Bai Giang Hinh Vid HK 16

English Morphology --------------------------------------- page 0

CONTENTS
Content Page 1

Chapter 1. An Introduction to Morphology 2

ChapterII. Morphemes 4
Chapter III. Main types of morpheme 9
Chapter IV. IC division – Allomorphs 20
Chapter V. English words and their classification 25
Chapter VI. Derivational morphology and inflectional morphology 29
Chapter VII. Compounding process 40
Chapter VIII. Special processes 45
Summary 61
Revision 62
Appendix 63
References 65
Chapter I
AN INTRODUCTION TO MORPHOLOGY
Linguistics is the scientific study of language including: PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY

which studies sound systems, SYNTAX which studies sentence structures, SEMANTICS which
studies the meaning of language, LEXICOLOGY which studies its vocabulary building or word
formation, MORPHOLOGY which studies word structures and - SOCIO-LINGUISTICS which
studies its social aspects.
1.1 What is morphology?

How is it that we can use and understand words in our language that we have never
encountered before? This is the central question of morphology, the component of a grammar that
deals with the internal structure of words and the study of the rules by which words are formed.
Morphology could also be defined as the study of morphemes and their different forms
(allomorphs) and the ways they combine in word formation.
As with any other area of linguistic theory, we must distinguish between general
morphological theory that applies to all languages and the morphology of a particular language.
General morphological theory is concerned with defining exactly what types of morphological
rules that can be found in natural languages. The morphology of a particular language, on the other
hand, is a set of rules with a dual function. First, these rules are responsible for word formation, the
formation of new words. Second, they represent the speaker’s unconscious knowledge of the
internal structure of the already existing words of their language. Just as knowledge of a language
implies knowledge of phonology, so it also implies knowledge of the morphology.
1.2 Two levels of morphology
1.2.1 Paradigmatic morphology: the study of parts of speech (noun, adj, adv, etc.) and the
formation of these. There are two kinds of paradigms: derivational and inflectional.
1.2.2. Syntagmatic morphology: the study of the use of parts of speech (adj is used to
modify a noun...) and the study of phrases: noun + noun, adj + noun, verb + adv, etc.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What is language? What are constituent parts of language?
2. What is linguistics?
3. What are the different branches of linguistics?
4. What does MORPHOLOGY study?
5. State the two levels of MORPHOLOGY.
6. What does paradigmatic morphology study?
7. What does syntagmatic morphology study?
EXERCISES
A. Say whether these statements true (T) or false (F).
1…….. General morphological theory applies to all languages.
2.…….. The study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed,
is called morphology.
3…….. The morphology of a particular language is a set of rules with a dual function.
4……. Knowledge of a language implies knowledge of the morphology only.
B. Multiple choice
1. ……………………… consists of four constituent parts: the phonological system, the
morphological system, the syntactic system and the semantic system.
A. Linguistics
B. Language
C. Morphology
D. Lexicology
2. Which best describe the English language?
A. English has complex morphology and less rigid syntax.
B. English has less complex morphology but more rigid syntax.
C. English has complex morphology and rigid syntax.
3. What is morphology?
A. The study of the rules governing the sounds that form words
B. The study of the rules governing sentence formation
C. The study of the rules governing word formation
4. Which of the following is not correct?
A. Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are
formed.
B. Morphology could also be defined as the study of morphemes and their different forms and
the way they combine in word formation.
C. Morphology studies the basic units of morphological structure and the relations which
obtain between them.
D. Morphology studies the criteria for determining the morphological analysis of any language.
E. Morphology also studies such units as phrases and the syntactical relations between them.
Chapter II
MORPHEMES
In this course, we shall examine both word structure and word formation. In any science,
one of the basic problems is to identify the minimal units, the basic parts out of which more
complex units constructed. Therefore, we would begin by identifying the minimal meaningful unit
of a language: the morpheme.
2.1 What is a morpheme?
2.1.1 Definition
1. “Morphemes are the minimal meaningful units which may constitute words or parts of
words” (Nida, E., 1946:1)
Structuralists define morphemes as units of semantic content or grammatical function.
e.g. : redo, girlish, darkness, books, walked
A morpheme recurs in different words with constant meaning.

Take the following word sets as examples.
Word set 1
phone phonic
phonetic phoneme
phonetician phonetic
phonetics allophone
phonology telephone
phonologic telephonic
phonological euphonious
However, some morphemes may be restricted to relatively few words.

e.g. : {-ric}: bishopric
{-berry}: scanberry, strawberry, huckleberry, blackberry, boysenberry, gooseberry
Most morphemes are clear in meaning.

e.g. :{-er}: caller
{-ness}: goodness
{-ex}: ex-wife, ex-minister
{-pre}: preface
Sometimes some “unanalysable” parts are not morphemes at al.

e.g. : worker has two morphemes {work} and {-er}, whereas butcher, grocer are
unanalysable parts.
2. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful elements in the structure of a word, either
semantic or grammatical.
Examples: The symbol is { } (braces)
- demand (2 morphemes): {de-} + {-mand} (semantic)
- teachers (3 morphemes): {teach-} {-er} {-s} (semantic & grammatical)
- internationalism (4 morphemes): {inter-} {-nation} {-al} {-ism} (semantic)
Morphemes are different from words which are minimal free forms, that is to say, the
smallest units which may be spoken alone.
Example:
+cat 1 word, 1 morpheme {cat}
+cats 1 word, 2 morpheme {cat} + {s}
+teachers 1 word, 3 morphemes {teach-} + {-er} +{-s}
+undecidedly1 word, 4 morphemes {un-} +{decide} +{ed} +{ly}
3. A morpheme is a class of allomorphs that are semantically similar and in complementary

distribution
Ex: Morpheme /s / ~ /z / ~ /iz/ means '' more than one'' and each of them has a certain
distribution.
2.1.2 Difference between morphemes, words, syllables

Now consider the example: the forms see, sees, seeing, saw, seen are different realizations
(or representations or manifestation of lexeme – the abstract vocabulary item - see). These forms
are called word or words. Thus, we call refer to see, sees, seeing, saw, and seen as five different
words.
Syllable is a unit of speech which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole
word. For example, the word vocabulary consists of five syllables: vo-ca-bu-la-ry.
Word Morphem Syllable

e
cat 1 1 1
cats 1 2 1
teachers 1 3 2
uncivilized 1 4 4
2.2 Types of morphemes

There are many types of morphemes from different aspects. They are classified according to
the structure or function as follows:
2.2.1 According to the internal composition: There are two types of morphemes:
- Segmental morphemes: Morphemes that are formed from segmental phonemes: re-, un-, -ish,
-less.
- Suprasegmental morphemes: stress morphemes and intonation morphemes.
2. 2.2 According to the shapes and sizes of morphemes:

- Morphemes C (consonant): {s}
- Morphemes VC (vowel-consonant): {un-}
- Morphemes CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant): {man}, {-ness}
2.2.3 According to the structural relationships of morphemes to each other:

- Additive morphemes which include affixes (prefixes and suffixes), infixes ands suprafixes ( or
superfixes)
Happy unhappy: {un-}: prefix

happiness {-ness}: suffix
guarantee guaran-damn-tee: -{damn}-: infix
- Replacive morphemes: /fit/=/fʊt/ = /i/ʊ/
(replaces)
- Subtractive morphemes: {fiancé}  {fiancée}
2.2.4. According to the distribution:

- Free morphemes and bound morphemes
- Roots and affixes (prefixes, suffixes, suprafixes)
- Segmental and suprasegmental morphemes
Ex: The morpheme {book} consists of the segmental /b/ /u/ /k/, suprasegmental /'/ (= stress)
- suprasegmental intonation / 12 3 /
Example: :
- 4 stress morphemes: /: primary stress \: secondary stress
, : sustained stresses
2.2.5. According to the function:
- Lexical morphemes:
Prefixes prefixes + roots: lexical morpheme
Affixes roots + derivational suffixes: lexical morphemes
Suffixes
roots + inflectional suffixes: grammatical morphemes
- Grammatical morphemes:
{-s}, {s1 }: Bill's, {s2 }: cars, {-s3 }: flies;
{-ed1 }: ended (past); {-ed2 }: worked (pp)
{-ing1}: singing..
{ but} , {from}
EXERCISES
A. Multiple choice
1. …………….. are minimal meaningful units of language.
A. Morphemes B. Phonemics C. Words
D. Phrases E. Sentences
2. Which of the following is not correct?
A. A morpheme may be represented by a single sound.
B. A morpheme may be represented by a syllable.
C. A morpheme may be resented by more than one syllable.
D. Bound morphemes may be derivational or inflectional.
E. A morpheme never has alternate phonetic form.
3. Which of the following statement is not correct?
A. A morpheme is a word or part of word that has meaning.
B. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.
C. A morpheme recurs in different words with relatively stable meaning.
D. A morpheme is always a minimal free form.

E. A morpheme is a class of allomorphs semantically similar and in complementary
distribution.
4. According to ……………………, morphemes can be compsed of lexical morphemes and
grammatical morphemes.
A. the internal composition
B. the distribution
C. the function
D. the structural relationship
5. ....................... could be defined as any of different forms of a morpheme.
A. An allomorph
B. An allophone
C. A word
D. A distinctive feature
B. Identify the morphemes for each of the following words, in the order that they appear in
the word.
Words Morphemes
Inputs In+put+s
Football
Elements
indo-european
International
industrialization
Another
Notable
Chapter III
MAIN TYPES OF MORPHEMES
Each language has a different system for the combining of morphemes, and within each
system there are rigid restrictions. In morphology of most languages the order is fixed. In English,
we find rather complex structures, e.g. the word formalizers consists of five morphemes. The shift
in order of one morpheme makes the word quite unintelligible, e.g. formizalers.
The distribution of morphemes differentiate a great many classes of morphemes and
combinations of morphemes. Linguists often distinguish between lexical and grammatical
morphemes, between free and bound morphemes, and between roots and affixes.
3.1 Lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes
According to functionalists, there are two kinds of morphemes: lexical morphemes and
grammatical morphemes.
3.1.1 Lexical morphemes:
Lexical morphemes are morphemes forming units of vocabulary. they occur in a limited
number in the text. They express meanings that can be relatively easily defined by using dictionary
terms or by pointing out examples, or things, or events, or properties which the morphemes can be
used to refer to: tree, red, exactly.
3.1.2 Grammatical morphemes
Grammatical morphemes have one (or both) of the characteristics. First they express very
common meanings which speakers of the language unconsciously consider important enough to be
expressed very often. Verb tense morpheme is an example. English recruits essentially every
sentence to have a tense.
Example:
They went to the movies last night.
We’ve just bought a car.
It rains a lot in winter.
Another example is morphemes expressing noun number (singular versus plural). Most
nouns can be made plural, and most nouns, when used are either singular or plural.
Example:
a book – some books
The boy is happy.
The boys are happy.
Tense morphemes and plural morphemes are thus grammatical. Some of the most
commonly used grammatical morphemes in English are bound, for example glasses, looked.
Others are free, for example the infinitive marker to, that (as in we think that he will win) and
‘dummy’ do (Who do you like?). Free grammatical morphemes are also called function words.
3.2 Free morphemes and bound morphemes

