MORPHOLOGY

MORPHOLOGY

1. is the study of these meaning-bearing units and the rules governing them, the study of the structure of words.

2. morpheme

   • which sometimes is designated with braces, { }, is the smallest meaning-bearing unit of language.

3. TYPES OF MORPHEMES

   • free morphemes
     • can be recognized as a word that carries a meaning by itself.
     • Free morphemes fall into two categories
       • lexical or open class
         • Lexical free morphemes include the set of ordinary nouns, adjectives, and verbs which we think of as the words which carry the “content” of messages we convey.
       • functional or close class
         • Functional free morphemes consist largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and pronouns
       • Another type of morpheme is the bound morpheme, which occurs only when attached to another morpheme.
         • The bound morpheme which occurs only when attached to another morpheme.
           • This type includes
             • prefixes and suffixes of all kinds, such as {pre-}, {-ness}, {-ly}, {-ed}, and many others
           • Bound morphemes may be subdivided into
             • derivational
               • derivational morpheme is one that is added to a root (that is, a word) to form a new word that differs, usually, in its part-of-speech classification
             • inflectional
               • An inflectional morpheme indicates certain grammatical properties associated with nouns and verbs, such as gender, number. case, and tense.

4. Allomorphs

   • an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning
   • Nouns that end in one of the sibilants /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, and /ʤ/ take the [əz] plural allomorph
   • Nouns that end in a voiceless consonant (other than a sibilant) form their plurals with the voiceless allomorph [-s],
   • All other regular nouns end in a voiced sound and take the voiced allomorph [-z],
   • Some irregular allomorphs of the plural morpheme are [-ən]as in oxen, [-rən] as in children, and Ø (zero morph) as in deer.