ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY (a coursebook) – Vladimir Jovanovic

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 LANGUAGE

Only humans have the capacity to use language creatively to produce forms of language
structure, even those they have never heard or seen before.

Language is an ordered system. It consist of an organised set of signs or symbols which have
their particular form and content. Language is a systematic ordering of units (phonemes,
morphemes, lexemes, phrases, clauses and sentences).

The term language is commonly used in two senses, one of which is the existing system of signs
and rules of their combination, whereas the other is the concrete realisation of this system, the
use of it as a communication code.

1.2 LINGUISTICS

The scientific study that deals with human language is linguistics. Humans had been interested in
language for a long time, perhaps much before the first systematic approach to language by
certain scholars occurred in India, around the 5th century BC.

Theoretical linguistics is engaged in studying the very system of language. There can be
delineated 6 disciplines in linguistics, each of which belongs to two distinct groups.

The first group is the group of central linguistic sub-disciplines, studies which are concerned
with the system of language itself, which includes phonology, morphology, syntax and
semantics.

Phonology investigates the sounds of a language.

Morphology composes the traditional and somewhat limited concept of grammar.

Syntax is the study which tackles the principles of combining words and units larger than words
into constructions.

Semantics is the study of meaning in language, or the meaning of words and sentences in
isolation.

The second group is the group of subsidiary linguistic disciplines. They focus on certain aspects
of language use that are outside the language.

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds in general, which deals with the physical aspects of
speech.

Pragmatics studies the way language is used or realised in communication from the point of
view of speaker’s intentions and the effects it achieves.

Applied linguistics studies how the knowledge about language can be employed to serve
pedagogical purposes, as in foreign language teaching, but it also studies the way language is
used in modes of mass communication, in translation from one language to another, etc.

1.3 MORPHOLOGY – THE STUDY OF WORD STRUCTURE

Morphology is a scientific study of language, a branch of linguistics, which studies words and
their internal structure, based on the concept of the/a morpheme as a basic unit.

This linguistic discipline deals with the different aspects of “the marriage of meaning and form”
in lexical items, as well as with the formation of lexemes, which somehow determines the
division within morphology into two subfields. Thus, the study can be divided into inflectional
morphology and derivational morphology.

Inflectional morphology, or grammatical morphology, as this sub-discipline is sometimes

termed, is concerned with the structural organisation of grammatical word forms.

Derivational morphology is also named lexical morphology or lexeme formation. It studies the
ways lexemes are formed upon various strategies, and how lexical items in the so-called open
word classes, content words are obtained.

1.4 MORPHOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY

All the languages in the world can be classified according to certain criteria, among which there
are the so-called genetic criterion, determining the languages related by origin, the area
criterion, bringing together languages according to geography and the criterion of typology,
which classifies languages according to their formal properties.

Morphological typology is a way of studying and comparing languages in accordance with their
structural characteristics.

The traditional morphological classification of languages postulates three types of languages:

isolating, agglutinating, inflecting (incorporating and infixing) languages.

1.4.1 ISOLATING LANGUAGES

The first typological group is the one of isolating languages where every word consists of only
one morpheme. As there are no bound morphemes in the language, all the morphemes are free
morphemes, which is the reason why these languages are also often referred to as root
languages. In isolating languages, there are no grammatical endings. The grammatical relations
in the sentence are expressed through separate words. Examples of these languages are
Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese and Cambodian.

Another name for these languages is analytic languages. The English language belongs with all
other analytic languages. The history of English tells us that it was not always the case, but rather
that the English developed from an inflecting language into an isolating, analytic one, as the
degree of analyticity steadily increased with the loss of grammatical endings.

1.4.2 AGGLUTINTING LANGUAGES

Agglutinating, also called affixing languages are languages with 2.00 to 2.99 morphemes per
word. They form their morphological structures by “gluing together” of elements, placing
morphemes one after another in a word form. The example languages may be Hungarian,
Finnish, Turkish, Swahili, and others.