A free morpheme can constitute a word by itself while a bound morpheme must be attached
to another element. The morpheme house, for example, is free since it can be used as a word on its
own; plural –s, on the other hand, is bound.
3.2.1 Free morphemes
Free morphemes are those that can be used as minimal free forms. A free morpheme is one
that can be uttered alone with meaning. They do not need to be attached to other morphemes. They
can be used as words, e.g. boy, school, book, pen, etc...
e.g.
- readers: read ... free morpheme
er/s ... bound morpheme
-wanted: want ... free morpheme
ed ... bound morpheme
- Connecticut ... free morpheme
3.2.2 Bound morphemes

Some morphemes are bound in that they must be joined to other morphemes. They are
always parts of words and never words by themselves. A bound morpheme is one that cannot be
uttered alone with meaning.
e.g.
-dom in kingdom, freedom, serfdom, boredom
un- in undesirable
-ly in unfriendly
-ness in laziness.
and {s} in books, stories, horses
Bound morphemes can be affixes: prefixes, suffixes or a base. Bound morphemes can be
classified as derivational or inflectional. Some morphemes, like huckle- in huckleberry and –ceive
in perceive or receive, have constant phonological form but meanings determined by the words in
which they occur.
Examples:
- marrying {marry} {-ing} - manliness {man} {-ly} {-ness}
- though {though} - pretended {pre} {-tend} {-ed}
- learn {learn} - deceiver {de-} {-ceive} {-er}
- teacher's {teach} {-er} {-s1}
3.3 Roots and Affixes:

3.3.1. Roots
Roots are the lexical morphemes that constitute the CORE of all words.
A root is the morpheme in a word that has the principal meaning.
Ex: FAITH in faithful, DOG in dogs, and STRONG in stronger.
There may be more than one root in a single word, e.g. blackbird, catfish and he goat and
some roots may have unique occurrences, e.g. the unique element cran- in cranberry.
Roots are very numerous and most of them in English are free morphemes but some are
bound morphemes.
Ex: deni al lov able annoy ance re enter
root suf root suf root suf pref root
 root = free morpheme
+ {-ceive} in receive, deceive, perceive
root root root
{-sent} in consent, assent, dissent
root root root
 root = bound morpheme
3.3.2. Affixes
Affixes are bound morphemes that occur before or behind a root and somewhat modify the
basic meaning of the root.
There are 2 kinds of affixes.
- Derivational affixes: serve to derive the new word class from another word class: {-ly} in
quickly, {en} in darken
- Inflectional affixes: {-s} in boys, girls; {-ed} in walked, needed; {-es} in goes, does. They
do not change the part of speech or word class of the roots.
It is possible to distinguish among several types of affixes in terms of their position relative
to their stem. Accordingly, affixes include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, suprafixes (suprasegmental)
Affixes appear with a base with which they are bound either directly or with one or more
affixes.
Ex: disagreement {dis} {agree} {ment}
unfriendliness {un} {friend} {ly} {ness}
directly  intervening affix
Ex: unpretended {un} {pre} {tend} {ed3}
normalizes {norm} {al} {ize} {er} {s2}
Ex: impossibility
prefix {im-}, {in-}, root {possible}, suffix {-ity}
+Prefixes : The affixes which precede the base are called PREFIXES. There are about 75
prefixes in English. Prefixes do not change the grammatical class of words.
Ex: ex-wife, ex-minister
pre-war, pre-school
mono-plane, monopoly
+Suffixes: The affixes which follow the base are called SUFFIXES. Suffixes change the
word class, though some suffixes do not.
Ex: play-er, paint-er, law-yer
free-dom, martyr-dom, wis-dom
go-es, make-s, work-s
Prefixes Suffixes
disappear vividly
repay government
illiterate funnier
inaccurate distribution
SUFFIXES may pile up to number of 3 or 4 while PREFIXES are commonly single except
for the prefix {un} before another prefix.
Ex:
uncivilizational (3 suffixes)
unmistakability: suffixes {-able}, {-ity}
prefixes [un-}, {mis-}
behaviouralism (behave +iour+al+ism
industrialization (industry+al+ize+ation)
+Infixes: Infix, occurs less common within the morpheme.
Often word-internal vowel or consonant which is replaced is confused with infixing. A change such
as the one found in English foot-feet is not an example of infixing since there is no morpheme. In
English, although infixing is not part of the normal morphological system, it does occur quite
commonly with expletives, providing a kind of emphasis, as in the following examples:
guarantee  guaran-damn-tee
absolutely  abso-bloody-lutely
craft s man (compound noun)
r infix r
(Note: the arrow means “becomes” or “is written as”)
+Suprafixes are morphemes which consist of suprasegmental morphemes added to the root or
stem.
verbs nouns
contáct cóntàct
objéct óbjèct
permít pérmìt
subjéct súbjèct
transfèr tránsfèr
/ / \
3.4 Free vs. bound base
A base (also called a root) is ‘that morpheme in a word that has the principal meaning’ [Stageberg,
1965: 87-88]. It is the central morpheme, the basic part of a word. There are two kinds of bases:
A free base is a base ‘which may be a word on its own right once the other morphemes have
been stripped away’ [Jackson, 1980: 53].
E.g. break in unbreakable, act in deactivated, friend in friendship, etc.
A bound base is a base (i.e. it is the basic part of a word and has the principal meaning)
which can never occur on its own but can only be joined to other bound morphemes.
E.g. The bound base of audience, audible, audition, auditory, auditorium,
etc. is audi–; that of suicide, patricide, matricide, infanticide, etc. is –cide; and
that of suspender, pendant, pendulum, etc. is –pend or pend–.
3.5 Free vs. bound allomorphs

1. Typical examples I:
/ri:/ /ri:ðz/ /l∂υf/ /l∂υvz/
/bu:/ /bu:ðz/ /haυs/ /haυziz/
/naif/ /naivz/ /pæ/ /pæðz/
/li:f/ /li:vz/
2. Remarks:
[pæ] in path, pathfinder, pathway
- path  {path1}
[pæð-] in paths
- The morpheme {path} whose meaning is ''way'' has 2 allomorphs, one is free [pæ], and other
[pæð] is bound, that means it occurs only with the noun plural morpheme.
[pæ] as in the path of righteousness.

{pæ2}  ''suffer''
[p∂-] as in psychopath, pathology, sympathetic
psychopath [saik∂pæ]
pathology [pæol∂d i]
sympathetic [simp∂etik]
- Morpheme {path2} has the meaning “ a course of action or conduct”. It has 2 allomorphs: [pæ]
which is the free allomorph and [p∂-] which is the bound form.
5. Homophones:
- { path 1} and { path 2} sound alike but they are different in meaning, they are called
HOMOPHONES.
- Two morphemes or sequences of morphemes are called HOMOPHONES when they sound alike
but do not have the same meaning.
Example
air heir : single morpheme
rose rows
 
1 morpheme 2 morphemes
3.6 Phonologically conditioned & morphologically conditioned allomorphs
3.6.1 Phonologically conditioned allomorphs
The 3 allomorphs [-s~ -z~ -iz] of the noun plural morpheme [-s2] are said to be
phonologically conditioned because their distribution depends on the phonetic nature of the
preceding sound.
3.6.2. Morphologically conditioned:
Look at this example: ox  oxen /óks∂n/. [∂n] has the meaning ''more than one''. It may be
another allomorph of the noun plural morpheme {-s2}. It occurs with 3 specific morphemes (ox,
child, brother). It is said to be morphologically conditioned i.e. its distribution is determined by the
specific morphemes or stems.
3.7 Stem
A stem is a morpheme or combination of morphemes, an actual form, to which an
inflectional morpheme can be added. In many cases, the stem will also be a root. In books, for
example, the element to which the affix s is added to a root. In other cases, however, the suffix can
be added to a unit larger than a root. This happens in words such as hospitalized in which the past
tense affix –ed is added to the stem hospitalize – a unit consisting of the root morpheme hospital
and the suffix –ize. In this case, hospital is not only the root for the entire word but also the stem
for –ize. The unit hospitalize, on the other hand, is simply the stem for -ed
- student (stem) + {s}= new word students
3.8 Combinations of morphemes

Morphemes can be combined according to this chart:
Bound Bound
Free Free
Examples:
- B+B: con vene recur
B B B B
- B+F: foresee dislike
B F B F
- F+F: policeman darkroom

