
Prepositions (in, of), the Articles
(the, a/an), Pronoun (it, me).
Closed Class Words
MORPHEME: The Minimal Units of Meaning

FUNCTION WORDS : Do not have cleas

lexical meanings or obvious
concepts associated with them;
Conjunctions (an, or, but),
Prepositions (in, of), the Articles
(the, a/an), Pronoun (it, me).
Closed Class Words
 THE MOST ELEMENTAL UNIT OF
GRAMMATICAL FORMS
THE SMALLEST IDENTIFIABLE
GRAMMATICAL UNITS
THE SMALLEST UNITS OF
LINGUISTIC MEANING
THE SMALLEST IDENTIFIABLE
GRAMMATICAL UNITS.
 A single word may be composed of one or
more morphemes
One morpheme Boy
Desire
Meditate
Two Morphemes Boy + ish
Desire + able
Meditate + tion
Three Morphemes Boy + ish + ness
Desire + able + ity
 A single word may be composed of one or
more morphemes
Four Morphemes gentle + man + li + ness
un + desire + able + ity
More than four
un + gentle + man + li + ness
anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism
A morpheme may be represented by a single sound:
amoral (morpheme a : without)
Free Morphemes: can stand alone;
contitute words by themselves (boy,
desire, gentle, man, ect.)
Bound Morphemes (Affixes) : can;t
stand alone; must be attached at the
beginning, in the middle, at the end,
or both at the beginning and end of a
word (-ish, -ness, -ly, -pre, -trans, -un.
Etc.)
 Prefixes, Suffixes, Infixes, Circumfixes
Prefixes : Morphemes attached at the initial words.
examples: ....?
Suffixes: Morphemes attached at the end of words
Examples: ....?
Infixes: Morphemes inserted into other morphemes.
Eg. In Philippines:
NOUN/ADJ. VERBS
fikas strong fumikas to be strong
kilad red kumilad to be red
fusul enemy fumusul to be an enemy
Circumfixes: Morphemes attached to a base
morpheme initially or finally.
In Chickasaw, a Muskogean Language spoken in
Oklohama:

Affirmative Negative
Chokma he is good ik + chokm + o he isnt good
Lakna it is yellow ik + lakn + o it isnt yellow
Palli it is hot ik + pall + o it isnt hot
 Stem
Root
Rules of words formations