Morphology

Morphology is the study of the structure of words.

Morpheme

Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that conveys a regular meaning. In other words, a morpheme is a form-meaning paring that cannot be analyzed into parts.

/ʌntʌtʃəbl̩/ → /ʌn/(not) + /tʌtʃəbl̩/(can be touched) → /ʌn/(not) + /tʌtʃ/(make contact) + /əbl̩/(can be done)

Free Morpheme

Free Morpheme

Morphemes which could appear in a monomorphemic Word.

/kæt/(feline), /tʌtʃ/(make contact)

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Bound Morpheme

Bound Morpheme

Morphemes which cannot appear in a monomorphemic Word.

/ʌn/(not), /əbl̩/(can be done)

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Root (Stem)

The word to which morphemes are added.

Affixes

Affixes

Affixes are the morphemes that are added.

Kinds of Affixes

Prefixes

An affix that goes before a root.

/hɪˈstɔːrɪk/ + /priː-/ = /ˌpriːhɪˈstɔːrɪk/

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Suffixes

An affix that goes after a root.

/kaɪnd/ + -/nɛs/ = /ˈkaɪndnɛs/

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Infixes

An affix that goes inside a root.

(Tagalog) /sulat/ + -/um/- = /sumulat/

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Circumfixes

An affix that goes around a root.

/laɪt/ + /ɛn/-...-/ən/ = /ɛnˈlaɪtən/

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Word

Word

A word consists of one or more morphemes.

Lexical categories

Lexical categories

Words fall into lexical categories which determine what affixes they can take.

• Verb: verb can take affixes (e.g., : /-ɪŋ/(in progress), /-s/(third-person singular present), /-əd/(past))
• Noun: can take affixes (e.g., /-laɪk/(similar to), /-s/(plural), /-s/(possessive))
• Adjective: can take affixes. (e.g., /-nɛs/(the property of), /-əst/(most))
• Adverbs: The morpheme /-li/ transforms an adjective into an adverb. (e.g., happily, quickly)
• Prepositions: (e.g., of, for, to)
• Determiners: (e.g., the, this, that, a, your, my)
• Pronouns: (e.g., he, she, it, they, them)
• Conjunctions: (e.g., and, or, but)

Open Categories (Content Words)

Lexical categories that often allow new words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverb).

Closed Categories

Lexical categories that very rarely allow new words (preposition, determiners, pronouns, conjunctions).

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Morphological Analysis

Morphological Analysis

The goal of morphological analysis is to identify and classify morphemes and describe how they combine to form words in a language.

Data: γράφω(I write)/grapʰɔː/, γράφη(s/he writes)/grapʰɛː/ Morphemes: write/grapʰ/, I/ɔː/, s/he/ɛː/ Analysis: I write/grapʰ/ + /ɔː/, s/he writes/grapʰ/ + /ɛː/

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Allomorph

Allomorph

When a Morpheme has different phonetic forms due to phonological rules, these forms are called allomorphs.

The morpheme /d/(past tense) has three allomorphs: [d], [t], [əd]. The morpheme /z/(plural marking) has three allomorphs: [z], [s], [əz].

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Morphological Process

Morphological Process

A morphological process is a change in the form of a word that corresponds to a regular change in the meaning of the word.

Kinds of Morphological Processes

Affixation

The form of a word changes by adding another morpheme (Affixes) to it.

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Alternation

The form of a root changes in some regular way.

sing/siŋ/ → sang/sæŋ/, sink/siŋk/ → /sæŋk/, stink/stiŋk/ → /stæŋk/, tooth/tuθ/ → teeth/tiθ/, goose/gus/ → geese/gis/

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Suppletion

A root is changed completely and unpredictably.

go/goʊ/ → went/wɛnt/, I/aɪ/ → we/wi/, me/mi/

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Reduplication

A morpheme is repeated.

人/hito/ → 人々/hitobito/

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Compounding

independent words are combined together.

text + book = textbook, air + conditioner = air-conditioner

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Functions of Morphological Processes

• Transforming a word from one lexical category to another.

  fury/fjɹ̩i/ + ous/əs/ = furious/fjɹ̩iəs/, furious/fjɹ̩iəs/ + ly/li/ = furiously/fjɹ̩iəsli/, furious/fjɹ̩iəs/ + ness/nɛs/ = furiousness/fjɹ̩iəsnɛs/

• Expressing a gradation of meaning.

  green/gɹin/ + -ish-/ɪʃ/ = greenish/gɹinɪʃ/, clear/kliɹ/ + un-/ʌn/- = unclear/ʌnkliɹ/, flat/flæt/ + -er-/ɹ̩/ = flatter/flætɹ̩/

• Expressing a grammatical category.
  • Number: singular, dual, plural.

    cat/kæt/ + s/z/ = cats/kætz/

  • Tense: Whether an event took place in the past, present, or future.

    climb/klaɪm/ + d/d/ = climbed/klaɪmd/

  • Aspect: How an event is unfolding in time. e.g., progressive, perfect.

    climb/klaɪm/ + ing/ɪŋ/ = climbing/klaɪmɪŋ/

  • Person: Who is performing an event. e.g., first, second, third person.

    climb/klaɪm/ + s/z/ = climbs/klaɪmz/

  • Others: gender, possession, case, …

Productivity

Morphological processes can be productive or unproductive.

Productive process

A productive process can apply freely to any root within a lexical category.

/-nɛs/: angry+ness, cool+ness

Unproductive process

An unproductive process only applies to certain roots in a lexical category.

/-θ/: warmth, *coolth

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Morphological Complexity

The morphological complexity of a language is how many morphological processes a word undergoes on average.

Analytic Languages

Analytic Languages

Analytic languages are languages with relatively little morphology.

English, Chinese

Language Example

Isolating Languages

Isolating languages are languages with (almost) no Morphological Process. Every word always in the same form, and consists of only one free morpheme.

Vietnamese, Hawai’ian

Degree of prefixing and suffixing

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Synthetic Languages

Synthetic Languages

Synthetic languages are Languages with relatively many morphological processes.

Synthetic Language Examples

Agglutinative Languages

Agglutinative languages are languages where words are built with many Affixes, each of which conveys one aspect of meaning.

Hungarian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Swahili

Turkish example

Swahili example

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Fusional Languages

Fusional languages are languages where words are built with a few Affixes, each of which conveys several aspects of meaning.

Spanish, Latin

Spanish example: hablo /ablo/(I speak), habla/abla/(s/he speaks), hablé//a'ble/(I spoke). where habl-: (speak), -o: first-person singular present, -a: third-person singular present, -é: first-person singular past

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Polysynthetic Languages

Polysynthetic languages are languages where words consist of very many bound morphemes, such that a sentence can often be expressed in a single word.

Greenlandic, Navajo

Greenlandic example: Aliikkusersuillammassuaanerartassagaluarpaalli Morpheme breakdown: aliikku-sersu-i-llammas-sua-a-nerar-ta-ssa-galuar-paal-li Translation: However, they will say that he is a great entertainer, but …

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