MORPHOLOGY

 Nadia
 Goldy

 Ratna

 Mufi
MORPHOLOGY
 Morphology is the branch of linguistics that
studies the structure of words.
 In English and many other languages, many
words can be broken down into parts. For
example :
unhappiness un-happy-ness un – carries a
negative meaning.

ness – expresses a
state or quality.
s – expresses
horses horse-s
plurality.
ing – conveys a sense
walking walk-ing
of duration.
MORPHEMES

 The smallest unit which has a meaning or

grammatical function that words can be broken
down into parts are known as Morphemes.

 Type of Morphemes
1. Free and Bound morphemes

2. Derivational and Inflectional morphemes

FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

 Free morphemes are morphemes which can

stand alone or can function as words themselves.
Example : Boy, desire, gentle, man.

 Bound morphemes never exist as words

themselves, but are always attached to some
other morpheme.
Example : -ish, -ness, -ly.
DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL
MORPHEMES

 Derivational morphemes create or derive new

words by changing the meaning or by changing
the word class of the word.
Example : happy → unhappy
quick → quickness

 Inflectional morphemes refine and give extra

grammatical information about the word’s
already existing meaning.
Example : cat → cats
walk → walking
 A morpheme is not same as a syllable.
• ‘coats’ has 1 syllable, but 2 morphemes.

• ‘syllable’ has 3 syllable, but only 1 morpheme.

ROOT, BASE, AND STEM
Root, base, and stem are the main component of
words.

 Root is the center morphemes, or the core of the

word. Root may or may not stand alone as a
word. A root word may be a word that has a
meaning or one that does not have a meaning.

Example : In the form ‘untouchables’ the root is

‘touch’.
 Stem is a form to which affixes (prefixes or
suffixes) have been added.

An example of a root is ‘act’

The stem occurs after affixes have been added to
the root.
Re-act-ion
 Base is any part of a word that you can add
inflections to, or that you can add
prefixes/suffixes that change the meaning/part of
speech.

 All roots are bases, but not all bases are roots.
Roots are mono-morphemic.

 Example : In from of word ‘unfriendly’, the base

can be ‘friend’ or ‘friendly’.
WORD FORMATION
AFFIXATION
One of the most productive ways to form new
words is through affixation, which is forming new
words by the combination of bound affixes and free
morphemes.

There are three types of affixation :

 Prefix : where an affix is placed before the base
of the word.

Example : in- → incapable

un- → unhappy
non- → nonsense
 Suffix : where an affix is placed after the base of
the word.

Example : -ness → happiness

-ly → likely
-able → floatable

 Infix : where an affix is placed within the base of

the word.

English uses primarily prefixes and suffixes,

many other languages use infixes.
COMPOUNDING
Compounding is forming new words not from
bound affixes but from two or more independent
words: the word can be free morphemes, word
derived by affixation, or even words formed by
compounding themselves.

Example : girl + friend → girlfriend

text + book → textbook
air + conditioner → air-conditioner
BLENDING
The other type of word formation is known as
Blending, where two words merge into each other.

Example : brunch → from breakfast and lunch

smog → from smoke and fog
THANK YOU.