F F F F
- F+B: typist assistant
F B F B
EXERCISES
A. Multiple choice
1. The word gentlemanliness is a word made up of …………….. morphemes (morphs).
A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 D. 4 E. 5
2. Which of the following words does not contain the morph belonging to the same morpheme?
A. phonetics B. phonetician C. telephonic D. topon
3. Moralizer is an English word consisting of …………….. morphemes (morphs).
A. 1 B. 2 C.3 D. 4 E. 5
4.…………….. are those which can be used as minimal free forms.
A. Prefixes B. Suffixes C. Derivational morphemes
D. Free morphemes E. Inflectional morphemes
5. Which of the following could be used as a bound morpheme?
A. -ence B. brand C. music D. pun E. human
6.…………….. could be defined as any of different forms of a morpheme.
A. An allomorph B. An allophone C. A word
D. A phrase E. A sentence
7. Which of the following are inflectional morphemes?
A. –s, -ed, -ing B. ir-, -ity, -ize C. lamp, key, tone
D. house, re-, -ment E. hungrier, blue, deep
8. Which of the following words does not contain a bound morpheme?
A. happiness B. Canadian C. realization
D. organ E. planes
9. Which of the following words does not contain a morpheme (morph) with the meaning time (or
order)?
A. foretell B. pre-war C. post-war
D. resettlement E. semicircle
10. /Z/ in plays, /S / in book and /IZ/ in houses are different allomorphs of the same morpheme
meaning ………………
A. badness B. not C. plurality D. good E. motion
11. Which of the following are the allomorphs of the simple past tense morpheme of English {-
ed}:
A. /t/, /d/ and /id/ B. /s/, /z/, /iz/ C. –er, -est, more
D. –ing, ‘s, and /id/ E. learn, work and play
12. Which of the following is not an inflectional morpheme?
A. –ed B. –ing C. –s D. –er E. blue
13. Which of the following is morphologically conditioned?
A. cars B. dishes C. maps D. brethren
14. Which of the following does not contain an inflectional morpheme?
A. hospitalizes B. darkroom C. perceived D. lazier
15. Two morphemes or sequences of morphemes are called …………………… when they sound
alike but do not have the same meaning.
A. Synonyms B. antonym C. homophones D. pseudonyms
B. Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
1. …………Stems differ from roots in that they may be made up of one single morpheme while
roots can be made up of two or more morphemes.
2.………… Chronology, chronic and chronograph all contain the root chron-, which is a free
morpheme.
3. ………… /t/, /d/, /id/ are alternate phonetic form of the same morpheme.
4. ………… A morpheme may be represented by a single syllable, such as CHILD.
5. …………Grammatical morphemes can express very common meanings and/ or grammatical
relations within a sentence.
6. …………The inflectional morphemes in English can change the lexical meaning of the words
to which they are attached.
7. …………When we add –less, -ful, -ly, and –ize (derivational morphemes) to certain words in
English, the grammatical categories of these words will be changed.
8. ………. Bound morphemes can be affixes, inflectional morphemes, derivational morphemes
and free forms.
9.………… Free morphemes are those which can be used as minimal free forms.
10. ………The allomorphs of the plural morpheme {-s} in English are morphologically
conditioned, in the sense that the selection of any one is determined by the
morphological form of the morph with which it is combined.
11. ……….The alternate representations of a morpheme are called allomorphs.
12 ................ When a word can be segmented into parts, these segments are referred to as
morphemes, like desirability: {desir} + {-able} + {-ity}.
13 ................ Phone, phonetic, desirable and irregular all contain the same morpheme (or morph)
14 ............... A morpheme can recur in different words with relatively stable meaning.
15 ............... The smallest meaningful units in a language are words.
16 .............. The study of the internal structure of words and of the rules by which words are
formed is called syntax.
C. How many morphemes are there in each of the following words?
1. teachers 12. becomes
2. disrespectful 13. industrializational
3. backbiting 14. derivational
4. loathsome 15. Japanese
5. laughingly 16. antidisestablishmentarianism
6. antiviruses 17. hamburger
7. replay 18. polygamy
8. weakened 19. unable
9. rainy 20. telephone
10. lady-killers 21. predict
11. Philadelphia 22. teachings
D. Put a ring round any bound morphemes in the list of words below.
rainy arrangement overeat
thoughtful musician transfer
careless dislike dishonour
liberalism smallest nearest
behaviour misuse mislead
attendant explode overcharge
accountant unusual transmit
miniskirt careful weaken
politician thoughtless strengthen
writer realism excel
sunny likelihood teacher
prerecord humor thoughtlessness
sadness government surname
neighbourhood mini-computer countable
E. Underline the bases/ roots in these words and say whether they are free or
bound.
1. infamous 11. childish
2. portable 12. failure
3. include 13. annual
4. postwar 14. recur
5. intervene 15. eject
6. subway 16. preface
7. supervise 17. foresee
8. friendship 18. boyhood
9. annoyance 19. morphophonemic
10. loneliness 20. internationalism
21.
F. Forming a word from these bases.
Base Word Base Word
1. audi- 7. -ject
2. -cide 8. dict-
3. or- 9. -spire
4. equa- 10. -gress
5. corp- 11. mort-
6. manu- 12. pend-
G. Write the meaning of the following affixes and give two illustrative
examples.
Affix Meaning Affix Meaning
1. co- 6. -or
2. non- 7. -ee
3. neo- 8. -ist
4. -ent 9. -ism
5. –ant 10. mis-

H. Underline the bases and tell whether they are bound or free:
Base Bound (B) Base Bound (B)
Free (F) Free (F)
1. countabl 7. mistake
e 8. neighbourhood
2. receive 9. simply
3. white 10. western
house 11. well-off
4. miserabl 12. undress
e
5. crazy
6. founder
I. What are the meanings of the bound bases underlined in the words below.
Give another English word that contains the same bound base.
Meaning Meaning
1. revise 8. oppose
2. contradict 9. inspire
3. regress 10. rodent
4. comprehend 11. portable
5. intervene 12. rupture
6. recur 13. annual
7. inspect 14. carnal
J. Look at the following words and do the exercises.
Ex: expression {ex-} {press} {-ion}
1. detachment
2. correspondent
3. torment
4. retainer
5. apprehensible
6. department
7. expectation
8. involvement
9. actualize
10. portable
K. Give the homophone(s) to the following:
1. bare 15. air
2. flower 16. pair
3. sale 17. know
4. sea 18. knows
5. sight 19. high
6. bowled 20. fair
7. ceiling 21. passed
8. one 22. tire
9. whole 23. weather

10. rain 24. stare
11. sent 25. cue
12. herd 26. guest
13. feet 27. raise
14. course 28. sell
Chapter IV
IC DIVISION - ALLOMORPHS
4.1 Immediate Constituents (IC Division)

There are identify three kinds of morphemes: roots, prefixes and suffixes of
which words are composed. Now we shall see how these are put together to build
the structure that we call a word.
Ex: blaze has just one part, useless is composed of two parts with the division
between them.
A word of three or more morphemes is not made up by a string of
individual parts. It is built with a hierarchy of twosomes. Each twosome is the
layer of structure by which a word has been composed. We can make successive
divisions into two parts, each of which is called IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT.
This division is called IC DIVISION.
Ex: ungentlemanly, a word of 4 morphemes, can be divided into parts as
follows:
un gentle man l y
We shall obtain only two constituents at each cut, the ultimate constituent,
however, can be arranged according to their sequence in the word:
un- + gentle + man + -ly
un- + {[gentle + man] + -ly}
In making IC division, three things to be remembered are:

a. If there is an inflectional suffix, the first cut is between this suffix and
the rest of the word:
preconceiv ed malformation s
b. One of the IC’s should be, if possible a free form:

enlarge ment in dependent in supportable
c. The meanings of the IC’s should be related to the meaning of the word. It
would be wrong to cut restrain like this:
rest rain because neither rest nor rain has a semantic connection with
restrain.
Nor would a division of starchy as star chy be right, because this would
give an unrelated morpheme and a meaningless fragment. The two examples are
properly cut this way:
re strain starch y
Thus the ultimate constituents are the morphemes of which the word is
composed.
4.2 Morphs and Allomorphs

4. 2.1 Morphs
The analysis of words into morphemes begins with the isolation of morphs.
A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language. It is a
recurrent distinctive sound (phoneme) or a sequence of sounds (phonemes).
Morphemes are the abstract entities, whereas morphs are the physical entities. A
morph is a meaningful group of phones (=sound) which cannot be further divided
into smaller meaningful unit.
Ex:
Morph recurs in
/ai/ I park a car; I parked the car
/hi:/ He parks the car; He parked the car
/pa:rk/ park is found in all the examples
4. 2.2 Allomorphs
If different morphs represent the same morpheme, they are grouped
together and they are called allomorphs of that morpheme.
Ex 1:
morpheme
{-ed}
allomorph allomorph allomorph
morph morph morph

/id/ /d/ /t/
[-s]
Ex2: {-s2 } [-z]  s2 has three allomorphs
[iz]
Allomorphs are the various phonemic shapes that represent the same
morpheme (or variants of the morpheme).
The morpheme {a} has two allomorphs that are distributed as follows:
{a} occurs before a word beginning with a consonant or /j/ or /w/: a
university, a one-eyed man, a car, a young man
{an} occurs before a word beginning with a vowel or a mute h: an aim, an
hour.
Allomorph are structures that are (a) semantically similar but (b)
phonologically different. These allomorphs are (c) in complementary distribution
(CD), i.e. they have the same meaning but occupy different environments.
Morphs are said to be allomorphs of the same phoneme if:
- They represent the same meaning or serve the same grammatical function.
- They are never found in identical contexts (linguistic environments) .
So, the three morphs /-id/, /-d/ and /-t/ which represent the English regular past
tense morphemes are in CD.
4.2.3 Kinds of allomorphs

4.2.3.1 Phonologically conditioned allomorphs
An allomorph is phonologically conditioned when its distribution depends
on the phonological nature of the preceding phoneme. The symbol is ~ (tilde)
Ex: the morpheme {-s} (noun plural marker) has the following allomorphs:
/s/
{-s2} /z/  {-s2} = /s/ ~ /z/ ~ /iz/
/iz/
The morpheme {ed1} (past tense marker) has the following allomorphs
/t/
{-ed1} /d/ {-ed1} = /t/ ~ /d/ ~ /id/
/id/
4.2.3.2 Morphologically conditioned allomorphs
An allomorph is morphologically conditioned when it is determined by a
specific morpheme. (It occurs in the case of irregular verbs and irregular nouns).
The symbol is  (the infinity)
4.2.4 Classification of morphologically- conditioned allomorphs

4.2.4.1 Zero allomorph
The symbol is {Ø} (called NIL). It is the meaningful absence of the
allomorph.
Ex: - {Ø} of {-s2} sheep – sheep /∫ip/ = /∫ip/ + /Ø/  {s2} = /Ø/
deer – deer
fish – fish
{Ø} of {-ed1} put – put /put/ = / put /+ /Ø/  {-ed1} = /Ø/
hit – hit
cut – cut
4.2.4.2 Additive allomorph
Additive allomorph consists of /n/ or /rn/ which are the plural markers of
irregular nouns.
Ex: ox – oxen /oks/ /oks n/ = /oks/ + / n/  {s2} = / n/
child –children / t∫aild / / t∫ildrn/
brother- brethren / brΛð / /breðrn/
4.2.4.3 Replacive allomorph

That is the change of one vowel to another vowel.
vowel

The symbol /v  v /

replace
e.g. Change of vowel /vv/ of {-s2} (the plural marker of irregular nouns)
feet  foot /fit/ = /fut/ + /i  u/
men  man /men/ = /mæn/ + /e  æ/
mice  mouse mais/ = / maus/ + /ai  au/
e.g. Change of consonant to form verbs from nouns:
To teethe  teeth /tiθ/ + /ð  θ /
To house  house /hauz/ = /haus/ + / z  s/  {s2} =  /v  v /
SUMMARY
Description of allomorphs by formula
{-s2} = ~ /s/ ~ /z/ ~ /iz/  /n/  /Ø/  /v  v /
{-ed1} = ~/t/ ~ /d/ ~ /id/  /Ø/  /v  v /
{a} = ~// ~ /n/
EXERCISES
A. Diagram these words to show the layers of structure:
1. independently 11. supernatural

