English Morphology

by Drs. I Wayan Suarnajaya, M.A., Ph.D

The topics covered for English Morphology
Course:
1. Units in a language and morphology as an aspect of
linguistics.
2. The Definition of Morphology.
It is derived from Greek word “Morphe” meaning
form/shape.
It is concerned with the status of the word within linguistic
analysis.
3. The Identification of Words.
a. Leonard Bloomfield’s definition of words (1933)
b. The exploration of Bloomfield’s definition of words from
Semantics, Structure, and Phonology.
4. Lexemes vs. Words
5. Morphemes vs. words
6. Types of Morphemes:
a. Lexical Morphemes vs. Grammatical Morphemes.
b. Free vs. Bound Morphemes.
7. Roots, Stems, and Affixes
8. Compound and Bound Roots.
9. Derivational vs. Inflectional Morphemes.
10. Building Words.
a. Inflection and Derivation
b. Morphological Process.
11. Morphological Process as a means of building words.
a. Affixation: prefix, infix, suffix. d. Conversion
b. Backformation e. Compounding
c. Stem modification f. Reduplication
12. Productive Morphemes.
13. Representing Morphemes:
Morphemes, Morphs, Allomorphs
14. Principles Employed for the Identification of Morphemes.
Principles 1 to 5.
 Morphology as an Aspect of Linguistics
Units of Language Aspects of Linguistics

Texts Discourse

Sentences

Clauses Syntax

Phrases

Words Morphology

Phonemes Phonology
 The Other Aspects of Linguistics
Semantics

Pragmatics

Language
Psycholinguistics

Psychology

Language
Sociolinguistics

Sociology
The Definition of Morphology.
- The word morphology is derived from the Greek word
‘morphe’ which means form/shape.
- It is concerned with the status of the word within linguistic
analysis. This status can be questioned as follows:
- Does the word form a natural unit for analysis?
- What are the criteria for determining it?
The word does appear to form a natural unit for analysis. This
can be seen by determining word boundary in a continuous
stream of sound:
Thereisnolovesincererthantheloveoffood
The Identification of Words
a. The definition of words by Leonard Bloomfield (1933): (1)
Words are defined as the smallest units of meaning that are
able to function independently in a language; (2) Words can
also be defined as minimum free forms.
b. The exploration of Bloomfield’s definition of words can be
done from such aspects as: Semantics, Structure, and
Phonology.
1. Semantics. Semantically, a word constitutes a single
meaningful unit. But we have problem with the words:
unappetizing, more tasty (tastier), the delicious food
(representing a single concept).
2. Structure. The exploration of a word as a unit can be viewed
from position, uninterruptibility, the ability of words to stand
alone.
Position
Position:
- It is not possible to rearrange elements within words, but words
themselves as single units show a certain mobility.
- Words can be permuted, while bits/elements of words cannot, except
the words on, not, the.

Uninterruptibility:
- It is not possible to place material within English words since words
constitute single bound units.
- But it is possible to place material between words.

The ability of words to stand alone:

- The answer to the question “What’s the staple of life?” can be ‘meat’ or
‘tofu’.
- The words not or a, which can’t normally stand in isolation, can be
manipulated to do so. The word not is placed at the end of a sentence
for ironic effect among teenage (I like you – not). The question “Did you
say a or the?” can simply be answered “a” or ‘the’.
3. Phonology
Phonologically, a conception of words as units of sound structure
can be seen from the following illustration:
a. Some languages have regular stress patterning and assign it
on the basis of word form. Consider the pronunciation of the
following words when used as different parts of speech:
object, present, incense, permit, insult, reject.
b. Pauses and hesitations typically occur at word boundaries.
There is emmm no love …… sincerer than rrrr the love of food.
Lexemes vs. Words
Consider the following items: eat, eats, eating, eaten, ate.
- These are different words with different pronunciation, spelling,
meaning, and grammar.
- But we all feel that they represent one vocabulary item; they are
just different forms of it.
- This one vocabulary item which is represented by a number of
different forms is called lexeme. The forms eat, eats, eating,
eaten, ate are five different word-forms. But they represent one
lexeme, which is commonly written in capital letters.
- Referring to the five items above, the lexeme EAT can have five
different physical representations
- Referring to the relationship between words and their meanings,
there are some notions that need to be considered: homonyms,
homophones, homographs, syncretism, and polysemy.
Homonyms
Homonyms are words that belong to different lexemes but that
are written and pronounced the same:
- Can: as modal auxiliary and as a noun that means a container.
- Grouse means excellent in NZ, and type of game bird in OZ.
Homophones
Homophones are words having the same pronunciation, but being
different in meanings and spellings: see – sea, meet – meat.
Homographs
Homographs are words having the same spelling but different
pronunciation: ‘read’.
Syncretism
Syncretism is the same word form of a lexeme representing
different grammatical meanings: ‘cut’
Polysemy
Polysemy is one lexeme which has several different but closely
related meanings. Consider the meaning of the word ‘bug’ as it is
used in a computer, in roses attacking the roses, in a bed, laying
someone up in bed.

