© Dr. K. T. Khader
IUG
MORPHOLOGY:
THE ANALYSIS OF WORD STRUCTURE
Phonology
has been described as:
The study of speech sounds and their patterns.
It is a study based on the „phoneme‟ or smallest
significant unit of speech.
o
Morphology is one of the branches of linguistics in
which we study about the structure of words.
o
In order to understand
the given definition of
“morphology”. The
first thing we should
ask is:
 What is the structure
of a word?
 What do we mean by
the term structure of
words?
Structure of words could be roughly
explained as the internal arrangement
of different units/parts in a given word.
-Nouns

Content Words
-Verbs
-Adjectives
-Adverbs
-Conjunctions

Function Words
-Prepositions
-Articles
-Pronouns
Words
Simple words:
boy, cat, rat,
flower
Complex words
Compound word:
Blackbird,
Whitehouse
Complex words:
cats, hospitalized,
decentralization
 Word
and morpheme
Word: the smallest free form.
 Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit.

Word
simple and complex
e.g. write and writer
Morpheme
Free and Bound
e.g. write and -er
© Dr. K. T. Khader
IUG
 After
talking and defining a word and a
morpheme.
Morphology is the science and study of the
smallest grammatical units of language, and of
their formation into words, including inflection,
derivation and composition.

Broadly speaking, morphology is the study of
the patterns of word-forms.


It studies how the words are formed, where
they originate from, what their grammatical
forms are, what the functions of prefixes and
suffixes in the information of words are, on
what basis the parts of speech of a particular
language are formed, how the system of
gender, number, plural etc. function, how and
why the word-forms change?
Morpheme
Free (F)
(They can stand alone)

Bound morphemes
Prefix
Bound (B)
(Never exist as words, they
are attached to some other
morphemes, e.g. un, _er, _ed
and _s etc.)
Affixes
Infix
Suffix
Morphemes
Free
Bound
Derivational
Prefix
Don’t usually
involve
a change
of word class
Inflectional
Suffix
Involve
a change
of word class
Suffixes
Don’t involve
a change
of word class
Derivational Morphemes ( D )
Change the meaning or part of speech
of a word they attach to.
e.g. {_ish} added to boy = boyish
{_ish} added to child = childish
boy = Noun Adj. = boyish
child = Noun Adj. = childish
Inflectional Morphemes ( I )
Serve a purely grammatical function,
never creating a new word but only
a different form of the same word
e.g. {_s} added to book = books
books
{_s} is inflectional
Derivation
It changes the category and/or the type of
meaning of the word, so it is said to create a new
word.
- e.g. suffix _ment in government
Inflection
It does not change either the grammatical
category or the type of meaning found in the
word.
- e.g. suffix _s in books
ENGLISH INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES
Nouns
_s
_’s
Verbs
_s
_ed
_en
_ing
Adjectives
_er
_est
plural
possessive
third person singular present
past tense
past participle
progressive
comparative
superlative
Consider the following English Inflictional
Affixes
Stem
study
study
wait
eat
chair
boy
fast
fast
Suffix
-s
- ed
- ing
- en
-s
- ’s
- er
- est
Function
3rd pre.sg.present
past tense
progressive
past participle
plural
possessive
comparative
superlative
Consider the following English Derivational Affixes
Affix
Change
Example
_______________________________________________________________
Suffix
• able
•(at)ion
• er
• ing1
• ing2
• ive
• al
• ment
• ful
• ian
• ic
• ly
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
N
N
N
A
N
N
N
A
A
N
A
A
A
Adv
fixable, understandable.
realiz-ation, assert-ion
teach + er, work – er
the danc-ing, the shoot-ing
a blaz-ing fire.
assert-ive, impress-ive.
refusal, disposal.
treat-ment, amaze-ment.
faithful, hope-ful.
Arab-ian, Singapore-an.
Cubic, optimist-ic.
quiet-ly, slow-ly.
Prefix
antidedisexunre-
N
V
V
N
A
V
N
V
V
N
A
V
anti-pollution.
de-mystify, deactivate.
dis-continue, dis-obey.
ex-president, ex-wife.
un-happy, un-fair.
re-think, re-do, re-state.
Describe the italic affixes:
1) Premature
2) Untie
3) Darken
4) Fallen
5) Oxen
6) Faster
7) lecturer
The varient form of a morpheme.
consider the English plural morphemes.
1-
e.g.
cat{s}
[s]
dog{s}
[z]
rose{s}
[iz]
Allomorphs
2-
e.g. English past tense morphemes.
- play + {ed}
[-d]
- slipp + {ed}
[-t]
- study + {ed}
[id]
Allomorphs