2. inaccessible 12. anticlerical
3. misjudgment 13. expressionism
4. unbelievable 14. itemized
5. unrelated 15. helpless
6. uncomfortably 16. embodiment
7. mid-afternoon 17. insufferably
8. newspaperdom 18. reimbursements
9. contradictory 19. refertilize
10. counter declaration 20. unlawful
B. Diagram the allomorphs of the following pairs:
1. long, length 6. nation, national
2. steal, stealth 7. divide, division
3. wife, wives 8. inspire, inspiration
4. able, ability 9. permit (v), permit (n)
5. atom, atomic 10. vision, revise
C. Diagram all the possible allomorphs of the following words:
1. press 6. soft
2. deep 7. wide
3. path 8. precise
4. moist 9. permit (v)
5. act 10. globe
D. Write the base morphemes and its allomorph for each of the following:
Ex: steal, stealth {steal} = {sti:l - stel}
1. wide, width
2. broad, breadth
3. wolf, wolves
4. able, ability
5. sun, sunny, sunward
6. supreme, supremacy
7. divine, divinity
8. fame, famous, infamy, infamous
9. atom, atomic
10. nation, nationality
E.
1. sons 6. fizzes 11. churches
2. naps 7. dishes 12. gorges
3. passes 8. garages 13. sums
4. hogs 9. hoes 14. heaths
5. sacks 10. staffs 15. gongs
a. Write phonologically the data.( transcribe the words)
b. Identify the various allomorphs (of the plural morpheme) and state their
distribution.
c. Determine the morpheme itself. ( which is /s/, /z/ or /Iz/
F. Write the phonemic script, the allomorphic formula for the formation of
the plural of these words:
Ex: brother brethren /breðrn/ = /br/\ð/ + /e  /\ / + /rn/
1. child 6. goose
2. herring 7. woman
3. foot 8. house
4. leaf 9. knife
5. wolf 10. mouth
Chapter V
ENGLISH WORDS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION
The assumption that languages contain words is taken for granted by most
people. Even illiterate speakers know that these are words in their language. True,
sometimes there are differences of opinion as to identify what units are to be
treated as words. Classify word class by their sentence role, formation.
5. 1 What is a word?
A WORD is the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own
in speech or writing.
WORDS are built up by morphemes. The shortest word consists of one
explicit morpheme only, e.g.: book, cat, I, see. However, not all words consist of
one explicit morpheme, e.g.: redo, servant, impossible.
It seems to us that the printed forms of words are sometimes inconsistent
with each other, e.g. woodcut, wood block, woodcock and wood duck.
5.2 Classification of Words
According to the sentence role:
function words: articles, prepositions….
content (lexical)words: nouns, verbs…
According to the formation
simple words
compound words
complex words
compound-complex words
Structurally, words are classified into simple, complex and compound words.
5.2.1 Simple Words

Simple words consist of a single free form and a superfix with or without
an inflectional suffix.
E.g. school, nice, take, takes, took taken, taking, flea, spirit, eucalyptus
5.2.2 Complex Words
Complex words contain at least one bound morpheme as an I.C. and a
superfix with or without an inflectional suffix.
Ex: headstrong (adj.), to overcome, blackbird, bluebird, payday, housefly
Complex words fall into 2 subclasses:
Complex words –BB (bound base) have a bound form for each I.C. e.g. consent,
assent, rupture, matricide, terminate.
Complex words – FB (free base) have one free orm as an I.C. e.g. liar, driver,
uncertain, impossibility, dipsomania
In these words, the base is a free morpheme.
5.2.3 Word Compounds
Word compounds are words composed from the combination of two or
more free morphemes. There are many patterns of compounding e.g. N+N
(doorstep) Adj + N (greenhouse), N + Adj (winedark), Adj + Adj (blue –green,

red-hot)
Word Compounds occupy an intermediate position between words and
grammatical structures. They are wordlike in two respects.
+ They are distributed like words (free forms)
Ex: Mary is picking flowers. (bluebells)
He sat near (outside) the door.
+ They take some of these inflectional suffixes.

Ex: The highways are crowded.
He is upsetting the boat.
Three criteria useful in distinguishing word compounds from grammatical

structures:
1. By the insertion of intervening material between the two parts or two
elements, while grammatical structures can.
Ex: She loves swéet potàtoes. (word compound)
She loves swêet, frêsh potátoes. (grammatical structure)
2. A member of word compounds cannot participate in a grammatical

structure.
Ex: very hârd báll (grammatical structure)
very báseball (word compound)
we can use “very” with hard ball, but we cannot use “very” with baseball.
Some word compounds are differentiated from grammatical structures by
superfixes..
She is my swéethèart. (word compound)
She has a swêet héart. (grammatical structure)
5.2.4 Compound-Complex Words

Ex: housewife: compound; folklore: compound
folklorist = folklore + ist: compound-complex word
A. A word is a unit of meaning.
B. A word can never occur on its own in speech or writing.
5. True or false?
1. ...…………. In the present course of grammar, the following grammatical units
are studied a) morpheme, b) text, c) clause, d) phrase and e) sentence
2. ……………. Words are inflected to mark grammatical contrast in person,
number, gender, case, tense, and voiced.
EXERCISES
A. Write on the right of the words: S if it is a simple one, C if it is a complex
one.
a. fly i. justify q. optionally

b. desks j. payment r. prettier
c. untie k. spiteful s. mistreat
d. tree l. suite t. premature
e. dislike m. faster u. destructive
f. reuse n. deform v. vegetable
g. triumph o. disobey w. invite
h. delight p. preplan x. dependent
C. Indicate which of the following as simple words.
1. colder 6. goes
2. teaching 7. goers
3. countable 8. ultimate
4. instances 9. supreme
5. gentlemen 10. reading
B. Identify the type of words of the following.
Types of words Types of words
1. quick-minded 9. proud
2. sharp-tongued 10. dreamy
3. quick-witted 11. untrustworthy
4. self-opinionated 12. difficult
5. hypersensitive 13. courageous
6. good-humoured 14. emotionless
7. businesslike 15. plain-spoken
8. considerate 16. emotional
C. Make the first IC cut in the words below which permit such cutting. Then
S:Simple
C-BB: Complex with two bound forms as IC’s
C-FB: Complex with one free form as an IC
1. knave 11. philosophical
2. knavish 12. sophisticated
3. graph 13. sophomore
4. telegraph 14. misogynist
5. merge 15. refusal
6. emerge 16. carnal
7. moron 17. enable
8. democracy 18. mete
9. purist 19. meter
10. comical 20. chronometer
Chapter VI
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY& INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
A characteristic of all human language is the potential to create new words.

In the development of a language, new words may be added to the vocabulary of
the language by different processes, one of which is by means of word formation.
Word formation may be studied from morphological point of view
(morphology) and from lexical point of view (lexicology). There is study a variety
of ways of forming new words in the English language:
- By using affixes: adding affixes to the root or adding suffixes (derivational and
inflectional) to the root.
- By combining words together to form word compounds
6.1 Derivational morphology

6.1.1 Words formed by derivational affixes
Derivational affixes create new words by changing the category and / or the
meaning of the base to which it applies. The derivational affix –er, for instance,
conjoins with a verb to create a noun with the meaning ‘one who does X’
A few other examples are:
Noun to Adjective Verb to Noun Noun to Verb Adjective to

Adverb
boy + ish acquitt + al moral + ize exact + ly
virtu(e) + ous clear + ance vaccin(e) + ate quiet + ly
Elizabeth + an free + dom brand + ish careless + ly
life + like sing + er easy + ly
Other derivational morphemes do not cause a change in grammatical class. Many

prefixes fall into this category:
a + moral re + print
auto + biography semi + annual
ex + wife sub + minimal
super + human
There are also suffixes of this type:
vicar + age music + ian
green + ish Commun + ist
priest + hood Americ + an
New words may enter the dictionary in this fashion, created by the
application of morphological rules. Some of the morphological rules are very
productive in that they can be used quite freely to form new words from the list of
free and bound morphemes. The suffix –able appears to be a morpheme that can
be freely conjoined with verbs to derive an adjective with the meaning of the verb
and the meaning of –able, which is something like ‘able to be’ in accept+able,
blame+able, change+able, break+able, and so on. The productivity of the rule is

illustrated by the fact that we find
–able in such morphologically complex words as un+speak+abl(e)y and
un+come+at+able. Other morphological rules of word formation are less
productive.
6.1.2 Multiple Derivation
Derivation can create multiple levels of word structure. Although complex,
organizational has a structure consistent with the word formation rules. Starting
with the outermost affix, we can see that –al forms adjectives from nouns, -ation
forms nouns from verbs, and –ize forms verbs from nouns.
Organization= {organize} +{ -ation} +{-al}
In some cases, the internal structure of a complex word is not obvious. The
word unhappiness, for instance, could apparently be analyzed in either of the ways
indicated as follows:
happy + ness  happiness + un-  unhappiness?
happy + un  unhappy + ness  unhappiness?
The key observation here is that the prefix un- combines quite freely with
adjectives, but not with nouns. This suggests that un- must combine with adjective
happy before it is converted into a noun by the suffix –ness. The derivation of this
word therefore, proceeds in two steps. First, the prefix un- is attached to the
adjective happy, resulting in another adjective. The second step is to add the suffix
–ness to this adjective. We see, then, that complex words have structures
consisting of hierarchically organized constituents.
6.1.3 A phonological constraint
Derivation does not always apply freely to the members of a given
category. Sometimes, for instance, a particular derivational affix is able to attach
only to stems with particular phonological properties. A good example of this
involves the English suffix –en, which combines with adjectives to create verbs
with a causative meaning (cause to become X).
The suffix –en is subject to a phonological constraint. In particular, it can only
combine with a monosyllabic stem that end in an obstruent. Hence it can be added
to white, which is both monosyllabic and ends in an obstruent. Therefore, it cannot
occur to abstract, which has two syllables, or to blue, which does not end in an
obstruent.
Acceptable Unacceptable
Whiten quicken Abstracten greenen
Soften liven Bluen angryen
Madden slowen
6.2 Inflectional Morphology

There is an interesting relationship between morphology and syntax. There are
free morphemes, like to as an infinitive marker, required by the syntactic sentence
formation rules of language as in the sentence He wanted her to go.
There are bound morphemes for the most part purely grammatical markers,
representing such concepts as tense, number, gender, case, and so forth. Such
bound morphemes are called inflectional morphemes;
Consider the forms of the verb in the following sentences:

a. I sail the ocean blue.
b. He sails the ocean blue.
c. John sailed the ocean blue.
d. John has sailed the ocean blue.
e. John is sailing the ocean blue.
In sentence b, the s at the end of the verb is an ‘agreement’ marker; it
signifies that the subject of the verb is ‘third person’, is ‘singular’, and that the
verb is in the ‘present tense’. It does not add any ‘lexical meaning’. In sentence c-
e, -ed and –ing ending are morphemes required by the syntactic rules of the
language to signal ‘tense’ or ‘aspect’.
Inflectional morphemes (a) never change the syntactic category of the

words or morphemes to which they are attached. (b) They are always attached to
complete words. Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes (c) do
not change referential or cognitive meaning.
Ex: student (noun of person) – students (noun of person) (in plural)
study (v) student (n) derivational suffix –ent changes the cognitive meaning
of the verb. {-ent} means “a person who does…”
Some grammatical relations can be expressed either inflectionally
(morphologically) or syntactically. We can see this option in the following
sentences:
The girl’s book is blue. The book of the girl is blue.
He loves books. He is a lover of books.
Furthermore, while derivational affix may move a base into a new word
class, an inflectional morpheme does not alter the word class of the base to which
it is attached.
Inflectional suffixes
English has no inflectional prefixes. There are eight inflectional suffixes with
allomorphs.
/s/ Kate’s
1 {s1} possessive marker /z/ man’s
/iz/ Boss’s
/s/ cats
2 {s2} plural marker /z/ cars

/iz/ boxes
/s/ starts
3 {s3} 3rd singular person marker /z/ goes
/iz/ misses
4 {-ing} present participle marker Going
/t/ worked
5 {ed1} past tense marker /d/ planned
/id/ needed
/t/ worked
6 {ed2} past participle marker /d/ planned
/id/ needed
7 {er} comparative marker Warmer
8 {est} superlative marker Warmest
6.3 Inflection versus Derivation

