🤟🏼Intro to the Study of Language Unit 4 – Word Formation: Morphology Basics

What's Morphology Anyway?

• Morphology studies the internal structure of words and how they are formed
• Focuses on the smallest meaningful units in a language called morphemes
• Examines how morphemes combine to create new words and modify existing ones
• Explores the rules and patterns governing the formation of words in a language
• Helps understand the relationship between word structure and meaning
• Provides insights into the grammatical categories and functions of words
• Contributes to the understanding of language acquisition and processing

Building Blocks: Morphemes Explained

• Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in a language that cannot be further divided
• They carry semantic or grammatical information and contribute to the meaning of words
• Morphemes can be free or bound depending on their ability to stand alone as words
• Free morphemes (cat, run) can function independently as words
• Bound morphemes (-s, -ed) must be attached to other morphemes to form complete words
• Morphemes combine to create complex words (unbreakable) and convey specific meanings
• The study of morphemes helps analyze the internal structure and composition of words

Free vs. Bound: Types of Morphemes

• Free morphemes are independent units that can stand alone as words (book, green)
  • They have a complete meaning and do not require attachment to other morphemes
  • Examples of free morphemes include nouns (tree), verbs (sing), and adjectives (happy)
• Bound morphemes are dependent units that cannot occur independently as words
  • They must be attached to other morphemes to form complete words
  • Bound morphemes are further classified into affixes and bound roots
• Affixes are bound morphemes that attach to roots or stems to modify their meaning or grammatical function
  • Prefixes (un-, re-) attach to the beginning of a word
  • Suffixes (-ly, -ness) attach to the end of a word
• Bound roots are morphemes that cannot stand alone but form the core meaning of a word (cran- in cranberry)

Roots, Stems, and Affixes: The Word Skeleton

• Roots are the core morphemes that carry the basic meaning of a word
  • They form the foundation to which other morphemes can be attached
  • Examples of roots include "kind" in "kindness" and "teach" in "teacher"
• Stems are the part of a word to which inflectional affixes can be added
  • They may consist of a single root (book) or a root plus derivational affixes (kind-ness)
  • Stems serve as the base for inflectional changes (book-s, kind-ness-es)
• Affixes are bound morphemes that attach to roots or stems to modify their meaning or grammatical function
• Prefixes attach to the beginning of a word (re-write, un-happy) and can change its meaning
• Suffixes attach to the end of a word (kind-ness, talk-ed) and can change its grammatical category or function
• Infixes are rare in English but are inserted within a word in some languages (abso-bloody-lutely)

Prefixes and Suffixes: Spicing Up Words

• Prefixes are bound morphemes that attach to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning
  • They can add semantic information (un-happy) or change the word's grammatical function (en-rich)
  • Common prefixes include "re-" (redo), "dis-" (dislike), and "pre-" (preheat)
• Suffixes are bound morphemes that attach to the end of a word to modify its meaning or grammatical function
  • Derivational suffixes change the word's grammatical category or meaning (-ness, -ly)
  • Inflectional suffixes indicate grammatical information such as tense, number, or case (-s, -ed, -ing)
• Prefixes and suffixes can be combined to create more complex words (un-break-able)
• The choice of prefixes and suffixes depends on the desired meaning and grammatical function
• Understanding prefixes and suffixes helps in analyzing word formation and predicting word meanings

Compound Words: Two Become One

• Compound words are formed by combining two or more free morphemes to create a new word with a distinct meaning
• The individual morphemes in a compound word can be nouns (bookstore), adjectives (red-hot), or other parts of speech
• Compound words can be written as single words (firefighter), hyphenated words (mother-in-law), or separate words (ice cream)
• The meaning of a compound word may be related to the meanings of its constituent morphemes (sunrise) or may have a unique meaning (butterfly)
• Compound words can be endocentric, where the word refers to a subtype of one of its components (classroom), or exocentric, where the word's meaning is not directly related to its components (pickpocket)
• The process of forming compound words is called compounding and is a productive way of creating new words in English

Inflection vs. Derivation: Changing Word Forms

• Inflection and derivation are morphological processes that change the form of words
• Inflection modifies words to express grammatical categories without changing the word's core meaning or class
  • Inflectional affixes indicate tense (walk-ed), number (cat-s), case (he/him), or agreement (she walk-s)
  • Inflectional changes are required by the grammatical rules of a language
• Derivation creates new words by changing the meaning or grammatical category of the base word
  • Derivational affixes can change the word's part of speech (kind → kind-ness) or add semantic information (happy → un-happy)
  • Derivational changes are optional and can result in the formation of new lexical items
• Inflectional affixes are typically added after derivational affixes in a word (kind-ness-es)
• The distinction between inflection and derivation helps understand the different ways words can be modified and the resulting changes in meaning and function

Morphological Processes in Action

• Morphological processes describe the ways in which morphemes combine to form words
• Affixation is the process of attaching affixes to roots or stems to create new words
  • Prefixation adds a prefix to the beginning of a word (un-happy)
  • Suffixation adds a suffix to the end of a word (kind-ness)
• Compounding combines two or more free morphemes to form a new word (mailbox)
• Conversion or zero derivation changes a word's grammatical category without adding an affix (to walk → a walk)
• Reduplication repeats all or part of a word to create a new word or express grammatical information (zig-zag, wiki-wiki)
• Clipping shortens a word by removing one or more syllables (advertisement → ad)
• Blending combines parts of two or more words to create a new word (breakfast + lunch → brunch)
• Backformation creates a new word by removing an affix from an existing word (editor → to edit)