Linguistics: Morphology and Word Formation

Definition and Scope

• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed.
• It examines the composition of words, identifying their constituent parts, and how these parts relate to each other.

Key Concepts

• Morpheme: The smallest unit of language that carries meaning.
  • Example: The word "unbreakable" contains three morphemes: "un-", "break-", and "-able".
• Free morpheme: A morpheme that can stand alone as a word.
  • Example: "run" is a free morpheme.
• Bound morpheme: A morpheme that must be combined with another morpheme to form a word.
  • Example: "-ed" is a bound morpheme, as it must be combined with a verb to form a word (e.g., "walked").

Types of Morphemes

• Root morpheme: The core of a word that carries the main meaning.
  • Example: The root morpheme of "unbreakable" is "break".
• Affix morpheme: A morpheme that is added to a root morpheme to modify its meaning.
  • Example: The affix morphemes in "unbreakable" are "un-" and "-able".
• Derivational morpheme: An affix morpheme that changes the grammatical category of a word.
  • Example: The suffix "-ly" in "quickly" is a derivational morpheme, changing the adjective "quick" into an adverb.
• Inflectional morpheme: An affix morpheme that indicates grammatical features such as tense, case, or number.
  • Example: The suffix "-ed" in "walked" is an inflectional morpheme, indicating the past tense.

Morphological Processes

• Compounding: The process of combining two or more words to form a new word.
  • Example: "blackboard" is a compound word.
• Derivation: The process of adding an affix morpheme to a root morpheme to form a new word.
  • Example: "unbreakable" is a derived word.
• Inflection: The process of adding an inflectional morpheme to a word to indicate grammatical features.
  • Example: "walked" is an inflected form of the verb "walk".

Morphology

• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed.
• It examines the composition of words, identifying their constituent parts, and how these parts relate to each other.

Morphemes

• A morpheme is the smallest unit of language that carries meaning.
• Examples of morphemes include "un-", "break-", and "-able" in the word "unbreakable".

Types of Morphemes

• Free Morphemes: Can stand alone as a word, e.g., "run".
• Bound Morphemes: Must be combined with another morpheme to form a word, e.g., "-ed".
• Root Morphemes: The core of a word that carries the main meaning, e.g., "break" in "unbreakable".
• Affix Morphemes: Added to a root morpheme to modify its meaning, e.g., "un-" and "-able" in "unbreakable".
• Derivational Morphemes: Change the grammatical category of a word, e.g., "-ly" in "quickly".
• Inflectional Morphemes: Indicate grammatical features such as tense, case, or number, e.g., "-ed" in "walked".

Morphological Processes

• Compounding: Combining two or more words to form a new word, e.g., "blackboard".
• Derivation: Adding an affix morpheme to a root morpheme to form a new word, e.g., "unbreakable".
• Inflection: Adding an inflectional morpheme to a word to indicate grammatical features, e.g., "walked" is an inflected form of the verb "walk".

Inflectional Morphology

• Formation of words that convey grammatical information, achieved by adding inflectional affixes to roots or stems
• Inflectional affixes indicate:
  • Tense (e.g., -ed for past tense)
  • Number (e.g., -s for plural)
  • Case (e.g., -'s for possessive)
  • Person (e.g., -s for third person singular)
  • Mood (e.g., -ing for progressive)
  • Aspect (e.g., -ing for continuous)
• Examples of inflectional morphology:
  • Walk → walks (third person singular), walked (past tense), walking (present participle)
  • Dog → dogs (plural), dog's (possessive)

Derivational Morphology

• Formation of new words by adding derivational affixes to roots or stems
• Derivational affixes create new words with different meanings or grammatical categories
• Examples of derivational morphology:
  • Happy → unhappy (prefix un-), happiness (suffix -ness)
  • Run → runner (suffix -er), running (suffix -ing)
  • Teach → teacher (suffix -er), teaching (suffix -ing)

Morphological Typology

• Classification of languages based on their morphological structure
• Types of languages:
  • Isolating languages: little to no morphology (e.g., Mandarin Chinese)
  • Agglutinative languages: use suffixes to indicate grammatical relationships (e.g., Turkish, Swahili)
  • Fusional languages: use a combination of suffixes and internal changes to indicate grammatical relationships (e.g., Latin, Russian)
  • Polysynthetic languages: use many morphemes to form long words (e.g., Inuktitut, Mohawk)
  • Oligosynthetic languages: use few morphemes to form short words (e.g., Hawaiian)

Phonology and Morphology

• Phonology: the study of the sound system of a language
• Intersections between phonology and morphology:
  • Phonological conditioning: how phonological rules affect morphological processes
  • Morphophonology: how morphological processes affect phonological rules
  • Phonological alternations: changes in pronunciation that occur when morphemes are combined
  • Allomorphy: variation in the form of a morpheme depending on the phonological context