As the preceding examples show, inflection is expressed primarily by
means of affixation. Thus, in English there are exceptions. The plural sometimes is
not marked by the suffix –s such as man / men, child/children. The past is
generally marked by the suffix –ed (although a number of verbs use ablaut, as in
sink/ sank and ride/ rode, suppletion, as in go /went
Because inflection and derivation are both marked by affixation, the
distinction between the two can be a subtle one and it is sometimes unclear what
function a particular affix has. These criteria are commonly used to help
distinguish between inflectional and derivational affixes.
6.3.1 Category change

First, inflection does not change either the grammatical category or the type
of meaning found in the word to which it applies.
book (noun) books (noun)
work (verb ) worked (verb)
The word to which the plural suffix –s is attached is still a noun and still
has the same type of content or meaning. Even though books differs from book in
referring to several things rather than just one, the type of thing(s) to which it
refers remains the same. Similarly, a past tense suffix such as –ed indicates that the
action took place in the past, but it does not change the word’s category (which
remains a verb), nor does it modify the type of meaning. The verb continues to
denote an action regardless of whether the tense is past or non-past.
In contrast, derivational affixes characteristically change the category and/
or the type of meaning of the form to which they apply and are therefore, said to
create a new word. Consider the following examples of derivation.
modern (adjective) + ize (affix) = modernize (verb)
govern (verb) + ment (affix) = government (noun)

season (noun) + al (affix) = seasonal (adjective)
king (noun) + dom (affix) = kingdom (noun)
As the examples show, -ize makes a verb out of an adjective, changing the
type of meaning it expresses from a property (modern) to an action (modernize).
Parallel changes in category and meaning are brought about by –ment (V to N) and
–al (N to A). Matters are a little different in the case of -dom, which does not bring
about a category change (since both the base and the resulting words are N).
However, -dom does modify the type of meaning from ‘person’ (for king) to place
(for kingdom)
6.3.2 Distribution
Inflectional has a considerably freer distribution. Derivation has a smaller
distribution.
6.3.3 Positioning
Inflectional morphemes occur at the end of words. They occur after
derivational morphemes, if any.
6.3.4 Productivity
Inflectional morphemes are productive, in that they can be used with most
words of the same parts of speech. Derivational morpheme can be either
productive or not productive.
If we know the meaning of the word linguist, we also know the meaning of
the plural form linguists, if we know the meaning of analyse, we know the
meaning of analysed and analyses and analysing. This fact is one difference
between derivational and inflectional morphology.
Inflected words are influenced by the syntax of the language, and the
derived words are part of the lexicon or dictionary. Words are inflected to mark
grammatical contrasts in person, number, gender, case, tense, and voice.
Inflectional and Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes Derivational morphemes

1. Category change 1. Category change
Inflectional always maintains word Derivation often changes word classes.
classes Ex: wide (adj)  widen (v)
Ex: car (n)  cars (n) Beauty (n)  beautiful (adj)
2. Distribution 2. Distribution
Inflectional has a considerably freer Derivation has a smaller distribution.
distribution. er ist
Ex: V + agent suf. or ent
 ar ant
er ee ian
Ex: - Adj + - {-ity}: stupidity
est - {-ness}: goodness, tenderness
{-s} The cats are here. - {-ce}: independence

boys
babies
3. Positioning 3. Positioning
Inflection always closes a word off. Derivation can pile up
Ex: man  men’s Ex: act actor actress action actresses
women  women’s Derive derivation derivational
child  children’s derivationally
(Only one inflection ends a word) derivation piles up
1. Productivity 4. Productivity
Each inflectional morpheme can be Each derivational morpheme is attached
added to a large number of words to to a limited number of words.
form new words
QUESTIONS
1. Complete the sentences.
Many words consist of formative elements called…………… . These elements
can be classified in a variety of ways (free vs. ……………; roots vs.
……………, prefix vs. ……………) and can be combined in different ways to
create new……………. .Words may also be inflected to mark ……………
contrast in person, number, gender, case, tense, and voice.
2. Determine whether the words in each of the following groups are related
to one another by processes of inflection or derivation.
a. go, goes, going, gone
b. discover, discovery, discoverer, discoverable, discoverability
c. lovely, lovelier, loveliest
d. inventor, inventor’s, inventors, inventors’
e. democracy, democrat, democratic, democratize
3. The following sentences contained both derivational and inflectional
affixes. Underline all of the derivational affixes and circle the inflectional
affixes.
a. The farmer’s cow escaped.
b. It was raining.
c. Those socks are expensive.
d. Jim needs the newer version.
e. The strongest rower won.
f. The pit-bull has bitten the cyclist.
g. She quickly closed the book.
h. The alphabetization went well.
i.
4. Which of the following is a bound morpheme?

A. king
B. she
C. book
D. life
E. -esque
5. Which of the following are inflectional morphemes?
A. -s, -ed, -ing
B. ir-, -ity, -ize
C. lamp, key, tone
D. house, re-, -ment
E. hungrier, blue, deep
6. Which of the following words does not contain the morph belonging to the
same morpheme?
A. phonetics B. phonetician C. phonological
D. telephonic E. topon
EXERCISES
A. Study the list of prefixes and suffixes. Then combine the bases with the
derivational suffixes listed.
Prefixation
Prefixes Examples
Negative prefixes dis-,in-, im-, ir-, il-, non-, disloyal, unfair,
a- nonviolent, impossible,
amoral,
Reversative or un-, de-, dis- untie, defrost, disconnect
prescriptive prefixes
Pejorative prefixes mis-, mal-, pseudo- misinform, malnutrition,
pseudo-intellectual
Prefixes of degree or size arch-, super-, out-, sub-, archduke, superhuman,
over-, under-, hyper-, outlive, substandard,
ultra-, mini- overeat, underprivileged,
ultra-violet, miniskirt
Prefixes of attitudes co-, counter-, anti-, pro- cooperate, counteract,
anti-social, pro-
communist
Locative prefixes super-, sub-, inter-, trans- superstructure, subway,
interaction, transplant
Prefixes of time and order fore-, pre-, post-, ex-, re- foretell, prewar, post-
war, ex-husband,
resettlement
Number prefixes uni-, mono-, bi-, di-, tri-, unilateral, monotheism,
multi-, poly- bilingual, dipple, tripartie,
multi-racial, polysyllabic
Other prefixes auto-, neo-, pan-, proto-, autobiography,
semi-, vice- neo\gothic, pan-
American, prototype,
semicircle, vice-president
Conversion prefixes be-, en-, a- bewigged, becalm,
enslave, afloat
Suffixation
Noun-forming suffixes
Suffixes that form nouns -hood, -ship, -dom, -ster, childhood, friendship,
from nouns: -ee, -er, -let, -ette, -ess, kingdom, gangster,
-y/ -ie engineer, teenager,
booklet, cigarette,
usherette, waitress, daddy,
auntie
Suffixes that form nouns -ment, -al, -t, -ance,
from verbs -ence, -ure, -sion, -ssion,
-y, -ery, -tion, -ation,
-ition, -ification, -action
Suffixes that form agent -er, -or, -ant, -ent, -ee
from verbs:
Suffixes that form nouns -ness, -ity, -tce
from adjectives:
Adjective-forming suffixes
Suffixes that form -al, -ial, -ic, -ical, -y, -ary, National, commercial,
adjectives from nouns: -ly, -ar, ful, -less, - ous, economic, mechanical,
-ish, -like lovely, careful, homeless,
dangerous, boyish,
childlike
Some adjective-forming
suffixes common in
borrowed and neo-
classical words
Other Adjective-forming -ish, -ed Youngish, bored

suffixes
Suffixes that form -ive, -able, -ible, -ant, -ent Productive, breakable,
adjectives from verbs: divisible, dependent
Verb-forming suffixes
Suffixes that form verbs -en, -ize/ -ise, -ify deafen, sadden,
from adjectives: industrialize, solidify
Suffixes that form verbs -ize/-ise, -ate, -ify standardize, personify
from nouns:
Adverb-forming suffixes
Suffixes that form -ly happily, strangely

adverbs from adjectives
Suffixes that form -wise, -wards backwards, clockwise,
adverbs from adverbs,
nouns
Make as many as you can.
Bases Suffixes
happy -age happiness, happily
friend -y
girl -hood
compose -acy
shrink -ism
active -ness
supreme -ity
true -ment
pagan -ition
discover -ance
-th
-ship
-ly
-ure
B. Add a derivational suffix to each of the words which already end in a

derivational suffix. One has been done as an example.
reasonable +ity reasonability inflection
formal industrial
socialist careless
likely personify
organize addition
C. Add an inflectional suffix to the following.
business +es  businesses pressure
beautify brave
quarterly orientate
popularize friendly
depth loud
D. Identify {ing} (adjective-forming suffix, {ing }: noun-forming suffix and

{ing}: present participle)
1. It was a fascinating film star.
2. It was located by a sweetly babbling brook.
3. It was interesting to watch the flight.
4. I hate meetings.
5. The barking dog keeps everyone awaken.
6. He told a convincing tale.
7. The shining sun gilded the forest floor.
8. The refreshing shower poured down.
9. The attorney made a moving appeal.
How boring the reading is!
E. Make these words negative by adding ‘un-’, ‘in-‘, ‘im-‘, etc. use ‘not’ if
nothing else is possible.
expensive clean
formal responsible
legal regular
polite obedient
tidy conscious
violent possible
honest understand
probable loyal
F. The words in the second column are formed by the addition a derivational
suffix to those in the first column. After every word in both columns indicate
its word class.
Words Word class words Word class
1. break breakage
2. desire desirable
3. conspire conspiracy
4. rehearse rehearsal
5. ideal idealize
6. false falsify
7. plenty plentiful
8. doubt doubtful
9. mouth mouthful
10. sing singer
11. familiarize familiarization
12. passion passionate
13. host hostess

14. gloom gloomy
15. martyr martyrdom
16. novel novelist
17. day daily
18. prohibit prohibitory
19. excel excellent
20. create creative
21. vision visionary
22. cube cubic
23. real realism
24. accept acceptance
25. ripe ripen
Chapter VII
COMPOUNDING PROCESS OR COMPOSITION
7.1 What is composition?
In derivational word formation, we take a single word and change it somehow
by adding an affix to form a new word. The other way to form a new word is by
combining two already existing words in a compound. Examine the process of
formation on compound words. Blackbird, doghouse, and bluegreen are example
of compounds.
In English, compounds can be found in all the major lexical categories –
nouns, (doorstop), adjectives (winedark), and verbs (stagemanage) – but nouns are
by far the most common type of compounds. Verb compounds are quite
infrequent. There is almost no limit on the kind of combinations that occur in
English, as in the following list of compounds shows:
-adjective -noun -verb

