MORPHOLOGY :

THE GRAMMAR OF WORDS

By: Faizal Risdianto, S.S,M.Hum
IAIN SALATIGA
http://pakfaizal.com/
faizrisd@gmail.com
 “Morphology” Kia hai?
• 1. the study of internal word
structure.
• 2. the grammar of words.
• 3. the study of the way
morpheme formed/transformed
to be a word.
What is morpheme?
• Morpheme is “The smallest syntactic
unit in language that carries meaning,
which is used to form a word”
• Morphology is “The study of the way
phonemes are combined into
morphemes and morphemes into
words”
ELEMENTS OF MORPHEME
Morpho-chart
Word formation=word process
Is this true?  :D
Is this true?  :D

•BOXING
•BOX=KOTAK
•BOXING=MENGKOTAK?
“Port” means “to carry” in Latin
IS THIS TRUE?  :D
MORPHEMIC CUTTING&ANALYSIS
WORD TREE DIAGRAM
THE LONGEST WORD IN ENGLISH
MORPHOLOGY
• Morphology deals with the syntax/the grammar/the
structure of complex words and parts of words, also called
morphemes, as well as with the semantics of their lexical
meanings.
• Understanding how words are formed and what semantic
properties they convey through their forms enables
human beings to easily recognize individual words and
their meanings in discourse.
• Isleptfortenhoursyesterday.
• Youneverwalkalone.
• Islamneverdies.
• Thefutureofdayspast.
CAN YOU READ THIS?  :D
A. FROM PHONEME TO MORPHEME
• A phonemic analysis is an essential part of any full
description of the language; but it fails to give complete
analysis. No matter how far this line of study is pursued or
achieved, nothing is revealed about the meanings of
utterances in the language. Yet the social function of any
language is to carry information from the speaker to
hearer. Without this, speech would probably not exist.
A phonological study of language, no matter how
detailed, can tell us nothing about meanings, because
the phonemes themselves have no direct connection
with the content.
They are merely the lingual unit which the speaker
and hearer know the morphemes. For any further
study of language, the morphemes and combinations
of morphemes must be examined.
B. WHAT IS A MORPHEME?

• “The smallest syntactic unit in language that carries

meaning, which is used to form a word “is called a
“morpheme”. It may be composed of one sound or two
sounds, or several sounds. The size of unit of the unit is
not important. What is important is that the unit should
have meaning and that we should not be able to break it
down into smaller units of meaning.
• For example, the word “cats” is composed of two units:
“cat” +”s”; the first unit refers to the animal; the second
unit refers to the number of animals (more than one).
Now, the word “cat” itself cannot be broken down further;
“at” itself has a meaning of course; but the meaning of
“cat” is not made up of “c” (phoneme) or : “/k/+at”.
• The other instance: the word “loved”. This is also
composed of two units; “love+d”; the first unit refers to the
feeling; the second unit refers to time (past tense). But not
all “d” sounds (phonemes) have this meaning: in the word
“dinner”, we have one unit with meaning. The meaning of
the word “dinner” comes from the whole unit and not from
“d+inner”.
• Each unit, then, that carries meaning in a language is a
“morpheme”. “The study of the way phonemes are
combined into morphemes and morphemes into words” is
called “morphology” or “morphemics”. Thus “morphology”
or “morphemics” as a sub branch of linguistics deals with
the internal structure of word-forms.
UNTOUCHABLES=UN+TOUCH+ABLE+S
• The basic units of analysis recognized in morphology are
morphemes. Let us consider another unique instance.
The word form of “untouchables” can be segmented or
broken down to show its constituent elements:
“Un+touch+able+s”. Each of these units or segments has
its own form (or set of forms), its own meanings, and its
own distribution.
• Thus, “un-“has the fixed phonological form /n/, a meaning
of negation, and recurs in words like “unavailable”,
“unbelievable”, “undone”; whereas, the word “touch” has a
fixed phonological form and a fixed meaning, and recurs
in word-forms like “touched” and “touches”; the suffix “-
able” sometimes occurs in words like “advisable”,
“comparable”, “debatable”, marketable” etc. “the “s” has a
range of phonetic forms (/s, z, iz/) but a constant meaning
of plurality, and recurs in words like “cats”, “boys”,
“fishes”. (this is what do we called “Allomorph”)
• Then, then segments of “un”, “touch”, “able”, “s” can be
further subdivided into smaller segments which function in
the same kind of way as they do; each of them represents
a “morpheme”.
C. RECOGNITION OF MORPHEME.

