Grammar I Graciela Palacio

LV/JVG 2015

LESSON 4
MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

Morphology deals with the internal structure of words. Words are made up of morphemes but
they are not simple sequences of morphemes. They have internal structure and their internal
structure is rule-governed and hierarchical.

Derivational morphemes select the root that they can attach to. For example, -able is a bound
derivational morpheme which gets attached to verbs. So when –able selects the verb read we get
readable, whose structure can be represented by means of the following tree diagram:

The prefix un- with a negative meaning gets attached to adjectives (happy/unhappy). So if un-
selects readable, an adjective, we get unreadable, another adjective, whose structure can be
represented in the following way:

The word unsystematic is composed of three morphemes: un-, system, and –atic. The root is
system, a noun. Now system combines first with –atic, forming the adjective systematic. The
negative prefix un- combines with the adjective systematic to form another adjective with a
negative meaning.

Page 1 of 4/Lesson 3’ Morphology & Syntax

The root system is closer to –atic than it is to un-, and un- is connected to the adjective
systematic, and not directly to system. *unsystem is not a word because there is no rule of
English that allows un- to be added to nouns. The tree diagram for unsystematic is as follows:

There is in English another prefix un- which means “to reverse action”. While negative un-
attaches to adjectives, reversative un- attaches to verbs as in:

load/ unload the truck; button/ unbutton a shirt; zip /unzip a dress.

The tree in this case would be as follows:

The hierarchical organization of words is more clearly seen in the case of structurally ambiguous
words, i.e. words that have more than one meaning by virtue of having more than one structure.
Consider, for example, the word unlockable. Imagine you are inside a room and you want some
privacy. You would be unhappy to find that the door is unlockable – “not able to be locked.” -
able combines with lock, to form the adjective lockable (“able to be locked”). Then the prefix
un-, meaning “not,” combines with the derived adjective to form a new adjective unlockable
(“not able to be locked”). This meaning of the word unlockable would correspond to the
following tree diagram:

Page 2 of 4/Lesson 3’ Morphology & Syntax

Now imagine you are inside a locked room trying to get out. You would be very relieved to find
that the door is unlockable – “able to be unlocked.” – from the inside. In this case, the prefix un-
combines with the verb lock to form a derived verb unlock. Then, the derived verb combines
with the suffix –able to form unlockable, “able to be unlocked.” This meaning corresponds to the
following structure:

Other words that follow this pattern would be unbuttonable and unzippable, among others.

Structure is important to determine meaning. The different meanings arise because of the
different structures. Hierarchical structure is an essential property of human language.

Inflectional vs Derivational Morphemes

Radford (1999: 168) makes us notice that, as they determine the category of a word, derivational
morphemes tend to appear before inflectional morphemes. For example, from the verb paint we
can derive the agentive noun painter, whose plural will be paint-er-s and not *paint-s-er.

Morphemes vs Syllables
Jackendoff (1997) notes that while in morphology we work with the notion of morpheme, in
phonology we work with the notion of syllable. Syllables and morphemes are not in a one to one
correspondence. For example, from a morphological perspective the word organization is
derived from the word organ1 (a free morpheme) through the addition of two bound morphemes
–iz(e) and –ation:

1
organ: a fully differentiated structural and functional unit

Page 3 of 4/Lesson 3’ Morphology & Syntax

 [ [ [organ] iz] ation]

However, from a phonological point of view, the word is made up of segments, five syllables (or
+ ga + ni + za + tion) and two feet [or + ga + ni] [za + tion], a foot being a group of two or more
syllables in which one syllable has the major stress.

Syllables are not morphemes. While morphemes are lexical or syntactic entities, segments,
syllables and feet are phonological entities which cut across morpheme boundary.

SYNTAX
Syntax deals with the way elements combine to form more complex structures. In the same way
as words are not simple sequences of morphemes, sentences are not strings of words. Sentences
are also hierarchically structured. Carnie (2011: 6) clearly explains the difference between
simple addition and syntax. He claims that if you add up the values of a series of numbers, it
doesn’t matter what order they are added in:

7 + 8 + 15 + 2 = 2 + 15 + 8 + 7 = 8 + 7 + 2 + 15

But if you combine the following words yellow, singing, the, a, elephant, mouse, sniffed in
different ways you get different sentences which do not mean the same (e.g. A singing elephant
sniffed the yellow mouse, The yellow elephant sniffed a singing mouse, etc.). The structure of
sentences can be represented in different ways: by means of tree structures, by means of
bracketing or by means of boxes.

Lesson 3 Activity 1: (to be handed in as assignment 3)

Draw the tree for the following words:
1. employers
2. employees
3. unhappiness
4. careful
5. unconventional

References
Fromkin, V., R. Rodman & N. Hyams (2011: 9th ed.) An Introduction to Language. USA:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. (Chapter 1: “What is Language?”)
Jackendoff, R. (1997) The Architecture of the Language Faculty. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press.
Radford, A., M. Atkinson, D. Britain, H. Clahsen & A. Spencer (2009: 2nd ed.) Linguistics: An
Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Page 4 of 4/Lesson 3’ Morphology & Syntax