Adjective- bittersweet poorhouse highborn
Noun- headstrong rainbow spoon-feed
Verb- carryall pickpocket Sleepwalk
When two words are in the same grammatical category, the compound will be
in this category: noun+noun – girlfriend, fighter-bomber, paper clip, crane-driver;
adjective+adjective – icy-cold, red-hot, worldly-wise. In many cases, when the two
words fall into different categories the class of the second or final word will be the
grammatical category of the compounds: noun+adjective – headstrong, watertight,
lifelong; verb+noun – pickpocket, cut-throat.
Structurally, two features of compound stand out.
(a) the constituent members of a compound are not equal. The last member
of the compound is the same as that of the entire compound. Furthermore, the first
member is always a modifier of the second: steamboat is a type of boat; red-hot is
a degree of hotness. In other words, the second member acts as the head of the
compound, from which most of the syntactic properties of the compound are
derived, while the first member is its dependent.
(b)The second structural peculiarity of compounds is that a compound
never has more than two constituents. This is not to say that a compound may
never contain more than two words. Three-word (dog food box), four-word (stone-
age cave dweller), and longer compounds (trade union delegate assembly leader)
are easy to find. But in each case, the entire compound always consists of two
components, each of which may itself be a compound (dog food) (stone age, cave
dweller). The basic compounding is therefore always binary, although repetition of
the basic operation may result in more complex individual forms.
Compounding and derivation may also feed each other. The members of a
compound are often themselves derivationally complex, and sometimes, though
not often a compound may serve as the base of a derivational affix as in loading
docks, blockheadism
English orthography is not consistent in representing compounds since they
are sometimes written as single words, sometimes with an intervening hyphen, and
sometimes as separate words. However, it is usually possible to recognize noun
compounds by their stress pattern since the first component is pronounced more
prominently than the second. In non-compounds, conversely, the second
element is stressed.
Compounds versus non-compounds
Compound words Non-compound words
greenhouse: an indoor garden green house: a house painted green
blackboard: a chalkboard used in black board: a board that is black
classrooms
wet suit: a diver’s costume wet suit: a suit that is wet
Although the exact types of compounds differ from language to language,
the practice of combining two existing words to create a new word is very
widespread.
7.2 Noun compounds
Among noun compounds, most are of the form noun – noun (NN), but
Adjective-Noun compounds are also found quite frequently; Verb-Noun
compounds are rare.
Noun compounds can be formed by the following patterns.
Example
N+N: schoolgirl, classroom
Ger + N dining-room, reading lamp
N + Prep wash-up, stander-by, passer-by
V+N pickpocket, cut throat
Adj + N blackboard, hothouse, blueprint
Mixed up father-in-law, forget-me-not, never-can-be-finished
7.3 Adjective compounds
Adjective compounds can be formed by the following patterns:
Formation Example
Adj + Adj red hot, dark blue, light green
N +Adj rock-hard, snow-white, stone-deaf
Adj + N + ed short-haired, blue-eyed
Numeral + N-ed One-headed, three-legged
N + past participle heartbroken, tree-bordered, snow-covered
Adv + past participle well-done, well-known, well-lit
N/ Adj + present participle good-looking, heart-rending
7.4 Compound stress patterns

Compounds often have different stress patterns from non-compound word

sequences.
Compound N Noun Phrases

`greenhouse (n) ‘green `house
`blackboard ‘black `board
Compound N phrasal verb
‘check-in check‘in
‘outbreak break ‘out
Compound adjective phrases
well-‘dressed ‘dress ‘well
two-‘headed ‘two ‘heads
7.5 Meaning of compounds

The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of meanings of its parts;
a blackboard may be green or white. Everyone who wears a red coat is not a
Redcoat, either. The difference between the sentences She has a red coat in her
wardrobe and She has a Redcoat in her wardrobe could be highly significant
under certain circumstances.
Meanings of the compounds can be in three ways:
(a) It is the total meaning of the individual words composing it. A jumping
bean is a bean that jumps, a falling star is a ‘star’ that falls
(b) The meaning of the one on the right is the primary one with the
meaning of the first as a modification. Looking glass is not a glass that looks, nor
is an eating apple an apple that eats, and laughing gas does not laugh.
(c) The meaning is completely different from the meanings of the component
words but relating to them in some way, e.g. A high brow does not necessarily
have a high brow, nor does a bigwig have a big wig, nor does an egghead have an
egg-shaped head.
(d) In some compounds, different grammatical relations are expressed
underlying the juxtaposition of words., but a looking glass is not a glass that looks,
nor is an eating apple an apple that eats, and laughing gas does not laugh.
In some cases, the meaning of each compound includes at least to some
extent the meanings of the individual parts. However, there are other compounds
that do not seem to relate to the meanings of the individual parts at all. The
morphological rules also are in the grammar, revealing the relations between
words and providing the means for forming new words. Dr Seuss uses the rules of
compounding when he explains that ‘when tweetle beetles battle with paddles in a
puddle, they call it a tweetle beetle puddle paddle battle’
EXERCISE
A. Make up noun compounds from the following words.
1.People living in the country 1. Country people

2.A cup used to drink tea
3.A horse in a race
4.A house to keep lions in
5.A room to sit and talk with guests
6.A meeting to answer reporters’
questions
7. A school for both sexes
8. A note which is worth a pound
9. A class held in the afternoon
10. Cream as cold as ice
B. Make up compound adjectives from the following.
1. A hillside covered with dew 1. A dew-covered

2. A warrior who is thirsty for blood hillside
3. A man who has one eye
4. Flowers which smell sweet
5. Plants which are beaten by storms
6. The eyes which are as red as blood
7. A girl who has got long hair
8. A night which is as black as ink
9. A misfortune which rends one’s
heart
10. A boat which was driven by the
waves
Chapter VIII
SPECIAL PROCESSES
As we have seen, understand how new words may be added to the
vocabulary or lexicon of a language by derivational processes. Identify different
special processes to form new words in English. New words may also enter a
language in a variety of other ways. Some are created outright to fit some
purposes. The advertising industry has added many new words to English, such as
Kodak, Vegemite, nylon, and Dacron. Specific brand names such as Xerox,
Kleenex, Hoover, Frigidaire, Ajax, and Vaseline are now sometimes used as the
names for different brands of these types of products. Notice that some of these
words were created from existing words: Kleenex from the word clean.
8.1 Clipping or Contraction
Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created by shortening a
polysyllabic word.
This process, which seems especially popular among students, has yielded
forms such as prof for professor, phys-ed for physical education, ad for
advertisement, and poli-sci for political science. A number of such abbreviations
have been accepted in general usage: doc, auto, lab, sub, bike, pron, burger, and
prep. The most common abbreviations occur in names such as Liz, Ron, Kathy,
and Lyn.
Clipping means cutting-off of the beginning or the end of the word or both,
leaving a part to stand for the whole. The resultant form is called a clipped word.
Ordinarily clipping a word does not increase the vocabulary but merely reduces a
longer word. The cutting-off of the end is the most common.
The shortening may occur at
the beginning of the word: telephone: phone
(a) the end of the word (more commonly): photograph: photo
(b) both ends of the word (rare): influenza: flu
Examples:
-laboratory lab -Albert Al
-Michael Mike -teleprinter exchange telex
-dormitory dorm -Europe Asian Eurasian
-influenza flu -chapman chap
-composition compo -omnibus bus
-gentleman gent -photograph photo
Note: The spelling of the clipped words may be changed:
-microphone mike
-bicycle bike
Clipped words usually occur first in slang and argot, and then some make
their way into Standard English. Most people do not realize that the following
Standard English words were once longer forms:
Ex:
chap: chapman  fellow
gin: Geneva  a kind of alcohol
mob: mobile  a flock, crowd, throng
quack: quacksalver  very bad doctor
extra: extraordinary
The clipped form tends to be used especially in informal styles.

 Types of clipping
Final clipping Initial clipping Medical clipping Initio-final

clipping
Lab (oratory) (Omni)bus News(papar)boy (In)flu(enza)
Dorm(itory) (Aero)plane Medi(cal) care (E)liz(abeth)
Exam(ination) (violon)cello Medi(cal) news
Extra(ordinary) (tele) phone Math(ematic)s
Gent(leman) Spec(tacle)s…
Compo(sition)
Photo(graph)
Ad(vertisement)
Phil(lips)
8.2 Acronymy or Acronym or Abbreviation

Acronymy is the process by which a word is formed from the initials or the
beginning segments of a series of words. Acronyms are words formed from the
initial sounds or letters (or larger parts) of words. New acronyms are freely
produced particularly for names of organizations.
Acronyms pronounced as sequences of letters can be called ‘alphabetism’:
The letters represent full words: C.O.D ~ cash on delivery, UN ~ the
United Nations.
The letters represent elements in a compounds or just parts of a word: TV ~
television, GHQ ~ General Headquarters
Many acronyms are pronounced as words, e.g. radar (from radio detecting
and ranging).
Some acronyms can be pronounced both as letters as GHQ. LP… and as words:
UNO, UFO, laser, radar…
8.3 Blending or mixture
Blending is a fusion of words into ONE, usually the first part of a word
with the last part of another. For example, brunch (esp AmE, ‘a meal subsuming
breakfast and lunch’) is derived from br(eakfast) + (l)unch. Many blends have
only a short life and are very informal, but some have become more or less fully
accepted in the language, eg, motel from motor + hotel, smog from smoke + fog,
transistor from transfer + resistor
Examples
- telefilm television + film
- camcorder camera + recorder
- escalator escalate + elevator
- motel motor + hotel
-telecast television + broadcast
-multiversity multi + university
- telecast television + broadcast
- electrocute electric + execute
- splatter splash + spatter
8.4 Back Formation or Reversion
Backformation is a process whereby a word whose form is similar to that of
a derived form undergoes a process of deaffixation. New words may be formed
from existing words by ‘subtracting’ an affix thought to be part of the old word;
that is, ignorance sometimes can be creative. Thus peddle was derived from
peddler on the mistaken assumption that the er was the agentive suffix. Such
words are called back formations.
Historically, a number of new words have entered the English lexicon in
this way. Based on analogy with such pairs as act/action, exempt/exemption,
revise/revision, new words resurrect, preempt, and televise were formed from the
existing words resurrection, preemption, television. A major source of
backformations in English has been words that end with –or or –er and have
meanings involving the notion of an agent, such as editor, peddler, swindler, and
stoker. Because hundreds of words ending in these affixes are the result of
affixation, it was assumed that these words too have been formed by adding the
agent morpheme {-er2} or {-or} to a verb. By the process of backformation, this
led to the conclusion that edit, peddle, swindle, and stoke exist as simple verbs.
Backformation continues to produce new words in modern English. Two
relatively recent products of this process are the verbs liaise from liaison and self-
destruct from self-destruction.
Ex:
- teamteacherteamteach (v)
- supervision supervise (v)
- house-keeper house-keep (v)
- enthusiasm enthuse (v)
- donation donate(v)
- orientation orient (v)
8.5 Conversion or Functional Shift

Conversion or zero-derivation is probably the most frequent single method
of forming words in English. It is especially common in the speech of children.
Conversion creates a new word without the use of affixation by simply assigning
an already existing word to a new syntactic category. In the case of the derived
verbs, there is no modification, whereas in the case of derived nouns, there is a
stress shift. Structurally, the derived forms remain simple to both instances even
though they are new lexical items belonging to a syntactic category different from
that of the source form. In the case of father and butter, for instance, the derived
form is a verb capable of taking the normal past tense ending.
Some examples of conversion

