What is Morphology? - Introduction to Linguistics

Learn about morphology and the study of words in human language. ... An example of a free morpheme is "bad", and an example of a bound morpheme is "ly. Togglenavigation LanguageTutorials French Spanish Italian Portuguese Catalan German Dutch Afrikaans Swedish Norwegian Danish MoreLanguages... IntrotoLinguistics MultilingualLists MultilingualLists RomanceVocabulary RomanceVerbs GermanicVocabulary GermanicVerbs ScandinavianVocabulary French&Spanish French&Italian French&German Spanish&Portuguese TeachEnglish TeachEnglish AssistantinFranceGuide EnglishLecteur/Lectrice ESLLessonPlans France LifeinFrance ResidencyCard PACSed/Married Driver'sLicense HealthInsurance TravelinEurope Buye-books WhatisMorphology? LinguisticsTopics LinguisticsIndex Morphology Syntax Phonetics Phonology Semantics Pragmatics Neurolinguistics Sociolinguistics LanguageAcquisition HistoricalLinguistics ClassificationofLanguages Bibliography   Morphologyisthestudyofwords.Morphemesaretheminimalunitsofwordsthathaveameaningandcannotbesubdividedfurther.Therearetwomaintypes:freeandbound.Freemorphemescanoccuraloneandboundmorphemesmustoccurwithanothermorpheme.Anexampleofafreemorphemeis"bad",andanexampleofaboundmorphemeis"ly."Itisboundbecausealthoughithasmeaning,itcannotstandalone.Itmustbeattachedtoanothermorphemetoproduceaword. Freemorpheme:bad Boundmorpheme:-ly Word:badly Whenwetalkaboutwords,therearetwogroups:lexical(orcontent)andfunction(orgrammatical)words.Lexicalwordsarecalledopenclasswordsandincludenouns,verbs,adjectivesandadverbs.Newwordscanregularlybeaddedtothisgroup.Functionwords,orclosedclasswords,areconjunctions,prepositions,articlesandpronouns;andnewwordscannotbe(orareveryrarely)addedtothisclass. Affixesareoftentheboundmorpheme.Thisgroupincludesprefixes,suffixes,infixes,andcircumfixes.Prefixesareaddedtothebeginningofanothermorpheme,suffixesareaddedtotheend,infixesareinsertedintoothermorphemes,andcircumfixesareattachedtoanothermorphemeatthebeginningandend.Followingareexamplesofeachofthese: Prefix:re-addedtodoproducesredo Suffix:-oraddedtoeditproduceseditor Infix:-um-addedtofikas(strong)producesfumikas(tobestrong)inBontoc Circumfix:ge-and-ttolieb(love)producesgeliebt(loved)inGerman Therearetwocategoriesofaffixes:derivationalandinflectional.Themaindifferencebetweenthetwoisthatderivationalaffixesareaddedtomorphemestoformnewwordsthatmayormaynotbethesamepartofspeechandinflectionalaffixesareaddedtotheendofanexistingwordforpurelygrammaticalreasons.InEnglishthereareonlyeighttotalinflectionalaffixes: -s 3rdpersonsingularpresent shewaits -ed pasttense hewalked -ing progressive she'swatching -en pastparticiple shehaseaten -s plural threetables -'s possessive Holly'scat -er comparative youaretaller -est superlative youarethetallest Theothertypeofboundmorphemesarecalledboundroots.Thesearemorphemes(andnotaffixes)thatmustbeattachedtoanothermorphemeanddonothaveameaningoftheirown.Someexamplesareceiveinperceiveandmitinsubmit. EnglishMorphemes Free OpenClass ClosedClass Bound Affix Derivational Inflectional Root Therearesixwaystoformnewwords.Compoundsareacombinationofwords,acronymsarederivedfromtheinitialsofwords,back-formationsarecreatedfromremovingwhatismistakenlyconsideredtobeanaffix,abbreviationsorclippingsareshorteninglongerwords,eponymsarecreatedfrompropernouns(names),andblendingiscombiningpartsofwordsintoone. Compound:doghouse Acronym:NBA(NationalBasketballAssociation)orscuba(self-containedunderwaterbreathingapparatus) Back-formation:editfromeditor Abbreviation:phonefromtelephone Eponym:sandwichfromEarlofSandwich Blending:smogfromsmokeandfog   LinguisticsTopics LinguisticsIndex Morphology Syntax Phonetics Phonology Semantics Pragmatics Neurolinguistics Sociolinguistics LanguageAcquisition HistoricalLinguistics ClassificationofLanguages Bibliography   Ifyouenjoythetutorials,thenpleaseconsiderbuyingFrench,InformalFrench,Italian,Spanish,German,Swedish,orDutchLanguageTutorialsasaPDFe-bookwithfreemp3sandfreelifetimeupdates. BuyFrenchTutorial BuyInformalFrench BothFrenche-books BuyItalianTutorial BuySpanishTutorial BuyGermanTutorial BuySwedishTutorial BuyDutchTutorial Pleaseconsidersendingadonationofanyamounttohelpsupportielanguages.com.Thankyou! Donate Returntotopofpage FluentUoffersauthenticvideosinFrench,Spanish,German,English,ChineseandJapanese.LearnfromcaptionsandtranslationsandenjoyaccesstoALLlanguages! LearnSpanish,French,German,Italian,MandarinChineseandEnglishwithauthenticvideosbyYablathatincludesubtitlesandtranslations. LearntoreadlanguageswithinterlinearbilingualbooksthatincludetheoriginallanguageandanEnglishtranslationbelowinasmallerfont. HundredsoffreeandpaidonlinelanguagelearningvideocoursesatUdemy.Bynativespeakersandexperts,fromArabictoZulu. ©Copyright1997-2021byDr.JenniferWagnerAbout|Blog|AffiliateProgram|Disclaimer|PrivacyPolicy