Morphology is the study of how words are formed and structured in a language. It examines the smallest units of meaning, called morphemes, and explains how they combine to create new words and convey different meanings.
- Word Formation
- Free and Bound Morphemes
- Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes
- Morphological Processes
- Analytic vs. Synthetic Languages
Free and Bound Morphemes
Free morphemes are independent words like 'dog,' 'run,' and 'happy.'
Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g., book, run, happy), while bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must attach to other morphemes (e.g., -s, -ed, un-).
- Free morphemes: Independent, meaningful units (e.g., cat, blue, jump).
- Bound morphemes: Must attach to other morphemes; include prefixes, suffixes, infixes (e.g., un-, -ness, -ed).
'un-' and '-ed' are bound morphemes.
Examples of bound morphemes include -s, -ed, and pre-.
Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes
Derivational morphemes include -ness and un-.
Derivational morphemes change a word's meaning or part of speech (e.g., happy → happiness, do → undo), while inflectional morphemes modify a word's form to express grammatical relationships without changing its core meaning (e.g., cat → cats, walk → walked).
- Derivational morphemes: Create new words, may change word class (e.g., -ness, un-).
- Inflectional morphemes: Show grammatical function, do not change word class (e.g., -s, -ed, -ing).
Inflectional morphemes do not change the core meaning or word class.
Inflectional morphemes include -s, -ed, and -ing.
Morphological Processes
Common morphological processes include derivation, inflection, and compounding.
- Derivation: Adding affixes to create new words (teach → teacher).
- Inflection: Modifying words for grammar (book → books).
- Compounding: Joining two or more free morphemes (notebook, blackboard).
- Reduplication: Repeating a morpheme (rare in English; common in other languages).
'Blackboard' is a compound word formed by two free morphemes.
Toothpaste and sunflower are compound words.
Analytic vs. Synthetic Languages
Analytic languages have few inflections and rely on word order and particles.
- Analytic languages: Use mainly free morphemes; rely on word order (e.g., English, Chinese).
- Synthetic languages: Use many bound morphemes; express multiple meanings in single words (e.g., Latin, Turkish).
English is primarily an analytic language.
Latin and Turkish are synthetic languages.
Conclusion
Morphology illuminates how languages build and modify words, revealing deep connections between form and meaning.
- Words are constructed from morphemes—free morphemes stand alone, while bound morphemes attach to others.
- Derivational morphemes create new words; inflectional morphemes adjust words for grammatical use.
- Different languages use morphological strategies in varied ways (analytic vs. synthetic).
Free morphemes include 'run,' 'happy,' and 'cat.'
Derivational morphemes create new words or change their class.
English uses derivation, inflection, and compounding.