1.4.3 INFLECTING LANGUAGES

Those are languages with a highly developed system of inflectional morphemes responsible for
expressing different grammatical relations. Inflecting languages generally have word forms with
more than one morpheme, that is 2.00 to 2.99 morphemes per word when averaged out. Example
languages include Latin, French, German, Serbian, etc. these languages are also called synthetic
languages, as grammatical and lexical meanings will be synthesized in one formal element.

1.4.4 INCORPORATING LANGUAGES

According to a more traditional classification, these would be taken as polysynthetic languages in

which the verb can incorporate its object in the form of a single word. It is no wonder that
polysynthetic languages have 3.00 plus morphemes per word. Incorporating languages are the
language of North American Indians, Cree and Inuktitut.

1.4. 5 INFIXING LANGUAGES

With these, inflectional morphemes, usually in the form of vowels and syllables, are infixed in
the roots which consist of consonants. The infix does not replace any portion of the root
morpheme into which it is added, it only expands it. Arabic and Hebrew, Semitic languages,
Australasian and other languages serve as representatives of this typological variety.

1. 5 LEXICON

The lexicon is the total inventory of lexical items available to speakers of a single language.
However, there are other pieces of information in the lexicon concerning the way a lexical item
is to be pronounced, i.e. its phonological properties, its morphological features, how it is to be
combined with other units in a sentence, that is its syntactic properties, and finally what the item
means, all its semantic characteristics.

The lexicon can sometimes be treated as the inventory of actual lexical items, which bears the
name of the permanent lexicon. As opposed to this, the lexicon can be treated as the inventory of
all the potential lexical items of the language, when it is named the conditional lexicon.

A segment of language is a lexical item if it is entered in the lexicon, even though it may not be a
lexeme. This is the reason why stick in the mud is a lexical item, regardless of the fact that this
idiom is not a lexeme.

Chapter 2
WORD AND LEXEME
 2.1 WORD

Words are units that sentences are composed of. They are language units larger than a
morpheme, but smaller than a phrase.

“A word is a minimum free form”, it is the smallest independent unit of language. Word can be
redefined as a free morpheme in independent use.

Words are said to be unmotivated language units, purely random associations of speech sound
and meaning.

Uninterruptibility is taken to be a definitive features of words. In the morphological sense, a

word is a form characterised by internal cohesion and unity. In this respect, words are such
elements of language as to be marked by a pause before and after in speech and writing. In a
language sequence, a break before and a break after is supposed to indicate one uninterrupted
and uninterruptable unit called a word, a separate set of phonemes/graphemes related by
common meaning and function. We can make a difference between an orthographic word and a
phonetic word. The former is the way a unit is spelt, and the latter the way it is pronounced.

A question remains whether constructions such as the ones in (1) can be considered as words,
since each of them meets the criterion of unified meaning.

(1) A. to keep an eye on means “to watch”

b. to take a dim view means “to disapprove”
c. to pull one’s leg means “to tease”

The key feature of a word is its independence, but not only in the sense of form, as a unit
bounded by two pauses or blanks, since the form table would not be sufficient without another
form, e.g. tennis, to reveal that we have a particular kind of sport in mind. Similarly, the forms
*inpretemponuptual or *enhappinessizeress may display a certain high level of formal unity, but
they are definitely deficient in terms of coherence when it comes to meaning.

A word is a formally, functionally and semantically independent unit of language structure,

which has either lexical or grammatical meaning represented by a set of phonemes in speech and
graphemes in writing.
2.2 LEXEME

A LEXEME can be defined as one item from the lexicon which includes all the grammatical
forms of that unit and possible phraseological expansions.

For example, NICE stands for a lexeme of a particular meaning “pleasant or pleasing or
agreeable in nature or appearance”, which involves other forms that may stand for this lexeme in
sentences and utterances, namely nice, nicer, and nicest. Simply, they have different roles and
the one in capital letters is called the citation form. CITATION FORMS of lexemes are those
forms that we use in naming them, “citing them” or talking about the lexemes. This is also called
the LEMMA. The lemma for the lexeme WOMAN is woman, not women or woman’s. Each
lexeme belongs with all other lexemes of its class, that is they all form a separate lexical
category: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. The paradigm of a lexeme can consist of one
grammatical word form only, as with the lexemes ALIVE or EVER, or as many as eight forms,
as with BE.