Morphemes vs. Words

a. Words are valid linguistic units, but they are not minimal units.
This is because there are words that can still be divided into
smaller meaningful parts called ‘morphemes’. Consider the
word unappetising.
b. Morphemes are best described as the smallest units of
meaning in the structure of the language. This signifies that
morphemes as units cannot be divided any more without
altering the meaning.
c. Words can be morphemes, but morphemes are not always
words: pumpkins (pumpkin +s).
 Types of Morphemes
In order to become a useful working concept, a number of basic distinctions of
morphemes need to be clarified.
a. Lexical vs. grammatical – the distinction based on the type of meaning
involved.
Lexical morphemes (LM): A cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a
college education. The underlined words are lexical morphemes. The
remaining words in the S are grammatical morphemes.
Lexical morphemes are the ones having something to do with the meaning
outside the language. Their meanings relate to aspects of human
experience existing in the world.
Grammatical morphemes (GM) are the ones that do not relate to items in
real world experience, but that deal with the relationship between the
items in a sentence.
b. Free vs. bound morphemes – based on where they can appear, whether by
themselves or in the presence of other morphemes.
c. Inflectional and derivational bound morphemes
d. Roots, stems, and affixes
Roots are single lexical morphemes, which are usually free. They
usually represent the core of the word to which bound morphemes
(affixes) may then be added.
Stems are constructions containing one or more affixes to which
other affixes can be added.
Affixes are bound morphemes that can be differentiated into
prefixes, infixes, and suffixes.
Clitics is an item existing somewhere between free and bound
morphemes.
n’t, ‘ll, ‘d,

Compound and Bound roots

Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes

Compound and Bound Roots
Words consist of a single root. But there are words
consisting of two or more roots referred to as
‘compounds’.
Examples:
‘blackball = boiled lolly
‘black’ball
Hot dogs, hot-dogs, or hotdogs
East West, East-West (1982), Eastwest (1990)
once a year = a phrase expressing a single concept:
Turkey is a once a year treat for most of us
God’s own country = Godzone
Grinstone
Nostril
Breakfast

Morphemes, Morphs, and Allomorphs

Plural Morphemes
Present Morphemes
Past Morphemes

Building words: Derivation and Inflection

The two primary aspects of word building are:
a. The creation of grammatical words (inflection).
b. The creation of lexical words (derivation).
Within these two categories, there appear a number of
morphological processes, such as: affixation, back formation, stem
modification, conversion, compounding, and reduplication.

Inflection ---- Morphological Processes ---- Derivation

Affixation, backformation, and stem modification are applicable to
both inflection and derivation. Compounding, reduplication, and
conversion apply only to derivation.