• A linguist identifies morphemes by comparing a wide

variety of utterances. He looks for utterances which are
partially the same:
• Even in speech we can recognize that words are made up
of parts which have meaning and which can be used in
different words. Consider such words as:
• Apart from elements such as “happy”, “loud”, “slow”,
“quick”, “home”, “dog”, which we recognize as full words,
we can also isolate elements as “-ness”, “-ly”, “-s”.
• We do not recognize these words but we can see how
they are used as units to build the words in the right
column. The words in the left column above consist of one
morpheme each, since we cannot isolate any units within
these words; each of itself constitutes a homogenous unit.
The words in the right column, however, are made up of
more than one on such unit.
• We have already recognized “-ness”, “-ly”, and “-s” as
units of word formation but we can see that they do not
constitute words in the same way as the units on the left.
This distinction tells us why morphemes are usually
divided into two categories; “free morphemes” and “bound
morphemes”.
• Not all morphemes are easily segmentable as these
examples. But the identification of morphemes is done
entirely by means of this one basic technique – the
comparison of partially similar utterance.
Free and Bound Morpheme

• Analysis at a morphological level is concerned with

structural elements of meaning called morphemes.
Morphemes are classified into two types:
• Free Morphemes: girl, boy, mother, etc. These are words
with a complete meaning, so they can stand alone as an
independent word in a sentence.
Bound Morphemes: These are lexical items incorporated
into a word as a dependent part. They cannot stand
alone, but must be connected to another morpheme.
Bound morphemes operates in the connection processes
by means of derivation, inflection, and compounding.
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Derivation is concerned with the way

morphemes are connected to existing lexical
forms as affixes.
• We distinguish affixes in two principal types:
• 1. Prefixes - attached at the beginning of a
lexical item or base-morpheme – ex: un-, pre-,
post-, dis, im-, etc.
• 2. Suffixes – attached at the end of a lexical item
ex: -age, -ing, -ful, -able, -ness, -hood, -ly, etc.
ELEMENTS OF MORPHEME
Morphs, Morpheme +Allomorphs
EXAMPLES OF MORPHOLOGICAL
DERIVATION

• a. Lexical item (free morpheme): like (verb)=piacere

+ prefix (bound morpheme) dis-
= dislike (verb) = detestare;

• b. Lexical item: like (verbo)= piacere

+ suffix –able = likeable (agg)= simpatico
+ prefix un- =unlikeable (agg)= antipatico
+ suffix –ness = unlikeableness (sost)= antipatia
• 3. Lexical item: like (agg)= simile
+ prefix un- = unlike (agg)= dissimile
+ suffix –ness = unlikeness (sost) = dissimilarità;
• 4. Lexical item: like (agg)= simile
+ suffix –ly = likely (agg)= probabile e
(avv) probabilmente
+ suffix –hood =likelihood (sost)= probabilità
+ prefix un- =unlikelihood (sost)= improbabilità.
Derivational affixes can cause semantic change:

Prefix pre- means before; post- means after; un- means

not, re- means again.
Prefix = fixed before; Unhappy = not happy = sad; Retell =
tell again.

Prefix de- added to a verb conveys a sense of subtraction;

dis- and un- have a sense of negativity.
To decompose; to defame; to uncover; to discover.
INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• Inflection is a morphological process that adapts existing
words so that they function effectively in sentences
without changing the category of the base morpheme.
English has the following inflectional suffixes:
VERB INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES
• 1. The suffix –s functions in the Present Simple as the
third person marking of the verb : to work – he work-s
• 2. The suffix –ed functions in the past simple as the past
tense marker in regular verbs: to love – lov-ed
• 3. The suffixes –ed (regular verbs) and –en (for some
regular verbs) function in the marking of the past partciple
and, in general, in the marking of the perfect aspect:
To study studied studied / To eat ate eaten
• 4. The suffix –ing functions in the marking of the present
participle, the gerund and in the marking of the continuous
aspect: To eat – eating / To study - studying
NOUN INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES
• 5. The suffix –s functions in the marking of the plural of
nouns: dog – dogs
• 6. The suffix –s functions as a possessive marker (saxon
genitive): Laura – Laura’s book.
ADJECTIVE INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES
7. The suffix –er functions as comparative marker: quick –
quicker
8. The suffix –est functions as superlative marker: quick -
quickest
Derivational affixes can mark category
change
• The derivational suffix –able derives an adjective
from a verb, implying an ability with a passive
relation with its stem:
Eatable means able to be eaten
(commestibile), not able to eat.
• Suffix –er derives a noun from a verb, indicating a
human agent or an inanimate instrument:
Speaker (parlante o amplificatore); Baker
(fornaio);
• The suffixes –ful and –less derives an adjective from a
noun.
• -ful indicates addiction, abundance;
• -less indicates subtraction, reduction:
careful = full of care
careless = with no care
• The suffixes –ure and –age derive e noun from a verb:
To fail – failure = fallire/fallimento
To marry – marriage = sposare/matrimonio
• The suffix –hood derives an abstract noun from a
concrete noun, the suffix –ness derives an abstract
nounfrom an adjective.
Child – childhood = bambino/infanzia
Good – goodness = buono/bontà
• The suffix –ly derives an adverb from an adjective (but
also adjs can end in –ly):
Quick – quickly
Easy – easily
but: lonely (adjective)
• The suffix –ing derives a noun from a verb:
To write – writing.
Root, base and stem
•Thank You
• faizrisd@gmail.com
• http://pakfaizal.online/