The citation form for a lexeme (as WOMAN), is at the same time the lexical base that is used in
other formation processes in which this form is involved. SET meaning “to put, lay, or stand in a
specified place or position” would make a single verbal lexeme, whereas its different
grammatical realizations are different word forms.

Another lexeme SET which means “a group of things of the same kind that belong together and
are so used” would be a single nominal lexeme with different word forms.

When a single form is realised in two distributional slots, we speak of GRAMMATICAL

WORDS.

All the lexemes in a language can be sorted into groups which tend to be called LEXICAL
CATEGORIES, or more traditionally, word classes (parts of speech). Lexical categories are
groups of lexemes that share similar morphological features and syntactic functions and have
similar semantic primitives used for the explication of their meaning.

The first group of lexical categories is the group of major or open categories.
NOUNS – Characterised by the grammatical categories of number, person and case. Their
sentence functions include subject, object, and complement: MELON, PRIDE, LIGHT,
DIPLOMA, etc.

VERBS – Characterised by the grammatical categories of tense, aspect, mood, person and voice.
They function as predicators: EAT, LISTEN, THINK, NEGOTIATE, etc.

ADJECTIVES – Characterised by the grammatical category of comparison. Their grammatical

job is to be nominal modifiers: BIG, SMART, LUCRATIVE, POTENTIAL, etc.

ADVERBS – Characterised by the grammatical category of comparison. Their function in the

sentence is that of verbal, adjectival, adverbial or sentence modifiers: FAST, HERE,
ABRUPTLY, SINCERELY, etc.

The second group is made of minor or closed categories.

PRONOUNS – They have no grammatical categories but they can substitute nouns in
performing sentence functions: YOU, MYSELF, THIS, WHOSE, etc.

ARTICLES – Their purpose is that of all other determiners of nouns. They show morphological
difference only to category of definiteness: A, THE.

PREPOSITIONS – These are meant to establish various relations among sentence elements and
functions: AT, BY, TO, ON, etc.

CONJUNCTIONS – They are a category of lexemes the role of which is to join together units of
language at the level of word, phrase, clause or sentence: AND, SO, ALTHOUGH, HENCE, etc.

INTERJECTIONS – A separate category of lexemes independent of any other. Their use is

limited to expressing language formulae or the emotional status of the speaker: HELLO!,
OUCH!, WOW!, GOODY!, etc.

2.3. WORD FORM

The term FORM is used in linguistics to refer to the phonological (or orthographic) shape of a
unit of language such as a word or part of a word. Occasionally, this term is substituted with the
phrases the RELISATION or the exponent of the unit of language.
In morphology, the term WORD FORM refers to one of the possible realisations or elements of a
lexeme, i.e. it is the grammatical form of any particular dictionary word.

A word form is something that has a constant phonological and orthographic shape. It is also
called a MORPHOSYNTACTIC WORD, since the form has a particular syntactic function on
account of its morphology, its particular shape.

2.4 GRAMMATICAL WORD

Grammatical word is a term which denotes the grammatical meaning of a word form in a certain
context. The grammatical meaning of the form books, for instance is “plurality”.

Different grammatical words can belong to the same lexeme, just as the grammatical words give
and gives belong to the lexeme GIVE.

On the other hand, the same form can be employed to represent two different grammatical jobs
and expresses two different sets of morpho-syntactic properties, even though with matching
phonemic properties. These two words, however, belong to two different lexemes.

2.5 SYNCRETISM

Syncretism is the phenomenon when one inflected word form is systematically used to represent
two grammatical words which are associated with the same lexeme.

There are English verbs with syncretic forms which comprise three grammatical meanings, such
as bet, cast, cost, cut, fit, hit, knit, let, rid, set, slit and split.

English nouns have syncretism expressed with one and the same formal unit for both singular
and plural number of certain nouns.

