Transcript MORPHEMES

Morphological structure of
English words
(MORPHEMES)
Lecture # 2
Grigoryeva M.
Language Units
Morphemes
 Words
 Word groups
 Phraseological units

MORPHEME
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morphe – “form”
- eme “the smallest unit”
Morphemes- are the smallest meaningful unit of form
 cannot be segmented into smaller units
 can occur in speech only as constituent parts of
words
 are divided into lexical morphemes and grammatical
morphemes
ALLOMORPHS
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Phonetic variants of one and the same
morpheme
Ex:
please-pleasing [pliz-]
pleasant [plez-]
morphemes
roots
affixes
Functional
Derivational
(endings)
prefixes
suffixes
Lexical morphemes
Free
Roots
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Bound
Affixes
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BOUND
morphemes
FREE
morphemes
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coincide with a
word-form
may stand alone
without changing its
meaning
can be only roots
Ex. sport- in sportive
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do not coincide with
separate word-forms
occur only as a
constituent part of
words
are mostly derivational
morphemes
Ex. –ive in sportive;
Semantically
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Root morphemes (radicals)
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Non-root morphemes
A ROOT morpheme (RADICALS)
is a lexical center of a word
 has an individual lexical meaning common
to a set of semantically related words
(word-family)
Ex to write, writer, writing
 does not possess a part-of-speech
meaning
Ex cold water, to water flowers
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Non-root morphemes (Derivational)
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Inflectional morphemes (inflections)
endings

Affixational morpheme (affixes)
prefixes
functional
suffixes
derivational
Inflectional morphemes (inflections)
Inflectional morphemes (inflections)endings- carry only grammatical meaning
Ex –s (plural of nouns)
- ed (Past Indefinite of regular verbs)
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A PREFIX

a derivational morpheme
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stands before the root

modifies the word meaning
Ex
hearten – dishearten
safe - unsafe
SUFFIX
Derivational morpheme
 Follows the root
 Forms a new derivative in a different part
of speech or a different word class
Ex heart-en
heart-y
heart-less
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FUNCTIONAL AFFIXES

build different forms of one and the same
word (a word-form)
Ex. boy- boys, boy’s – boys’;
take – takes;
hearty – heartier – (the) heartiest
DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES
build new words
Ex to teach - a teacher
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have a part-of-speech meaning
Ex. to change – changeable
to organize – organization
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are dependent on the root they modify (bound)
Structurally
 Free
morphemes
 Bound
morphemes
 Semi-bound
morphemes
(semi-free)
Free morphemes

coincide with the stem or a word form
Ex
friendship
Bound morphemes
Occur only as a constituent of a word
(affixes are always bound morphemes)

Ex darkness
impolite
to dramatize
Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes
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Function in a morphemic sequence both as an
affix and as a free morpheme
Ex
to sleep well
half an hour
(free morphemes – coincide with
well- known
half-done
(bound morphemes- a part of
the stem and the word-form)
the word)
Completives (a combining form)
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is a bound form
a distinguishing feature from an affix---borrowed from
another language
occur in compounds (that didn’t exist in the original
language and were formed in modern times)
Ex aerogram
( Greek ------ aer = air)
claustrophobia (Greek ----- claustrum=closed space phobia=fear)
Beatlesmania (modern - Beatles Greek ---- mania = madness)
Splinters
clipping the end or the beginning of a
word to produce new words
Miniminiature (minibus)
Ecoecology
(ecomenu)
- burger
hamburger (cheeseburger)
- wich
sandwich (turkeywich)
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Types of meaning
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Lexical
Differential
Part – of- speech
Distributional
Lexical meaning
Is individual for root-morphemes
Ex Teach teacher teaching
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Is generalizing for affixational morphemes
Ex -en (the change of a quality)
deepen
deafened
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Some affixational morphemes with the same
denotational meaning differ in conotation
womanly
-
женственный
womanlike
женский
-
womanish
бабий
Differential meaning
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To distinguish one word from others
containing identical morphemes
Ex A bookshelf
a book+case
a book+stall
Part-of-speech meaning
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In most cases affixational morphemes are
indicative of the part of speech
Ex
-ment (noun)
- less (adjective)
- ize (verb)
Distributional meaning
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The meaning of the order and arrangement of
morphemes making up a word containing more
than one morpheme
sing- (to make musical sounds)
Ex
sing+er
-er
er+sing
(the doer of the action)
IMPOSSIBLE!
PRACTICE!
Segment the given words into morphemes. Define
the semantic type and the structural type of the
morphemes
Ex aimless aim + less

a)Semantically aim- is a root, -less is an affix
b)Structurally aim- is a free morpheme, -less is a bound one
Beggarly, postman, disaffected, half-eaten, rent-free
Beggarly
BEG(G)- root, free
- AR- affix, bound
- LY affix, bound
Disaffected
DIS- affix, bound
- AFFECT- root, free
- ED affix, bound
-
Rent-free
RENT- root, free
- FREE root, free
Postman
POST - root, free
- MAN affix, semi-bound
Half-eaten
HALF- affix, semi-bound
- EAT- root, free
- EN affix, bound
PRACTICE!

Translate the following words into Russian, taking into
account the lexical meaning of the root and affixes
EX
weekly
----- еженедельно
Week- a period of 7 days + -ly frequency
Hostess, dehouse, eyelet, famous, prewar
Hostess
host-
(a person receiving guests)
- tess
(a woman)
Dehouse
de(the removal of)
- house (a place for man habituation)
Eyelet
eye- let
Famous
fam(e)- (the condition of being known)
- ous
(possessing something)
Prewar
pre- war
(body part for seeing)
(a small kind of)
(before)
(a state of armed conflict)
PRACTICE!
Classify the following words according to the
part-of-speech meaning
Ex criticism
-ism (noun)
Hatless, befriend, enlarge, boyhood, accordingly