Verb  noun
[A] ‘State’ (from stative verbs to nouns): doubt, love
[B] ‘Event/ activity’ (from dynamic verbs): laugh, walk
[C] ‘Object of V’: answer (that which is answered’), catch
[D] ‘Subject of V’: bore (someone who bores/ is boring), cheat
[E] ‘Instrument of V’: cover, (‘something that covers things’), wrap
[F] ‘Manner of V-ing’: throw, walk
[G] ‘Place of V’: retreat, turn
Adjective  noun
Miscellaneous examples are daily (daily newspaper), comic (comic actor), (young)
marrieds (young married people); informal. The adjective  noun conversion can
usually be explained in terms of a well-established adjective + noun phrase from
which the noun has been ellipted.
Noun  verb
[A] ‘To put in/ on N’: bottle, corner
[B] ‘To give N, to provide with N’: coat (‘give a coat [of paint, etc] to),
mask
[C] ‘To deprive of N’: peel (remove the peel from), skin
[D] ‘To… with N as an instrument’: brake, knife (stab with a knife’)
[E] ‘To be / act as N with respect to ….’: nurse, referee
[F] ‘To make, change…. into N’: cash, cripple
[G] ‘To (a) send/ (b) go by N’: (a) mail, ship; (b) bicycle, motor
Adjective  verb
[A] (transitive verbs) ‘to make (more) adjective’: calm, dirty
[B] (intransitive verbs) ‘to become adjective’ (generally adjectives in Type
A can also have this function): dry, empty
Sometimes a phrasal verb is derived from an adjective by the addition of a
particle: calm down (‘to become calm’). This category of conversion compete with
–en suffixation and sometimes both derivations are available for the same
adjective:
He blacked/ blackened his face with soot.
Noun Derived verb Verb Derived noun

father father subject subject
butter butter contest contest
ship ship survey survey
nail nail permit permit
brush brush conduct conduct
He fathered three children.
He buttered the bread.
The head of the village school has arrived.
The heads of the village school have arrived.
She will head the village school.
She headed that school.
8.6 Sound Imitation or Reduplication (Reduplicative)
Reduplicatives are either identical or only slightly different like goody-
goody (affected good), walkie-talkie, crisscross. The most common uses of
reduplicatives are
- to imitate sounds like tick-tock (of clock),
- to suggest alternating movements like seesaw
- to disparage by suggesting inability, nonsense, insincerity, vacillation like
higgledy-piggledy, wishy-washy
- to intensify like tip-top
8.7 Antonomasia or Words from Names
New words may be formed from proper names of actual people like
sandwich, boycott, ampere, from the derivatives of personal names like
chauvinism, pasteurize, platonic, from the names of people in literature and
methodology like atlas, mercury, from derivatives of them like Herculean,
odyssey, from place names and the derivatives of place name or place names
which have different forms from those which are known to us today like
champagne, Chine, Cologne, Japan, Panama, Shanghai, Turkey
STUDY QUESTIONS
Name all the special processes in the book and give five example for each.
EXERCISES
A. T/F: Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1. ............ A word is a minimal form.
2. ............ Simple words are made up of only roots.
3. ............ The word teacher is a simple word.

4. ............ Complex words are made up of two or more free morphemes.
5. ........... The word stage-manage is a complex word.
6. ........... Compounds are words composed from the combination of two or
more free morphemes.
7. ........... The word irregular is a compound word.
8. ........... A word is a semantic unit.
9. ........... Affixation is the addition of an affix to a base, with or without a
change of word class, forming a new derivational word or an
inflectional word.
10. .......... Backformation is a process whereby a word is formed by being
shortened.
11. .......... Crane-driver is a compound.
12. .......... Conversion is the derivational process whereby an item changes its
word class without an addition of an affix.
13. .......... When the verb doubt is used as the noun doubt, conversion takes
place.
14. ......... Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created from the initial
sounds or letters of words.
15. ........ UN ( from United Nations) is a word formed by clipping.
16. ........ Phone formed from telephone is an example of a word formed by
means of acronym.
17. ............Acronym is a process whereby words are formed by means of
clipping.
18. ..........Radar is an acronym formed from Radio Detecting and Ranging.
19. .......... Blending is a process whereby words are created from parts of two
already existing lexical items.
20. ......... Motel is an example of blending.
21………Conversion is the process whereby an item changes its word-class
without the addition of an affix.
B. The words in column 2 have all been created from the corresponding
words in column 1. Indicate the word formation process responsible for
the creation of each word in column 2.
Column 1 Column 2 Process

automation automate
humid humidifier
stagnation, inflation stagflation
love, seat love-seat
envelop (n) envelop (v)
typographical error typo
aerobics, marathon aerobathon

act deactivate
curve, ball curve ball
perambulator pram
comb (n) comb (v)
beef, buffalo beefalo
Random Access Memory RAM
megabyte meg
teleprinter, exchange telex
influenza flu
C. Give the clipped words to the following:
Original words Clipped words Original words Clipped words

1. nightdress 1. double
2. demonstration 2. promenade
3. refrigerator 3. extraordinary
4. tranquilizer 4. champion
5. vacuum cleaner 5. teenager
6. caravan 6. fantasy
D. Give the original to following:
Abbreviations Original words Abbreviations Original words

1. BBC 6. FBI
2. VOA 7. MP
3. CIA 8. IMF
4. ASEAN 9. FAO
5. PLO 10.UNDP
E. Write the words from which these back-formed words are built up:
Back-formed words Existing words

1. bootleg (v) 1. bootlegger
2. typewrite (v) ………………………………………..
3. resurrect ………………………………………..
4. baby sit (v) ………………………………………..
5. advance – register ………………………………………..
6. laze (v) ………………………………………..
7. escalate ………………………………………..
8. separate ………………………………………..
2.
F.
Classify the following words as products of inflection, derivation, or
compounding. Just your analysis in the potentially problematic cases.
Loud-speaker hard-working television freeze-dried

blue-eyed unacceptability ink-pots proof-read blackboard eraser
girl-crazy stir-fryrainforest blind-folded dry-cleaning
hair-raising
REVISION
1. Consider the following words and answer the questions bellow.
a. desk d. preplan g. hospitality j. disobey
b. untie e. ageless h. fastest
c. invalid f. like i. payment
i) For each word, determine whether it is simple or complex.
ii) Circle all the bound morphemes. Underline all the roots.
2. Study the following sentences which contain both derivational and inflectional
affixes.
The farmer’s cows escaped.
It was raining.
Those socks are inexpensive.
Jim needs the newer version.
The strongest rower won.
The pit-bull has bitten the cyclist.
She quickly closed the book.
The alphabetization went well.
i) Underline all the derivational affixes and circle the inflectional affixes.
ii) State the common criteria used to distinguish between inflectional and
derivational. Give examples for illustration.
3. T/F: Decide whether the following statements are true of false.
1. ............ A word is a minimal form.
2. ............ Simple words are made up of only roots.
3. ............ The word teacher is a simple word.
4. ............ Complex words are made up of two or more free morphemes.
5. ........... The word statemanage is a complex word.
6. ........... Compounds are words composed from the combination of two or more
free morphemes.
7. ........... The word irregular is a compound word.
8. ........... A word is a semantic unit.
9. ........... Affixation is the addition of an affix to a base, with or without a change of
word class, forming a new derivational word or an inflectional word.
10. .......... Backformation is a process whereby a word is formed by being shortened.
11. .......... Crane-driver is a compound.
12. .......... Conversion is the derivational process whereby an item changes its word
class without an addition of an affix.
13. .......... When the verb doubt is used as the noun doubt, conversion takes place.
14. ......... Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created from the initial sounds
or letters of words.
15. ........ UN ( from United Nations) is a word formed by clipping.
16. ........ Phone formed from telephone is an example of a word formed by means of
acronym.
17. ............Acronym is a process whereby words are formed by means of clipping.
18. .......... Radar is an acronym formed from Radio Detecting and Ranging.
19. .......... Blending is a process whereby words are created from parts of two already
existing lexical items.
20. ......... Motel is an example of blending.
4. Indicate the word formation process responsible for the creation of each word
in column 2.
Column 1 Column 2
automation automate backformation
humid humidifier
stagnation, inflation stagflation
Love, seat love-seat
envelop (n) envelop (v)
typographical error typo
aerobics, marathon aerobathon
act deactivate
curve, ball curve ball
perambulator pram
comb (n) comb (v)
beef, buffalo beefalo
Random Access Memory RAM
megabyte meg
teleprinter, exchange telex
influenza flu
Draw the tree diagram for the following.
1. uncontrollable
2. untruthful
3. unhappiness
APPENDIX
The following is the list of some English derivational affixes.
Word Meaning Word Example

Suffix class of Class
Input of Output
base base
1. -hood N -status N (abs) childhood
2. -ship N -state or condition N (abs) friendship
3. –ness Adj -quality, state or N (abs) kindness
condition
4. -ity Adj -state or condition N sincerity
5. –ment V -result or product of N government
doing the action indicated
by the verb
6. -less N
N -without Adj powerless
7. -ful N -having Adj powerful
8. -ic N -pertaining to Adj democratic
9. –al -pertaining to, of the kind Adj medicinal
V -pertaining to or act of
10. –al N(abs) refusal
V -agent who does
11. –er whatever the verb N reader
indicates
Adj -manner
12. –ly Adv kindly
Prefix Word class of Meaning Word class of Example