Chapter 3

BASIC CONCEPTS

The terms: morpheme, morph, allomorph are among the key instruments that the study of
morphology operates with and without which any talk on the subject of word structure would be
inconceivable.
3.1 MORPHEME

Morphemes are elements of language structure, a particular kind of unit in language necessary
for structuring and organising language by pairing form (phonemes or graphemes) with meaning.
We can position them in between phoneme on the one hand, and word on the other, the two
being smaller and larger units of language structure, respectively. However, the relationship
between word and morpheme is not all that clear-cut, as morphemes, free morphemes to be
precise, are word forms which themselves can have syntactic functions and are therefore equal in
status with individual words.

By definition, a MORPHEME is the smallest unit of language structure which carries meaning.

In regular Morphological notation, morphemes are marked with the sign of braces { }. The
notation {-ed}, for instance, is to indicate that the segment is a morpheme of English and it is the
grammatical morpheme which marks past tense with verbs.

In order for a unit to be treated as a morpheme, the unit must be a word or a part of word that has
either lexical meaning or grammatical function. The word banana, for instance, is a word in its
own right, a simple one, and therefore, it is a morpheme. By the same token, within the word
forms voting, and talked, the parts –ing and –ed are said to have meaning which bears
significance to grammar, or simply, they have grammatical meaning, present participle or past
tense.

Morphemes as units are not further divisible. They cannot be divided into smaller elements of
structure without violating the meaning of the whole.

Finally, for a phonemic sequence to be considered a morpheme, it has to be able to appear with
no considerable change of its meaning in other contexts, occur in other environments, or to be
found in other words. This third criterion means that the morpheme –ing should be able to appear
in combination with other morphemes to give grammatical forms of verbs, as in singing,
playing, reading, etc. Thus, the morpheme should maintain its meaning in different
combinations: superhuman, superman, supermarket.

In morphology, as in language in general, it is dominantly the phonemic and not the orthographic
form of units that matters. It has always been contended that speech is primary, and writing is
secondary. We say that morphemes consist of certain phonemes, sometimes in writing
represented by certain graphemes, and their phonological and therefrom graphical content can be
of varied volume.

3.2 TYPES OF MORPHEMES

There are two types of morphemes: free and bound morphemes. Also, when it comes to
comparing the different meaning morphemes can convey, we speak of lexical and grammatical
morphemes.

3.2.1. FREE MORPHEMES

Free morphemes are morphemes which can be on their own in language sequence with particular
grammatical significance. They have either lexical meaning, as the morphemes {apple}, {car},
{gold} or it may have purely grammatical meaning, such as with the morphemes {the}, {of},
{a}, etc. Free morphemes can be uttered as one word sentences, not needing any other element,
for instance, a one-word sentence is Help!

Free morphemes can be registered in more complex lexical structures, such as exposure, knightly
or unbound where the parts expose, knight and bound can appear as proper English words in
other situation, as opposed to –ure, -ly or –un. Some other lexemes may be composed of more
than one free morpheme, as we can recognise bath and room in bathroom, desk and top in
desktop, or moon and light in moonlight.

3.2.2. BOUND MORPHEMES

Bound morphemes, on the other hand, are morphemes which cannot be on their own in a
sentence, but require the presence of other morphemes. Examples of bound lexical morphemes
include forms such as {-ish}, as in childish or girlish, {dis-} as in disappear or discourage, and
{-ly} in devotedly or friendly. Also, bound morphemes may be functional, in which case their
importance is in the grammatical shape that they help form: {-ed}as in repoted or believed, and
{-est} in smartest or loveliest.

It should be pointed out that regardless of any orthographic resemblance between the morpheme
able as a free morpheme meaning “having skills or qualities to do something” and –able in
durable, the latter should not be confused for a free morpheme. The bound morpheme –able
differs in meaning and pronunciation from its free counterpart. The same can be said of the pair
arch and arch- as in archangel, full and –ful found in peaceful, as well as of less and –less in
nameless.

Certain words can be formed exclusively out of bound morphemes, words such as edible. Such
items are similar to these: perceptive, terrific, euphonic, ecclesiastical, monoplegia, etc.

