Morphology review & neologism1

A review

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2. 3. 4.

What is a morpheme? What is the difference between free and bound morphemes? What is a root morpheme? What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?

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Morphemes ◦ The most elemental unit of a word

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believable

unbelievable

desirable

undesirable

happy

unhappy

dressed

undressed

Morphology ◦ Study of the internal structure; rules of word formation

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Prefixes Prefixes are added to the beginning Suffixes Suffixes are added to the end Form a word with 2 suffixes Form a word with 1 Prefix and 2 Suffixes

For each of the words below, determine the number of morphemes it has.

Sister

sister’s sisters blister unhappy the teacher

happy carefully

◦ Free morphemes can be used alone ◦ Bound morphemes must be attached to other morphemes 

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Free morpheme in a complex word: Deactivation de+act+iv+at+ion Act: 1 a : the doing of a thing (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

Quick exercise For each morpheme below, determine whether it’s free or bound. 

Pre

pro

ive

y

worth

un

ion

re

duct ed

with able

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Lexical morpheme

◦ Have a ‘real world’ meaning ◦ Also called content morpheme

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Grammatical morpheme

◦ Change the form of a word but don’t have ‘real word’ meaning

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Test: find a synonym for the morpheme ◦ If you can find one, it’s a lexical morpheme

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What is the difference between free &bound morphemes and lexical & grammatical morphemes?

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What’s a root morpheme?

Note:

-roots tend to be free and lexical -affixes tend to be bound and grammatical

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Quick exercise Analyze the word: “production” How many morphemes does it have? Which morpheme is the stem? Which ones are affixes? Is the stem free and lexical? Word

Meaning

con+duct

To carry out

in+duct

To place ceremoniously

ab+duct

To lead away Conclusion: ‘duct’ is a bound root morpheme

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Quick exercise 

Identify the roots of the following words

kingdom margins

interplanetary paintball

dimensional children

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What are inflectional affixes? ◦ Do not create new words when they attach to existing words ◦ They change the form of that word to indicate grammatical meaning

Inflectional morpheme 

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Plural –s, -es (noun) Possessive –’s, s’ (noun) Comparative –er (adj.) Superlative –est (adj.) 3rd person singular –s (verb) Past tense –ed (verb) Past participle –ed, -en Present participle -ing

Example        

Pim likes to eat peach-es Pim’s grades are great Pim is smart-er than Boss Pim is the quick-est of all Pim like-s to study Pim studi-ed hard for the quiz Pim hasn’t fail-ed a test yet. Pim has been study-ing for 3 hours

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Derivational Affixes

◦ Create new (or derive) new words in two ways ◦ Some derivational morphemes change the content meaning but not grammatical meaning ◦ Others don’t significantly change the meaning but the grammatical meaning.

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Unlike inflectional affixes, derivational affixes can be both, prefixes or suffixes in English.

Function

Morpheme

Example Word

Change content meaning

un-

un+happy

Change content meaning

re-

re+write

Change grammatical function (noun ⇒verb)

-ize

trauma(t)+ize

Change grammatical function (noun ⇒adj.)

-y

health+y

Change grammatical function (adj.⇒adverb)

-ly

quick+ly

The number of derivational affixes in English is far greater than inflectional affixes

Quick exercise 

Each of the words below contains two morphemes, a root and a derivational affix. Decide if the derivational affix changes the meaning or class of the root. retake undress disembark

hopeless tension cheerful

What is the general trend with regard to the behavior of derivational prefixes vs. suffixes? That is, how does each kind of affix derive new words?

Quick exercise 

Each of the words below contains two morphemes, a root and a derivational affix. Decide if the derivational affix changes the meaning or class of the root. rewrite unclear unhappy

hopeless creation helpful

What is the general trend with regard to the behavior of derivational prefixes vs. suffixes? That is, how does each kind of affix derive new words?

Morphemes bound

free

grammatical lexical derivational

prefixes ex:-un

lexical -bound roots

inflectional -eight suffixes

suffixes ex: -ness

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Affixing

◦ Affixing and derivation create new words in English ◦ X number of affixes +Y number of words (stems) ◦ Example: ‘un-’

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Functional shift

◦ Words changing word class ◦ Example: impact (noun and verb) Quick exercise: Transition hope

reference

proposition

help

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Coined words ◦ Speakers continually create new words. Consider the word ‘dissing’ in the sentence:

Are you dissing me? 1. What does dissing mean? 2. What part of speech does it belong to? answer on a morphological basis)

(Defend your

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Acronyms ◦ Common acronyms that turned into words: ◦ Laser, radar, scuba, MUIC

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Where do they derive from? Light Amplification (by) Stimulated Emission (of) Radiation RAdio Detecting And Ranging

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Borrowing Speakers of English aggressively borrow from other languages ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

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Kindergarten (German) Croissant (French) Sushi (Japanese) Macho (???)

List 3 words in Thai that are borrowed from English?

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Blending ◦ Mixing words

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Quick exercise: from what words are the following blends mixed?

Motel Netiquette

Infomercial

Edutainment