Morphological processes
A. Affixation: is a common method of indicating grammatical
distinctions and of forming new words. This is concerned with
the addition of affixes to stems or roots.
B. Backformation: It is concerned with the formation of new
vocabulary items relying on pattern extension, which works in
the opposite direction by removing an affix. It can happen that
the form (X + affix) exists in the language before the simple
form (X).
bludger – to bludge (to scrounge) baker – bake
Other verbs are: afflict, enthuse, laze, liaise, aggress, grovel,
televise, gate-crash, manhandle, eavesdrop, house-hunt, jell.
contact lens – contact len,
C. Stem modification
Making use of alternations in stem vowels , consonants, tone, and
stress to indicate particular grammatical meanings and to derive new
lexical items. This was once a very important process in English but
now it has a much less significant role to play.
- Vowel modification to indicate tense: drink-drank-drunk, eat-ate-
eaten; man-men, foot – feet.
- The use of affixation as a way of marking tense distinction:
stepped for stope, climbed for clomb.
D. Conversion: Some words can convert to other parts of speech without
adding any affix (conversion = zero affixation).
up – to up, down – to down, the up, a down.
to guess – a guess, to command – a command, to read – a read, to ask
– a big ask,
bottle – to bottle, a bridge – to bridge, a mail – to mail, a thrash – to
thrash, a network – to network, an impact – to impact, a leaflet – to
leaflet. Better – to better, empty – to empty, open –to open,
E. Compounding
kingdom, christendom,
Slang words: egghead, dickhead, acidhead,
blockhead, blubberhead, cheesehead, boofhead,
fathead, meathead, pinhead.
F. Reduplication: is a repetition process whereby all or
part of the stem is repeated and the resulting form is
a kind of compound.
Three types of reduplicated compounds:
- reduplication of the whole stem: goody-goody,
fifty-fifty, hubba-hubba, never-never, hush-hush,
woop-woop, wop-wops (remote area). Nursury
language: woof-woof, Mama, yum-yum, ta-ta, gee-
gee.
- A second type of reduplication involves the repetition of the rhyme,
that is, the root vowel(s) and following consonant (s). Sometimes one,
and sometimes none of the elements are independently meaningful:
argy-bargy, arty-farty, lovey-dovey, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy,
super-duper, namby-pamby, hankey-pankey, hokey-pokey, hoity-toity.
Occasionally the stems are both existing words: stun-gun, brain-drain,
flower-power, culture-vulture, and gang-bang. This type of
reduplication is very productive, particularly in slang: tin-grin
(someone with braces), sprain(ed) brain (crazy person).
- The third type of reduplicative compound is rarer than the others. It
involves some sort of modification of the stem vowel: silly-sally, dilly-
dally, mishmash, riff-raff, tick-tock, flip-flop. Many of these are related
to expressive formations, where the sounds attempt to imitate the
sense of the word (for instance hurdy gurdy is somehow appropriate
to the sound of instrument). Sometimes the sounds or sound
sequences come to symbolyse certain meanings and spawn new
formations. The –ing rhyme, for example, has become an expressive
pattern for speakers, producing formation such as ping-pong, ding-
dong, wing-ding, swing-wing, sing-song.
Productive Morphemes