3.2.3 LEXICAL MORPHEMES

Lexical morphemes are morphemes with concrete semantic content, or lexical meaning.

Lexical morphemes can be free, as {book}, {butter}, {think}, {great}, etc, independent of any
other element and functioning on their own in a language sequence. In the derivative temporal, it
is not a problem to state the part {-al} is a morpheme, as it recurs in many derivative adjectives,
such as document-al, nation-al or proportion-al. however, as opposed to the central elements of
the tree derivatives above, which are all free morphemes, tempor- is not a free morpheme of
English. Nor is –amic in amicable, -amor in inamorate, pecuni- in pecuniary, etc. Considering
the fact that they possess meaning and are the backbone of the derivative, but are devoid of free
status within a sentence, these morphemes should be regarded as BOUND LEXICAL
MORPHEMES. As with other morphemes, some of them are more commonly used, some of
them less: -ceive, -ject, -judic, later-, -logy, -ord, -phile, popul-, -spect, viv-, etc.

Moreover, the so-called derivational affixes {anti-}, {-ful}, {-ness}, {pro-} belong with all other
lexical morphemes we consider bound due to the fact that they contribute lexical meaning to the
base they combine with.

Research into the frequency of lexical morphemes in English has shown that the most frequent
morphemes in the language are come, have, get, go, man, new, see, take, time, year.

3.2.4 GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES

Grammatical morphemes are such morphemes the meaning of which has purely abstract
grammatical significance in language. They can be both free {and}, {in}, {to}, etc, or bound {-
er}, {-ed}, {-s}, but the greatest majority of grammatical morphemes are bound.
The same study proved a, and, he, in, is, of, that, the, to and was to be the top 10 grammatical
morphemes in the language.

3.2.5 CONTINUOUS AND DISCONTINUOUS MORPHEMES

The greatest majority of all the morphemes in language ARE unbreakable sequences of speech
sounds: boy, patron, -ing, trans-, etc. Therefore, we would be in a position to confirm the
existence of such linguistic entities as CONTINUOUS MORPHEMES, or morphemes that have
a constant and stable phonological form, morphemes which have a definite beginning and a
predictable end. DISCONTINUOUS MORPHEMES are morphemes the normal sequence of
which is interrupted by another element, and which stil preserve their semantic unity despite this
intrusion, as with fan-bloody-tastic, where fan-…-tastic is a case of a discontinuous morpheme.

3.2.6 ZERO MORPHEME

The concept of zero morpheme is based on an idea by one of the fathers of linguistics, Ferdinand
de Saussure, who introduced the zero linguistic sign, wherefrom his followers derived the zero
morpheme. At places in literature, there occur accounts of certain lexical items said to have been
derived from a base by means of a zero morpheme, as in v. to sneak – n. a sneak.

The notation used for zero morpheme is {ø}, and it should not be mixed with the concept of zero
allomorph of certain morphemes which have overt allomorphs, as the zero allomorph of the
plural morpheme {-s} in English, which has allomorphs in /s/, /z/, /iz/, /ø/.

3.3. MORPH

What appears in speech is an expression of a morpheme, its concrete realisation in language and
such realisation in language and such realisation of a morpheme in speech is called a MORPH.

For example, the morpheme {music} can be realised in speech as the phonological form
/mju:zik/ which we call a morph. Certain morphemes are realised in speech by two or more
different morphs, such as the morpheme {decide}, which can be realised in speech by two
different morphs /disaid/ and /disais/ which is met in the lexeme decisive when combined with
another morpheme {-ive}.

3.4 ALLOMORPH
The morphs by which morphemes as units of language structure are realised in speech need not
be formally identical at all times, just as the morpheme {sign} is not realised as /sain/ when it
appears in a combination with the suffixal morpheme {-al} in signal, but rather as /sign/.

