Morphology

  • Morphology: the study of word formation and meaningful changes in the forms of words
    • meaningful changes in syntax often have morphological changes
    • morphemes: smallest meaningful units of words
  • Basic Terminology
    • Simplex / Monomorphic word: word cannot be broken down further and still have meaning
    • Complex / Polymorphic word: can be broken down further (sunset, background, jumping)
    • Parse: break down a complex word into its simplest element
    • Lexical Morpheme: carries syntactic meaning, roots
    • Grammatical Morpheme: carries syntactic meaning. specifies lexical category (noun, verb, etc.)
    • ex: childish. child = lexical. ish = grammatical
    • root: structural center. morpheme which other bound morphemes latch onto
    • stems: root that has already been modified by a bound morpheme and is modified by a further morpheme
    • prefix and suffix
    • affixes: any added elements (prefixes, circumfixes, suffixes)
    • circumfixes: adding both prefix and suffix in order to change the meaning
    • inflexion: changing conjugate forms of the same word
    • ex: dance - dances - danced - dancing
    • lexeme: speakers are aware of inflectionally related forms of lexemes
    • derivation: a new word form is created from an existing word
    • usually in different lexical category
      • you’re my friend (n) ➝ friend (v) me on insta
  • other processes
    • prefixation
    • suffixation
    • infixation: morpheme inserted in the middle of a complex root
    • compounding: the formation of new words through two independent words
    • reduplication: repetition of all or part of a morpheme to create a new word of a different meaning
    • pingan (dish) ➝ pingan pingan (dishes)
    • talon (field) ➝ tal-talon (fields)
    • stem alterations: nothing is added or subtracted from the word - there’s an internal alteration to the root
    • man ➝ men
    • tooth ➝ teeth
    • zero derivation: shift in lexical class w/out a change in phonological or morphological form
      • ex: fish (animal) and fish (go fishing)
    • suppletion: when a morpheme has a completely unrelated root as part of its set of forms
    • kind kinder kindest
    • good gooder goodest*
    • good better best