Productive morphemes refer to any morphological process that is

frequently or actively used in word formation. This basically
indicates that the more frequently an affix is used, the more
productive we assume it is.
Degree of productivity
Certain morphological process is only effective for the formation of
certain words.
a. The –ade suffix is only productive in forming the names of
flavored soft drinks: lemonade, orangeade, ginggerade.
b. The suffix –ize is extremely productive in forming verbs from
nouns or adjectives of more than one syllable: buglarize,
containerize, marginalize.
c. The suffix –ion is productive for forming noun from verbs ending
in –ate.
 Principles employed for the identification of
morphemes
There are six principles applied in isolating and identifying
morphemes:
A. Principle 1: Forms which have a common semantic
distinctiveness and an identical phonemic form in all
their occurrences constitute a single morpheme.
* -er added to verbs: worker, dancer, runner, walker is a
morpheme indicating ‘the doer of the action’ or ‘agentive’.
* -er in comparative adjectives: wider, broader, smaller, deeper,
cleaner.
B. Principle 2: Forms which have a common semantic
distinctiveness but which differ in phonemic form (i.e.
the phonemes or order of the phonemes) may
constitute a morpheme provided the distribution of
formal differences is phonologically definable.
 * Negative prefix in English which can have more than a single form:
intolerable – impossible; intangible, indecent; impracticable,
impersonal.
* A slightly more extensive type of assimilation occurs in the series:
comparable, context, congregate /kam-, kan-, kang-/
The application of Principle 2:
a. Where the sounds involved exhibit some phonetic similarities. Examples
in English: comparable, context, congregate.
b. Where the sounds involved may not exhibit phonetic similarities.
The regular plural morphemes in English: /-iz, /-z/, /-s/.
c. Where sequences of phonemes are involved.
Sudan colloquial Arabic:
The second person singular feminine possessive pronoun has two
forms: -ik and –ki ; kita.bik (your book), axu.ki (your brother). In this
case, the phonemes of the alternant forms are identical, it is just the
order which is different. The distribution of these alternants is
phonologically definable.
a. Identify the morpheme having allomorphs.
b. Describe the phonologically defined
distribution.
1. nahimb ‘broom’
2. nahndot ‘dust’
3. nasei ‘man’
4. ahimb ‘to sweep’
5. -hta ‘female’
6. -sei ‘male’
7. nahta ‘woman’
8. ahndot’to dust’
1. Fred goes to the playground every day.
2. The ragged tramp walked under the bridges.
3. Some students enjoy finding morphemes.
4. A reddish-haired flapper dashes down the highway in a speedster.
5. Fifteen boys jumped noisily into the newly finished swimming
pool.
6. The wrinkled little old man wobbled uneasily along the slippery
sidewalk.
7. The employer angrily dispatched a message to the workman’s
home.
8. The hungry creature creeps stealthily through the dark.
9. The faithful dog showed the greatest of love to his unkind master.
10. The fool crowded ten persons into the car.
Principle 3: Forms which have a common semantic distinctiveness but
which differ in phonemic form in such a way that their distribution cannot
be phonologically defined constitute a single morpheme if the forms are
in complementary distribution in accordance with the following
restrictions:
1. Occurrence in the same structural series has precedence over
occurrence in different structural series in the determination of
morphemic status.
2. Complementary distribution in different structural series constitutes
a basis for combining possible allomorphs into one morpheme only if
there also occurs in these different structural series a morpheme
which belongs to the same distribution class as the allophonic series
in question and which itself has only one allomorph or phonologically
defined allomorphs.
3. Immediate tactical environments have precedence over non-
immediate tactical environments in determining morphemic status.
4. Contrast in identical distributional environments may be treated as
sub-morphemic if the differences in meaning of the allomorphs
reflects the distribution of the forms.
The Meaning of Principle 3:
A. “Common semantic distinctiveness” is identical in meaning and
application as it is used in 1 and 2.
B. The clause “but which differ in phonemic form in such a way
that their distribution cannot be phonologically defined” means
that the differences of form cannot be treated under Principle
2, whereby we reconcile such formal contrasts by determining
the phonological distribution.
C. “Complementary distribution” means that differences of forms
are paralleled by differences of distribution. For example, a
morpheme has three allomorphs (1, 2, 3). These allomorphs
occur with stem A through J in such a way that not more than
one allomorph ever occurs with a single stem, e.g. A1, B1, C3,
D2, D2, E1, F3, G2, H1, I3, J2. In accordance with this type of
distribution, we may say that the allomorphs 1, 2, 3 are in
complementary distribution with stems A through J.
D. Certain “restriction” are necessary to the general principle of complementary
distribution. Otherwise we would be involved in many contradictory types of
analyses.
E. The phrase “same structural series” in restriction 1 identifies a series of forms
which are structurally related, both by contrast with other series and by virtue
of their having certain common features. The forms roses, boys, lips, oxen,
and sheep belong to the same structural series. The formational elements of
the plural are not identical, but this series contrasts with all other series in
English and exhibits the common features of having singular nouns as stems
and plural formatives as consisting of a single allomorphic series. The genitive
morpheme /-əz ̴ -z ̴ -s/ is in a different structural series in that it occurs with
both singular and plural nouns – man’s and men’s.
F. In order to understand the meaning of restriction 2, we may consider a purely
hypothetical problem involving the following sets of pronouns:
Subject Pronouns Object Pronouns
(always following the verb) (always preceding the verb)
1st per -na fi-
2nd per -so ka-
3rd per -ri po-
 These nominal affixes are in complementary distribution and are in
different structural series. They do not, however, meet the
requirements of restriction 2 for permitting the combination of the six
forms into three sets of bi-allomorphic morphemes (i.e. morphemes
with two allomorphs), since there is no one morpheme in both
structural series which has the same form or allomorphs whose
distribution may be phonologically defined. If, however, we could add
to this set the affixal form zo a third person inanimate pronoun, both
subjective and objective, then we would have the data which would
permit the combining of the subjective and objective forms.
G. The phrase “immediate tactical environments” in restriction 3 identifies
the immediate construction in which any morpheme occurs. For
example, in the boys died the immediate tactical environment of –s is
boy-. Any combination of boys such as the boys or the boys died is the
nonimmediate tactical environment of –s. “Tactical” refers to the
meaningful relationship of forms to each other. This relationship is
definable in terms of form (the order and junctures) and function (the
relationship of the parts to the whole.
H.
Productivity
Productivity in morphology refers to the fact that word formation
is assumed to be productive.
There has been controversial opinions concerning productivity in
word formation.
a. The study of word formation involves productivity.
b. It must be questioned if particular processes of word formation
are productive. The question is related to the extent to which
the word formation can be said to be productive in general.