Input base Output base
1. in- Adj not Adj inaccurate
2. un- Adj not Adj unkind
3. un- Verb reversive Verb untie, undo
4. dis- Verb reversive Verb discontinue
5. dis- N (abs) not N (abs) disorder
6. dis- Adj not Adj dishonest
7. dis- V not V disapprove
8. re- V again V rewrite, redo
9. ex- N former N ex-major
10. en- N put in V encage
Prefixation
Negative prefixes
Meaning Added to Example
un- ‘the opposite of’, ‘not’ adjectives, unfair
participles unassuming
unexpected
non- ‘not’ various classes non-smoker
non-drip (bath)
in- (as for un) adjectives insane
dis- (as for un) adjectives, verbs disloyal
abstract nouns dislike
disfavour
a- lacking adjectives, nouns amoral,
Reversative or prescriptive prefixes

un- to reverse actions verbs untie
de- to reverse actions abstract nouns defrost
deforestation
dis- (as for un) verbs, participles, discover,
nouns discouraged,
discontent
Pejorative prefixes

mis- Wrongly, astray verbs, abstract nouns, misinform
participles misconduct
misleading
mal- bad(ly) verbs, abstract nouns, maltreat,
participles, adjectives malfunction
malformed
pseudo- false, imitation nouns, adjectives pseudo-
intellectual
Prefixes of degree or size

arch- highest, most nouns (mainly archduke, arch-
human) enemy
super- above, more than, better nouns, adjectives, superman,
verbs supermarket
supercharge
out- to do something faster, verbs (mainly out run, outlive
better than intransitive verbs)
sur- over and above nouns surface
sub- lower than, less than adjectives subhuman,
substandard
over- too much verbs, participles overeat,
overdressed
under- too little verbs, participles undercooked
underdeveloped
hype- Extremely adjectives hype…
ultra- extremely, beyond adjectives ultra-violet, ultra-
modern
mini- Little nouns miniskirt
Prefixes of attitudes
co- with, joint verbs, nouns cooperate, co-pilot
counter- in opposition to nouns, verbs counteract,
counter-revolution
anti- Against nouns, denominal anti-missiles
adjectives, anti-clockwise
adverbs
pro- on the side of nouns, denominal pro-common
adjectives market, pro-
communist
Locative prefixes
super- Over nouns superstructure
sub- beneath, lesser in rank nouns, adjectives, subway,
verbs subconscious
trans- across, from one place to denominal transatlantic,
another adjectives, verbs transplant, transit
inter- between, among denominal international,
adjectives, verbs, intertwine
nouns intergamy
Prefixes of time and order

fore- Before mainly verbs foretell, foresee
pre- Before nouns, adjectives pre-war (attribute)
pre-marital
post- After nouns, adjectives post-war (attribute)
post-classical
ex- Former human nouns ex-husband
re- again, back verbs, abstract rebuild,
nouns re-evaluate,
resettlement
Number prefixes
uni-, mono- One unilateral
monotheism
bi-, d- Two bilingual, dipple
tri- Three Tripartie
multi-, Many multi-racial,
poly- polysyllabic
Other prefixes
auto- Self Autobiography
neo- new, revised neo-gothic
pan- worldwide pan-America, pan-
African
proto- first, original Prototype
semi- half Semicircle
vice- deputy vice-president
Conversion prefixes
be- a. nouns participial a. bewigged,
adjectives bespectacled
b. verbs, adjectives, nouns transitive verbs b. bedazzle,
becalm, bewitch
en- Nouns verbs Enslave
a- Verbs predicative Afloat
adjectives
SUFFIXATION
Noun-forming suffixes: noun  noun suffixes
added to  to Meaning Example
form
[A] occupational
-ster, -eer Nouns  personal ‘person engaged in gangster, engineer
pronouns occupation or
activity’
-er Nouns  nouns varied meanings, teenager,
e.g. ‘inhabitant of Londoner
X’
[B] diminutive or feminine
-let Count nouns  count ‘small, booklet, piglet
nouns unimportant’
-ette Nouns  nouns (a) small, kitche’nette,
compact’ statu’ette
(b) ‘imitation’ flame’lette
(material)
(c) ‘female’ ushe’rette
-ess Animate nouns  ‘female’ Waitress
animate nouns
-y, -ie Nouns  nouns daddy, auntie
[C] status, domain
-hood Nouns  abstract ‘status’ Boyhood
nouns
-ship (as for -hood) ‘status, condition’ Friendship
-dom (as for -hood) ‘domain, kingdom. Stardom
condition’
-‘ocracy (as for -hood) ‘system of de’mocracy
government
-(e)ry Chiefly nouns
abstract nouns behaviour slavery
concrete nouns place of activity or refinery, nunnery
abode
collectivity (c) machinery
(c) non-count nouns
[D] other
-ing Count nouns  ‘the substance of Paneling
Non-count nouns which N is
composed’
-ful Count nouns  the amount which mouthful, handful,
count nouns N contains spoonful
Note
[a] The diminutive suffix –ing is added to various word-classes, usually with a mildly
contemptuous favour: pricelling, underling.
[b] The suffix –y/ie largely restricted to familiar contexts, indicates endearment or
familiarity. It is frequently added to a clipped form of the base e.g. movies (esp AmE:
‘moving pictures’.
Noun / adjective  Noun / adjective suffixes
added to  to form Meaning Example
-ite Nouns (chiefly names) ‘member of Israelite
 Personal nouns community Socialite
faction/ type
-(i)an Nouns (chiefly proper) ‘nationality’ Indo’nesian
 Personal nouns, re’publician
non-gradable adjectives
-ese (as for (i) an) ‘nationality’ Chi’nese
-ist Nouns/adjectives  ‘member of a socialist, violinist
personal Nouns/adjectives party, occupation’
-ism Nouns/adjectives  ‘attitude, political idealism,
abstract nouns movement’ communism
Note
Many nouns in –ism correspond to a noun in –ist which denotes an adherent of the
principle, etc involved: communist/ communism.
Verb  noun suffixes
added to  to Meaning Example
form
-er, -or Verbs (mainly dynamic) Agentive and driver, receiver,
 Nouns (mainly instrumental actor
personal nouns)
-ant Verbs  Nouns Agentive and inhabitant,
instrumental disinfectant,
pollutant
-ee Verbs  personal Passive employee, trainee
nouns
-ation Verbs
abstract nouns (a) ‘state, action’ exploration
collective nouns (b) institution organization
-ment Verbs  Nouns ‘state, action’ Amazement
(chiefly abstract)
-al Verbs  Nouns ‘action’ refusal, dismissal,
(chiefly count abstract) arrival, survival
-ing Verbs 
abstract nouns ‘activity’ driving
concrete nouns result of activity building
-age Verbs  non- ‘activity, result of drainage,
count abstract nouns activity’
Adjective  noun suffixes
added to  to form meaning Example

-ness Adjectives  ‘state, quality’ Happiness
abstract nouns
-ity (as for -ness) ‘state, quality’ Sanity
ADJECTIVE-FORMING SUFFIXES
Noun  adjective suffixes
suffix added to  to form meaning Example

-ful Nouns (chiefly abstract)  having -giving Useful, helpful
Gradable adjectives
-less Nouns  adjectives without Childless
-ly Nouns (chiefly concrete)  having the cowardly,
Gradable adjectives qualities of motherly
-like Nouns (chiefly concrete) having the childlike, lifelike
 qualities of
Gradable adjectives
-y Nouns (chiefly concrete non- Like, covered creamy, hairy
count) with
Gradable adjectives
-ish Nouns (chiefly proper and belonging to Turkish
count)  having the Foolish
a. non-gradable character of
b. gradable
-ian, nouns  adjectives in the tradition Darwinian
of
Some adjective-forming suffixes common in borrowed and neo-classical words
Suffix used to form Examples

-al (also –ial, -ical) Primarily non-gradable criminal, editorial,
adjectives musical
-ic Gradable or non-gradable Heroic
adjective
-ive (also –ative, -tive) Gradable or non-gradable attractive
adjective affirmative
sensitive, creative
-ous (also –eous, -ious) Primarily gradable virtuous, courageous,
adjectives vivacious
Other Adjective-forming suffixes
added to  to form meaning Examples
-able Verbs (chiefly transitive)  Able, worthy to readable, forcible
-ible Adjectives be v-ed
-ish Gradable adjectives  Somewhat…… Youngish
gradable adjectives
-ed Nouns or noun phrases  Having……. lion-hearted
adj
Verb-forming suffixes
added to  to meaning Examples
form
-ify Nouns, adjectives causative Simplify
Verbs (chiefly transitive)
-ize (BrE: As for -ify causative Popularize
also -ise)
-en Adjectives  verbs
transitive causative deafen
intransitive become X sadden
Adverb-forming suffixes
added to  to form meaning Examples
-ly Adjectives  adverbs In a …… manner, happily
of manner, viewpoint, etc etc strangely
-wards Adverbs, nouns  Manner/ direction Backwards
adverbs of manner/ direction
-wise Nouns  adverbs In the manner of .. crabwise
of manner, viewpoint adverbs As far as……is weather-wise
concerned
REFERENCES
[1] Fromkin, Victoria et al, (1998) An Introduction to Language Harcourt Bruce

Jovanovich Limited
[2] O’Grady, William et al. (1983) Contemporary Linguistics 2nd ed. St. Martin’s
Press
[3] Robin, R.H. (1989) General Linguistics. Longman
[4] Gleason, H.A. (1961) An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics: English
Morphology, N.Y. Holdt. Rinehart and Winston, Inc.(Chapter 8-11)
[5] Quirk, R. and Sidney Greenbaum, (1987) A University Grammar of English,
London
[6] Richards, J. et al, (1985), Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics,
Longman Group Limited.
[7] Trần Văn Phước, (1998), Theoretical Grammar: Morphology and Syntax, Hue
University – College of Pedagogy.
QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
***
ENGLISH
MORPHOLOGY
Class: English K16
Credits: 02
Quang Nam, 01/2019

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English Morphology --------------------------------------- page 0

Chapter 1. An Introduction to Morphology 2

Linguistics is the scientific study of language including: PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY

1.1 What is morphology?

A morpheme recurs in different words with constant meaning.

However, some morphemes may be restricted to relatively few words.

Most morphemes are clear in meaning.

Sometimes some “unanalysable” parts are not morphemes at al.

3. A morpheme is a class of allomorphs that are semantically similar and in complementary

2.1.2 Difference between morphemes, words, syllables

Word Morphem Syllable

2.2 Types of morphemes

2. 2.2 According to the shapes and sizes of morphemes:

2.2.3 According to the structural relationships of morphemes to each other:

Happy unhappy: {un-}: prefix

2.2.4. According to the distribution:

D. A morpheme is always a minimal free form.

3.2 Free morphemes and bound morphemes

3.2.2 Bound morphemes

3.3 Roots and Affixes:

3.5 Free vs. bound allomorphs

[pæ] as in the path of righteousness.

3.8 Combinations of morphemes

- F+F: policeman darkroom

5. –ant 10. mis-

9. whole 23. weather

4.1 Immediate Constituents (IC Division)

In making IC division, three things to be remembered are:

b. One of the IC’s should be, if possible a free form:

4.2 Morphs and Allomorphs

allomorph allomorph allomorph

morph morph morph

4.2.3 Kinds of allomorphs

4.2.4 Classification of morphologically- conditioned allomorphs

4.2.4.3 Replacive allomorph

1. independently 11. supernatural

c. Determine the morpheme itself. ( which is /s/, /z/ or /Iz/

5.2.1 Simple Words

(doorstep) Adj + N (greenhouse), N + Adj (winedark), Adj + Adj (blue –green,

+ They take some of these inflectional suffixes.

Three criteria useful in distinguishing word compounds from grammatical

2. A member of word compounds cannot participate in a grammatical

5.2.4 Compound-Complex Words

a. fly i. justify q. optionally

C. Indicate which of the following as simple words.

A characteristic of all human language is the potential to create new words.

6.1 Derivational morphology

Noun to Adjective Verb to Noun Noun to Verb Adjective to

Other derivational morphemes do not cause a change in grammatical class. Many

blame+able, change+able, break+able, and so on. The productivity of the rule is

6.2 Inflectional Morphology

Consider the forms of the verb in the following sentences:

Inflectional morphemes (a) never change the syntactic category of the

2 {s2} plural marker /z/ cars

6.3 Inflection versus Derivation

6.3.1 Category change

govern (verb) + ment (affix) = government (noun)

Inflectional morphemes Derivational morphemes

{-s} The cats are here. - {-ce}: independence