Morphology

Let’s Talk About Linguistics

The 3^rd Discussion

Morphology

by : Dyo ELFARMY

Although all morphemes are units of meaning, there are various kinds of morphemes.

1.                  Free and Bound Morphemes

Morphemes can be free or bound. If a morpheme is free, it can stand on its own; if it is bound, it must be attached to a free morpheme. In examples below, the free morphemes are in green and the bound morphemes are in red :

force-ful                   dis-like

miss-ed                     pre-judge

un-like-li-est           mis-inform-ation

as the above examples illustrate, a word will typically consist of a single fee morpheme, sometimes referred to as the base. The base, as Plag (2003 : 11) states, is “The part of a word which as affix is attached to.” However, some words may contain more than one base, and some bases are (arguably) a bound rather than a free morpheme. While, the affix is divided to be 2 parts, they are :

a.      Prefix : for example : unwise ;

b.      Suffix : for example : wisely

2.                 Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes

a.                 Inflectional Morphemes

Bound morphemes are of two types : inflectional and derivational. Because English has so few inflections, they can simply be listed, as is done in table below. Inflections are one type of grammatical morpheme, a morpheme that indicates some kind of grammatical relationship and the inflection morphemes don’t change origin word to be other kind of word. While, inflectional morphemes are form a small class in English.

inflections	description	examples
-s	3rd person present tense singular	She/he/it  eats an apple
	To show possessive	Mom’s children
	To show plural noun	Many books
-ing	Progressive aspect	I am writing
-ed	Past tense	I watched this movie
	perfective aspect	I have watched this movie
-er	Comparative form of adjective	It is smaller
-est	Superlative from of adjective	It is the smallest

 

a.                 Derivational Morphemes

Derivational morphemes are a much larger class. Derivational morphemes exhibit other differences from inflectional morphemes as well. Derivational morphemes can be either prefixes or suffixes, whereas inflectional morphemes can be only suffixes. Unlike inflectional morphemes, derivational morphemes can change the meaning of a word or its part of speech. A word can contain many derivational affixes, but only one inflectional affix; and if a word contains an inflectional suffix and one or more derivational suffixes, the derivational affixes will always precede the inflection suffixes.

Example: reformulations: re + formula + ate + ation + s

note : green : derivational affixes ;   red : inflectional affix ;   black : base

·         

• Origins of derivational affixes.

Most derivational affixes were borrowed into English from either Greek or Latin. In modern English relatively few affixes of Germanic origin can be found. For instance, many negative prefixes, such as il-, im-, in-, and non-, were borrowed from Latin into English. Examples:  illegal , immoral, incapable, nonstop

Many medical terms in English contain derivational morphemes of Greek origin:

hyper- “excessive”  : hypertension, hyperanxiety

-sis “disease” : psychosis, neurosis

peri- “around” : periodontist, perimacular

of course, not oll of these affixes are restricted to medical terms: they can occure on words with less restricted uses, such  episode, parimeter, and hyperactive. Moreover, while the affixes in the words above are all Greek origin, they are not restricted to occurring with bases of Greek origin. For instance, in hyperactive, the base, active, is of Latin origin (activus). Hybrid froms such as this occur in other English word as well, in many cases with bases of Germanic origin:

automobile : auto- (Greek “same” or “self”) +mobile (Latin “moveable”)

dislike : dis- (Latin : “opposite of”) + like (old English  lician “have some affection for”)

• ·         The meaning of derivational affixes

In their discussion of affixes in English, Stockwell and Minkova (2001:89-94) categorize affixes according to the meanings that they express. 

 1.For prefixes :

Ø  The prefix a-  indicates that something is “lacking” (e.g. : amoral, atonal)

Ø  The prefix mono- , bi- , and tri- , indicate number the words to which they are affixed (e.g. monosyllable, bifocal, triangle).

Ø  The prefix en- points inward (e.g. encapsulate, enclose, encircle).

Ø  The prefix intra- locates something within (e.g. intracity, introvert)

Ø  The prefix retro- points to the past (e.g. retrogression, retrograde).

2. For suffixes :

Unlike most prefixes, suffixes can also change the part of speech of a word, and to varying degrees the meaning of the resultant of new meaning a suffix adds to a word will vary considerably.

Ø  The suffix  -ly does little more than change an adjective into an adverb (e.g. hearty                heartily). However, other suffixes create more significant changes in meaning.

Ø  Many suffixes such as –ation , -news , and –ment convert verbs or adjective into abstract nouns known as nominalization :

o   Verb to noun: creation, production, realization, establishment, resentment, development

o   Adjective to noun : goodness, happiness, likeness, tastiness, fitness, heartiness

o   The suffixes –ant, -er, and –ist convert verbs or nouns into “agentive nouns”

o   Verb to noun: participant (one who “participates”, attendant, driver, rider, owner, fighter, singer.

o   Noun to noun : socialist (a practitioner of “socialism”), dentist, linguist, chemist, hypnotist

o   The suffix –ize : converts noun or adjective into verbs :

Noun to verb : fantasize (from the noun “fantasy”, idolize, demonize

o   Adjective to verb : finalize (from adjective “final”), criticize, commercialize.

Like Phonology has a variant form of phonetics, Morphology also has a variant form of a morpheme, it is well-known allomorph. When a unit of meaning varies in sound without changing meaning. The allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes.

 

REFERENCES :

F. Meyer, Charles. 2009. Introducing English Linguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Chaedar Alwasilah, A. 2011. Linguistik Suatu Pengantar. Bandung: Angkasa.