Morphology
• Morphology is the study of the structure of words
• Different languages have different morphological systems – they form words in
different ways
• Some are simple and some are more complex
• We get long words in many languages
o English: antidisestablishmentarianism
o Dutch: ontwikkelingssamenwerkingsorganisatie
• But broadly speaking we can distinguish languages according to how they combine
pieces of words into longer strings
o English: I see him.
o Afrikaans: Ek sien hom.
o isiXhosa: Ndi-ya-m-bona.
I-PRS-him/her-see
“I see him/her.”
What is a word?
• “Smallest meaningful units realised in speech as a sequence of phonemes and in
spelling as a sequence of letters”
• Problems?
o Football – refers to two concepts written as one
o Sport shoes - refers to one concept written as two
o Students – written as one word but two contributors to meaning
• Smallest grammatically independent unit of language?
o The students are working in the classroom – these are individual units, we
cannot split them up because of their meaning
o Are the students working in the classroom? - a grammatically independent
unit can be moved around
o The new students are working in the old classroom – addresses the concern
that not all grammatically independent units can be moved around
,Morphemes
• Minimal indivisible unit of meaning (lexical) or grammatical function = smallest
meaningful unit in any given language
o dog-s
o walk-s
o walk-ing
o walk-ed
Free morphemes
• Free morphemes have meaning and can be used independently and have meaning
• They can stand alone as individual words
o dog, cat, person, a, the
Bound Morphemes
• Bound morphemes cannot stand alone
• They must be attached to other morphemes in order to have a meaning
• They only occur as parts of words
o dogs, person’s, irreversible
Examples:
• Plural morpheme: -s, -s[-z], -es[-ez], -en, -ø: cat – cats, dog – dogs[z] fox – foxes[-
ez] ox – oxen, sheepø
Root words
• Root words or word bases serve as a base onto which bound morphemes (affixes)
may be attached
o dog, person, reversible
• Bound roots are root words which cannot stand alone and must be attached to other
bound morphemes to acquire meaning – Bantu languages
IsiXhosa:
um-ntu ‘person, singular’
aba-ntu ‘person, plural’
i-nja ‘dog, singular’
izi-nja ‘dogs, plural’
um-ntwana ‘child, singular’
, aba-ntwana ‘child, plural’
i-ndlu ‘house, singular’
izi-ndlu ‘house, plural’
Affixes
• Bound morphemes that are attached to words and change their meaning or
grammatical function
• Prefix – unbelievable
• Suffix – unbelievable
• Infix – bumilli – past tense (‘bought’ in Tagalog)
• Circumfix – gebergte – collective noun formation (mountain range in Dutch)
Morphemes and words
• To simplify: morphemes can be “words” in the way we commonly think of them
o dog – but not all morphemes are words - un-
What can we do with morphemes?
• We can change the meaning of a word: clear (adj.) + un- = unclear (adj.)
funda (vb.) ‘read, learn’ + -isa = fundisa (vb.) ‘teach’
• We can change the word class of a word: judge (vb.) + -ment = judgement (n)
eet ‘eat’ (vb.) + -baar = eetbaar (adj.) ‘edible’
Can change the meaning of a word & Can (but doesn’t always) change the class of a word =
derivational morphemes
• We can change the grammatical properties of a word: dog (n.) + -s = dogs (n.) walk
(vb.) + -ed = walked (vb.) = inflectional morphemes
Derivational Morpheme
• Can change the meaning of a word
• Can (but doesn’t always) change the class of a word
o motive – noun
o motivate – verb
o motivation – noun
o motivational – adjective
• Morphology is the study of the structure of words
• Different languages have different morphological systems – they form words in
different ways
• Some are simple and some are more complex
• We get long words in many languages
o English: antidisestablishmentarianism
o Dutch: ontwikkelingssamenwerkingsorganisatie
• But broadly speaking we can distinguish languages according to how they combine
pieces of words into longer strings
o English: I see him.
o Afrikaans: Ek sien hom.
o isiXhosa: Ndi-ya-m-bona.
I-PRS-him/her-see
“I see him/her.”
What is a word?
• “Smallest meaningful units realised in speech as a sequence of phonemes and in
spelling as a sequence of letters”
• Problems?
o Football – refers to two concepts written as one
o Sport shoes - refers to one concept written as two
o Students – written as one word but two contributors to meaning
• Smallest grammatically independent unit of language?
o The students are working in the classroom – these are individual units, we
cannot split them up because of their meaning
o Are the students working in the classroom? - a grammatically independent
unit can be moved around
o The new students are working in the old classroom – addresses the concern
that not all grammatically independent units can be moved around
,Morphemes
• Minimal indivisible unit of meaning (lexical) or grammatical function = smallest
meaningful unit in any given language
o dog-s
o walk-s
o walk-ing
o walk-ed
Free morphemes
• Free morphemes have meaning and can be used independently and have meaning
• They can stand alone as individual words
o dog, cat, person, a, the
Bound Morphemes
• Bound morphemes cannot stand alone
• They must be attached to other morphemes in order to have a meaning
• They only occur as parts of words
o dogs, person’s, irreversible
Examples:
• Plural morpheme: -s, -s[-z], -es[-ez], -en, -ø: cat – cats, dog – dogs[z] fox – foxes[-
ez] ox – oxen, sheepø
Root words
• Root words or word bases serve as a base onto which bound morphemes (affixes)
may be attached
o dog, person, reversible
• Bound roots are root words which cannot stand alone and must be attached to other
bound morphemes to acquire meaning – Bantu languages
IsiXhosa:
um-ntu ‘person, singular’
aba-ntu ‘person, plural’
i-nja ‘dog, singular’
izi-nja ‘dogs, plural’
um-ntwana ‘child, singular’
, aba-ntwana ‘child, plural’
i-ndlu ‘house, singular’
izi-ndlu ‘house, plural’
Affixes
• Bound morphemes that are attached to words and change their meaning or
grammatical function
• Prefix – unbelievable
• Suffix – unbelievable
• Infix – bumilli – past tense (‘bought’ in Tagalog)
• Circumfix – gebergte – collective noun formation (mountain range in Dutch)
Morphemes and words
• To simplify: morphemes can be “words” in the way we commonly think of them
o dog – but not all morphemes are words - un-
What can we do with morphemes?
• We can change the meaning of a word: clear (adj.) + un- = unclear (adj.)
funda (vb.) ‘read, learn’ + -isa = fundisa (vb.) ‘teach’
• We can change the word class of a word: judge (vb.) + -ment = judgement (n)
eet ‘eat’ (vb.) + -baar = eetbaar (adj.) ‘edible’
Can change the meaning of a word & Can (but doesn’t always) change the class of a word =
derivational morphemes
• We can change the grammatical properties of a word: dog (n.) + -s = dogs (n.) walk
(vb.) + -ed = walked (vb.) = inflectional morphemes
Derivational Morpheme
• Can change the meaning of a word
• Can (but doesn’t always) change the class of a word
o motive – noun
o motivate – verb
o motivation – noun
o motivational – adjective
