WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
-
DEFINITION: is concerned the
study of word-formation and word-structure. It is the ability to construct and
interpret words that must be stored in the LEXICON (mental dictionary) of
language users. The HUMAN VOCABULARY is a dynamic system. The morphological
units are words and morphemes.
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WORDS: are the minimum free forms (also known as
FREE MORPHEMES that can be decomposed into smaller morphemes). There are simple
and complex words (a base m. + affixes). Words have different senses:
o
WORD-FORMS:
can be content words (with cognitive meaning like nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs) or function words (with grammatical role like prepositions, pronouns,
conjunctions and articles).
o
LEXEMES:
are vocabulary items that may have different meaning (homonymy).
o
LEMMAS:
are lexical items with meaning plus certain syntactic and morphological
properties.
-
MORPHEMES: are the smallest
meaningful units in a language. BOUND MORPHEMES are always attached to a free
or base morpheme. There two kinds:
o INFLECTIONAL
M.: act as grammatical markers: plural -s,
3º p.-s, -ing, past/p.participle -ed,
-er, -est.
o DERIVATIONAL
M./AFFIXES: involve a change of the syntactic category of the free morpheme.
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WORD
FORMATION: a ROOT is the unit
(normally content words) to which other morphemes may be added to make new
words. Then, BASES are any word or form to which affixes may be added in
word-building processes.
o
AFFIXATION:
is a process that adds affixes. It has two categories:
-
INFLECTION:
consists of suffixes (attached to the front of a base m.) rather than prefixes
(attached to the end of a base m.) The few inflectional endings don’t usually
alter syntactic behavior.
-
DERIVATION:
is when there is a change of meaning or syntactic category of the base word.
Derivational endings create constantly new words.
o
CONVERSION:
this process is known as “zero derivation” because the word-form remains the
same, but with a different lexical category.
o
STRESS
PLACEMENT: in disyllabic words, a base can undergo a change in the placement of
stress.
o
COMPOUNDING:
is a process that forms new words but from two o more independent words.
Compounds are headed (one of the words is syntactically dominant). When the
head determines the general meaning is an endocentric compound.
o
INTERNAL
CHANGE: the “ablaut” is often used for vowel alternations that mark grammatical
contrasts (Ex: sing-sang)
o
CLIPPING:
is a process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting syllables.
o
BLENDS:
are words that are created from non-morphemic parts of two existing items (ex:
breakfast+lunch>brunch).
o
BACKFORMATION:
creates a new word (normally an agent) by removing a real affix from another
word (ex: adding –or or –er to a verb).
o
ACRONYMS:
are formed by taking the initial letters
of the words in a phrase and reading them as a word (ex: UNICEF)
o
ONOMATOPOEIA:
are words whose sound represents an aspect of the thing that they name (ex:
buzz)
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