Morphology
Morphology, Morphemes, Allomorphs and Types of Morphemes
1. Morphology
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words and how
words are formed by combining morphemes.
In simple words, morphology explains:
how words are made
how meanings change by adding prefixes and suffixes
Example:
unhappiness = un + happy + ness
This shows how one word is formed using different morphemes.
2. Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language.
It cannot be divided further without losing its meaning.
Examples:
book → one morpheme
teacher → teach + er
unfriendly → un + friend + ly
3. Types of Morphemes
Morphemes are divided into two main types:
Free Morphemes
Bound Morphemes
4. Free Morphemes
Free morphemes are those morphemes that can stand alone as complete words and have
meaning without adding anything.
Examples:
boy
run
happy
slow
(a) Lexical Morphemes
Lexical morphemes carry the main lexical meaning of a sentence.
They belong to open class words, which means new words can be added to this group.
Examples:
nouns: book, girl
verbs: eat, write
adjectives: beautiful, tall
adverbs: quickly, slowly
Lexical morphemes change or increase over time.
(b) Functional (Grammatical) Morphemes
Functional morphemes show grammatical relationships between words in a sentence.
They belong to closed class words, so new words are rarely added.
Examples:
articles: a, an, the
prepositions: in, on, at
conjunctions: and, but
pronouns: he, she, they
,auxiliaries: is, am, have
5. Bound Morphemes
Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must be attached to a free morpheme to form a
word.
Examples:
un- (unhappy)
-ed (worked)
-ness (kindness)
-s (books)
(a) Derivational Morphemes
Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes that change the meaning or the word class
of a word.
Examples:
happy → unhappy (meaning changes)
teach → teacher (verb to noun)
kind → kindness (adjective to noun)
Derivational morphemes can be prefixes or suffixes.
(b) Inflectional Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes that do not change the word class.
They only show grammatical information such as tense, number, comparison, or possession.
Examples:
book → books (plural)
walk → walked (past tense)
tall → taller → tallest
Ali → Ali’s
English has eight inflectional morphemes:
plural -s
possessive -’s
past tense -ed
present participle -ing
past participle -en
3rd person singular -s
comparative -er
superlative -est
6. Allomorphs
Allomorphs are the different phonetic forms of the same morpheme, which appear in
different environments but have the same meaning.
Examples:
plural morpheme -s has three allomorphs:
/s/ → cats
/z/ → dogs
/ɪz/ → buses
Another example:
past tense -ed:
/t/ → worked
/d/ → played
/ɪd/ → wanted
All allomorphs perform the same grammatical function.
, Conclusion
To conclude, morphology deals with word structure, and a morpheme is the smallest unit of
meaning.
Morphemes are divided into free and bound morphemes. Free morphemes include lexical
and functional morphemes, while bound morphemes include derivational and inflectional
morphemes.
Allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme used in different contexts.
This knowledge helps us understand word formation and grammatical structure in English.
Inflectional Morphology
Definition of Inflectional Morphology
Inflectional morphology is the branch of morphology that studies how grammatical
information is added to words without changing their word class or basic meaning.
Inflectional morphemes show:
number
tense
degree of comparison
agreement
They do not create new words.
Main Types of Inflectional Morphology
● Inflectional morphology mainly includes:
Pluralization (Number marking)
Degree marking (Comparison)
Verb forms (Tense and agreement)
1. Pluralization (Number Marking)
Definition
Pluralization is the inflectional process that shows more than one noun.
Main Plural Marker
The most common plural morpheme in English is -s / -es.
Types of Pluralization with Examples
(a) Regular Plural
Formed by adding -s or -es.
Examples:
book → books
pen → pens
box → boxes
bus → buses
(b) Plural Allomorphs
The plural morpheme -s has different sounds (allomorphs):
Sound
Example
/s/
cats
/z/
dogs
/ɪz/
buses
(c) Irregular Plural
Morphology, Morphemes, Allomorphs and Types of Morphemes
1. Morphology
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words and how
words are formed by combining morphemes.
In simple words, morphology explains:
how words are made
how meanings change by adding prefixes and suffixes
Example:
unhappiness = un + happy + ness
This shows how one word is formed using different morphemes.
2. Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language.
It cannot be divided further without losing its meaning.
Examples:
book → one morpheme
teacher → teach + er
unfriendly → un + friend + ly
3. Types of Morphemes
Morphemes are divided into two main types:
Free Morphemes
Bound Morphemes
4. Free Morphemes
Free morphemes are those morphemes that can stand alone as complete words and have
meaning without adding anything.
Examples:
boy
run
happy
slow
(a) Lexical Morphemes
Lexical morphemes carry the main lexical meaning of a sentence.
They belong to open class words, which means new words can be added to this group.
Examples:
nouns: book, girl
verbs: eat, write
adjectives: beautiful, tall
adverbs: quickly, slowly
Lexical morphemes change or increase over time.
(b) Functional (Grammatical) Morphemes
Functional morphemes show grammatical relationships between words in a sentence.
They belong to closed class words, so new words are rarely added.
Examples:
articles: a, an, the
prepositions: in, on, at
conjunctions: and, but
pronouns: he, she, they
,auxiliaries: is, am, have
5. Bound Morphemes
Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must be attached to a free morpheme to form a
word.
Examples:
un- (unhappy)
-ed (worked)
-ness (kindness)
-s (books)
(a) Derivational Morphemes
Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes that change the meaning or the word class
of a word.
Examples:
happy → unhappy (meaning changes)
teach → teacher (verb to noun)
kind → kindness (adjective to noun)
Derivational morphemes can be prefixes or suffixes.
(b) Inflectional Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes that do not change the word class.
They only show grammatical information such as tense, number, comparison, or possession.
Examples:
book → books (plural)
walk → walked (past tense)
tall → taller → tallest
Ali → Ali’s
English has eight inflectional morphemes:
plural -s
possessive -’s
past tense -ed
present participle -ing
past participle -en
3rd person singular -s
comparative -er
superlative -est
6. Allomorphs
Allomorphs are the different phonetic forms of the same morpheme, which appear in
different environments but have the same meaning.
Examples:
plural morpheme -s has three allomorphs:
/s/ → cats
/z/ → dogs
/ɪz/ → buses
Another example:
past tense -ed:
/t/ → worked
/d/ → played
/ɪd/ → wanted
All allomorphs perform the same grammatical function.
, Conclusion
To conclude, morphology deals with word structure, and a morpheme is the smallest unit of
meaning.
Morphemes are divided into free and bound morphemes. Free morphemes include lexical
and functional morphemes, while bound morphemes include derivational and inflectional
morphemes.
Allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme used in different contexts.
This knowledge helps us understand word formation and grammatical structure in English.
Inflectional Morphology
Definition of Inflectional Morphology
Inflectional morphology is the branch of morphology that studies how grammatical
information is added to words without changing their word class or basic meaning.
Inflectional morphemes show:
number
tense
degree of comparison
agreement
They do not create new words.
Main Types of Inflectional Morphology
● Inflectional morphology mainly includes:
Pluralization (Number marking)
Degree marking (Comparison)
Verb forms (Tense and agreement)
1. Pluralization (Number Marking)
Definition
Pluralization is the inflectional process that shows more than one noun.
Main Plural Marker
The most common plural morpheme in English is -s / -es.
Types of Pluralization with Examples
(a) Regular Plural
Formed by adding -s or -es.
Examples:
book → books
pen → pens
box → boxes
bus → buses
(b) Plural Allomorphs
The plural morpheme -s has different sounds (allomorphs):
Sound
Example
/s/
cats
/z/
dogs
/ɪz/
buses
(c) Irregular Plural
