Morphology

 

Write short notes.

1.   Morphology:

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words. It looks at how words are formed, and how they can be broken into smaller parts called morphemes.

Like sentences, clauses and phrases, words also have a structure. Words are made up of smaller elements called morphemes. We can divide the word into parts and establish relationship between them. We can show the parts which make up a word.

For example, the word 'wristwatch' is made up of two parts i.e. 'wrist' and 'watch'.  The word 'unconventional' can be divided into three parts: 'un', 'convention', and 'al'. Morphology therefore, is the study of the patterns of word-forms. It studies:  

1) how the words are formed,

2) where they originate from,

3) what their grammatical forms are, and

4) what are the functions of prefixes and suffixes in the formation of words and finally

5) how and why the forms of word change.

Morphology refers to the form of words in a language system where a syntax refers to the form of the arrangement of words in phrases, clauses and sentences.

Words are like puzzles, and morphology helps us see how the pieces fit together!

 

2.   Morpheme

Traditional grammarians have treated 'word' as the smallest unit in the grammatical analysis of a language. But modern linguists object to treat 'word' as the smallest unit. They raise the question whether ‘wristwatch’ is one word or two? If' ‘table' is one word and 'cloth' is the other, then it is inappropriate to call it one word. On the other hand, on the basis of meaning it is regarded as a one word. Hence, the idea of a 'word' is difficult to define. To overcome these problems modern linguists have discovered a new unit called 'morpheme'.

Morpheme is defined 'as the smallest meaningful unit of a language'. Morpheme is the smallest part into which a word can be divided. A word is made up of one or more morphemes.

1.   For example, 'teach' is a word which is made up of one morpheme, but 'teacher' is a word which is made up of two morphemes i.e. 'teach' and '-er'.

2.   Similarly, in a word 'unfaithful' there are three morphemes: un + faith+ ful.

It means that the word "teacher' is made up of two morphemes, whereas the word 'unfaithful' is made up three morphemes.

Thus, we can say that, the words are formed out of morphemes. The words such as dog, man, write, play, blue, happy, etc are made up of only one morpheme. Such words are called 'monomorphemic' words.

The words such as cats, writing, happily, disgraceful are made up of more than one morpheme. Hence, they are called 'poly-morphemic' words.

 

3.   Free morphemes

Morphemes are mainly categorized into two classes: i) free morphemes and ii) bound morphemes.

Free Morphemes:

A free morpheme can stand alone as an independent word. It has its own meaning. For example, 'dog' in a sentence. "The dog is a sincere animal.’ The morphemes 'dog' “sincere’ and ‘animal’ are meaningful and stand on their own as words in the above sentence. The free morphemes can be used freely as words having their own specific meanings. The free morphemes always contain and sustain their meaning wherever they occur in a sentence. In short,

1.   Free morphemes are independent words.

2.   They can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.

3.   They carry basic meaning in a sentence.

 

4.   Bound morphemes

Morphemes are mainly categorized into two classes: i) free morphemes and ii) bound morphemes.

Bound Morphemes:

Bound morphemes cannot occur as independent units or words in a sentence. They need a support of other morphemes. They are always attached to other free morphemes. They occur in combination with other free or bound morphemes. The morphemes like un-, dis-, re-, en-, -less, -ing. -ful, -ness, -ly, -ment etc. are bound morphemes.

For example, in this word 'unlikely', 'like' is a free morpheme and 'un' and '-ly are bound morphemes.

A free morpheme is called a stem and a bound morpheme attached to some other form is called an 'affix'. Words are made up of either a single free morpheme or a free morpheme and one or more bound morphemes or two or more free morphemes.

A word made up of a single free morpheme like book, sister, bench etc. are called 'Simple words'.

A word made up of one free morpheme and one or more bound morphemes (e.g. happily, unfaithful, unemployment etc.) is called a 'Complex word'.

A word made up of two or more free morphemes (e.g. table lamp, watchman, doorbell, hair oil etc.) is called a 'Compound word.

 

5.   Prefix:

Affixes are of three types: i) Prefix, ii) Suffix and iii) Infix

Prefix:

An affix that is attached at the beginning of a stem or root is called a prefix e.g. in the word 'misconduct', 'mis-' is a prefix and 'conduct' is a root.

Prefixes are marked with a dash at the end (dis-) as in 'disbelief'. Prefixes are always derivational. We get a new word by attaching a derivational affix to the stem. Prefixes are either class-changing or class-maintaining. If the grammatical class of the stem is changed after attaching a prefix, it is called class-changing prefix and if the grammatical class of the stem remains unchanged even after attaching a prefix, it is called class-maintaining prefix.

Some examples of prefixes are as follows:

·         un- (happy/unhappy; known/unknown)

·         re- (charge/recharge; write/rewrite)

·         dis- (continue/discontinue; connect/disconnect)

 

 

6.   Suffix:

Affixes are of three types: i) Prefix, ii) Suffix and iii) Infix

Suffix:

An affix that is attached at the end of a stem or a root is called a suffix. For example, in a word 'driving', 'drive' is a root and '-ing' is a suffix. Suffixes are marked with a hyphen or dash at the beginning (-ing) as in 'driving'.

Suffixes are mainly of two types: i) inflectional suffixes, and ii) derivational suffixes.

Inflectional Suffixes:

The suffixes that are used to inflict words are called inflectional suffixes. They do not form a new word e.g. the suffix -s' in 'boys' is not two separate words. Inflectional suffixes always occur with nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. The list of the inflectional suffixes in English is given below:

Nouns- i) Plural Suffix: -s or -es - cat- cats, box- boxes, pen- pens, rose- roses

  ii) Possessive Case Suffix: -'s e.g. John-John's, worker-worker's

Verbs- i) Third Person Singular Subject Present Tense Suffix: -s/-es e. g.  

              come- comes, catch –catches,

ii) Past Tense Suffix: -ed e.g. work- worked, talk - talked, want- wanted,

iii) Present Participle Suffix: -ing e.g. write-writing, work-working

iv) Past (Perfect & Passive) Participle Suffix: -en/-ed -e.g. give- given,

eat- eaten, write-written, take – taken, call – called

Adjective/Adverbs

i) Comparative Degree Suffix: -er e.g. tall-taller, small-smaller

ii) Superlative Degree Suffix: -est e. g. rich-richest, small-smallest

Derivational suffixes:

The derivational suffixes are called derivational because they make new words when they are attached to the stems or the roots.

e.g. 'man' is a word and we get a new word 'manhood' by attaching ‘-hood' suffix to it. Therefore '-hood' is a derivational suffix.

Some derivational suffixes do not change the class or part of speech of the root to which they are attached; therefore, we have class-maintaining derivational suffixes and class-changing derivational suffixes.

The examples of derivational suffixes are as follows:

·         -ship: friend/friendship; relation/relationship

·         -ful: care/careful; beauty/beautiful

·         -ment: excite/excitement; enjoy/enjoyment