English Lexicology Morphological Structure of English Words

1. English LexicologyMorphological Structure of English Words Week 3: Mar. 10, 2009 Instructor: Liu Hongyong

2. Review

3. Morpheme (语素） • Themorpheme is the smallestmeaningful unit of language. (lexical and grammatical meaning) • A morpheme must have a meaning, and it is the smallest unit of meaning (the smallest sound-meaning union which cannot be further analyzed into smaller units)

4. Morpheme • The wordlady can be divided into two syllables (la.dy), but it consists of just one morpheme, because a syllable has nothing to do with meaning. The word disagreeable can be divided into five syllables (dis.a.gree.a.ble), but it consists of only three morphemes (dis+agree+able). The word books contains only one syllable, but it consists of two morphemes (book+s) (Notice: the morpheme –shas a grammatical meaning [Plural])

5. The internal structure of words Lexical or Grammatical Words can have an internal structure, i.e. they are decomposable into smaller meaningful parts. These smallest meaningful units we call morphemes. read+er re+read en+able dark+en Mary+’s print+ed cat+s go+es Genitive case Past tense Plural marker 3rd singular Present-tense grammatical/inflectional morpheme

6. Morpheme, Morph, Allomorph books /-s/ pigs /-z/ boxes /-iz/ A morphis a physical form representing a certain morpheme in a language. • Sometimes different morphs may represent the same morpheme; i.e., a morpheme may take different forms. If so, they are called allomorphs of that morpheme. two different spelling forms， and three different phonological forms, but these different forms represent the same grammatical meaning [Plural])

7. Complementary Distribution • Allomorphs are morphs in complementary distribution;i.e.they are never found in identical contexts. • The choice of allomorph used in a given context is normally based on the properties of the neighboring sounds. Example: The third person singular verb suffix and the plural nominal suffix –s in English allomorphs morpheme PLURAL [s] [z] [iz] morph morph morph

8. An analogy: Chameleon

9. Chameleon The skin color is determined by the color of the nearby environment. Two different skin colors cannot occur in the same environment. Although a chameleon’s skin color may change, the essence remains unchanged. It is not grass when its skin color is green.

10. Complementary Distribution allomorphs morpheme negative morpheme in- morph1: im morph2: in morph3: in impossible indecent incomplete [imp---] [ind---] [iŋk---] bilabial nasal bilabial stop alveolar stop alveolar stop velar nasal velar stop

11. Classification of Morphemes Morphemes can be classified in various ways. free or bound root or affix inflectional or derivational

12. Free and Bound Morphemes • We can divide reader into readand –er. However, we cannot split read into smaller morphemes. This means that the word read is itself a single morpheme. • A morpheme which can stand alone as a word is called a free morpheme. By contrast, -er has to combine with other morphemes. So it is a bound morpheme.

13. Root, stems & affixes nature + al = natural affixes: bound morphemes which attach to roots or stems. un + nature + al = unnatural Stem/base: root plus affixes; a stem is also called a base. Root: the basic morpheme which provides the central meaning in a word Complex Word simple word unnatural naturalistic natural naturalist naturalism nature

14. complex word . . . . Stem/base affix Stem/base affix root affix nature -al -ist

15. bound root morphemes All mophemes are bound or free. Affixes are bound morphemes. Root morphemes, can be bound or free. -ceive: receive; perceive; conceive; deceive -mit: permit; commit; transmit; admit; remit; submit ceive was once a word in Latin ‘to take’, but in Modern English, it is no longer a word, so it is not a free morpheme.

16. Example of bound root Latin root viv-/vit- meaning “life” or “to live”. revive vitamin vital vivacious vivid re-vive: to live again, to bring back to life vit-amin: life medicine vit-al: full of life viv-acious: full of life viv-id: having the quality of life

17. Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes Affixes can be divided into inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes. This reflects two major morphological (word building) processes: Inflection Derivation Helps to ‘wrap’ lexical words for various grammatical functions Helps to make new lexical words

18. Inflectional Morphemes • Inflectional morphemes do not change grammatical category of the base to which they are attached. They do not change the meaning of the base. They only carry relevant grammatical information, e.g. plural. Thus,bookand books are both nouns referring to the same kind of entity. • The number of inflectional affixes is small and fixed. NO new ones have been added since 1500.

19. Examples of Inflectional Affixes

20. Derivational Morphemes • Derivational morphemes form new words • either by changing the meaning of the base to whichthey are attached kind ~ unkind; obey ~ disobey accurate ~ inaccurate; act ~ react cigar ~ cigarette; book ~ booklet • or by changing the grammatical category (part of speech) of the base kind ~ kindly; act ~ active ~ activity able ~enable; damp ~ dampen care ~ careful; dark ~ darkness

21. Examples of Derivational Affixes

22. Sum: Inflection and Derivation • Derivational morphemes are used to create new lexical items (lexemes). • Inflectional morphemes only contribute to the inflectional paradigm of the lexemes, which lists all the word-forms of the lexeme. Free (自由) free root (自由词根) morpheme bound root (粘着词根) Bound (粘着) inflectional affixes (语法性后缀) affixes derivational affixes (词汇性后缀)

23. Conclusion • Words are composed of morphemes. • A morpheme is the minimal meaningful unit, possessing both sound and meaning. • An allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme. • Morphemes can be classified into free morphemes and bound morphemes, roots and affixes, inflectional and derivational. • The concept of morpheme is important in explaining word-formation processes. In English the most central and productive word-formation processes are compounding and affixation. Compounding refers to the word-formation process of combining two free morphemes, and affixation refers to the word-formation process of adding affixes to roots.