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
