Morphology

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Morphology

• The study of the internal structure of words

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What is Morphology?

• Morphology is the study of word formation
• Morphologists identify different classes of
  morphemes, and study the patterns that occur in
  the combination of morphemes
• Ex re- only comes before verbs

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The smallest meaningful unit

• What does it mean to be the smallest meaningful
  unit in a language?
• Divide the following sentence into the smallest
  meaningful unit
• I have two dogs.
• I / have / two / dogs
• I / have / two / dog / -s

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Morphemes

• Meaningful units
• I have two cats
• She wants to leave soon
• He walked across the room
• Her behavior was unbelievable

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Morphemes

• Free
• Can stand alone
• eye, think, run, apple
• Bound
• Cant stand alone
• Has to be attached to a free morpheme
• -able, un-, -s, -tion, -ly

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Morpheme Types

• Root
• The morpheme that is the semantic core
• unthinkable realization distrust
• Affixes
• Bound morpheme that attaches to roots
• -s, un-, de-, -en, -able, -ize, -hood
• Base
• Anything to which an affix is attached
• root
• un.think.able
• base

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Affixes

• The most common way to build new words
• Prefix
• Suffix
• Infix
• Affix

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Prefixes

• Prefix
• An affix that attaches to the front of a root
• un-, dis-, de-, mis-
• Example in- indecent

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Prefixes

• Karok
• pasip Shoot!
• nipasip I shoot
• /upasip She/he shoots
• pasip shoot
• ni- 1st person singular
• /u- 3rd person singular

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Suffixes

• Suffix
• An affix that attaches to the end of a root
• -able, -ing, -ed, -s
• Most common affix
• Example -ful careful

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Suffixes

• Mende
• pElE house
• pElEi the house
• mEmE glass
• mEmEi the glass
• -i the

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Infix

• Infix
• An affix that attaches within the root
• No English example

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Infix

• Bontoc
• fikas strong
• fumikas she is becoming strong
• fusul enemy
• fumusal she is becoming an
• enemy
• -um- becoming

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Affix

• Affix
• General term to cover all the previous terms
• Affixes can attach to other affixes
• boy . ish . ness
• dis . en . tangle

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Group Work

• Identify and isolate the morphemes
• Decide if it is Free or Bound
• Decide what kind of affix is involved (if any)