These different manifestations or appearances of the same morpheme, which share the same
meaning but have different phonological content are called ALLOMORPHS or positional
variant. It is the phonemic realisation that counts in morphology, and thus any doubling of letter
as in cutting or dropping certain letters as in writing, does not automatically mean that cutt- or
writ- should be taken as allomorphs of the corresponding morphemes. On the other hand, the part
writt- in the complex form written does stand for an allomorph of the morpheme {write} to
which the past participle morpheme {-en} has been added.

The morpheme {in-}, the prefix with negative meaning has four morphs which are positional
variants, namely in-, il-, ir- and im- depending on the context. The initial consonant of the base
dictates the choice of the allomorph of the morpheme {in-} which is to appear: indecent,
illogical, irresponsible, immature. But if one of them is engaged in a word form, this rules out
other formations as *inlogical, *imlogical or irlogical.

The same can be claimed for the verb past tense morpheme {-ed} which has three allomorphs in
complementary distribution: {-ed} is realised as /t/ after infinitive verb stems ending in a
voiceless consonant such as /p/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /tʃ/, or /ɵ/, it is realised as /d/ when
added to verb stems ending in any of the voiced consonants /b/, /g/, /v/, /ꝺ /, /m, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /w/,
/r/, /j/ and all the vowels. Finally, the past tense {-ed} is realised as /id/ after verb stems ending
in alveolar stop consonants /t/ and /d/.

a. Present tense push /puʃ/ > past tense pushed /puʃt/

b. Present tense learn /lə:n/ > past tense learned /lə:nt/
c. Present tense drift /drift/ > past tense drifted /driftid/

Be that as it may, the greatest majority of the morphemes in English have only one formal
variant, e.g. small or friend.

3.5 UNDERLYING FORM

If there happen to be more than one representative forms of a morpheme, there is always one
which is chief among them. This form is also known as the UNDERLYING
REPRESENTATION or UNDERLYING FORM.

In writing, the morpheme for regular plural marking in English {-s} is represented either by the
grapheme <s>, as in the majority of cases, or by <es>, if the stem should end in graphemes such
as <o>, <s>, <x>, <y>, <z> or digraphs as <ch>, <sh>, <ss>.

Which of these representations will appear with particular stem largely depends on the final
phoneme of the stem. Thus, we say that allomorphy in this case is PHONOLOGICALLY
CONDITIONED.

The plural morpheme will be realised as /s/ if the noun stem ends in a voiceless consonant such
as /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /h/, and /ɵ/.

Chapter 4

WORD STRUCTURE ELEMENTS

4.1 ROOT

Some of the elements contribute to the meaning, and yet some of them shape the grammatical
identity of the item, as can be determined by a structural analysis of the word unveils, for
instance. This item consists of un-, veil, and –s, of which the middle element appears to be the
most important of the three, since it decidedly affects the meaning, whereas the other two modify
the lexical and grammatical meaning of the word. The ROOT is the central part of a word in
regard to both meaning and structure, since it is to roots that we can add affixes, both
derivational and inflectional to form more complex lexical structures. Whatever remains when
all the affixes are removed will be taken as the ROOT of that word form.

There are as many roots as there are free morphemes in a word form: bath + room = bathroom,
house + keep + -er = housekeep-er

4.1.1. FREE ROOTS

If roots are free morphemes, then we consider them as free roots, for example, the word kingdom
has a free root in king and the root of the word shorten is to be found in the part short.

Free roots may be come across as independent forms in a language sequence, with trifling
differences in spelling as in phrasal, which is phras and not phrase.

4.1.2 BOUND ROOTS

The examples (Gr. Chroma = colour) chromatic, chromatics, chromatography, (Lat. Volvere =
to roll) voluble, volubility, volubly, (Lat. Credere = believe) incredible, credible, incredibly,
credibility.

Some of the most notorious words for their complexity are:

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis – a lung disease,
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism – a glandular disease, antidisestablishmentarianism – an
ideological movement

In literature, the term ROOT is often equalised and replaced by the term BASE.

4.2 BASE

Base is a term in opposition with the term AFFIX. In friend + -ly = friendly and develop + -ment
= development, the roots of the outcome derivatives are at the same time bases to which we
attach the affixes –ly and –ment. In development + -al = developmental the root and the base of
the outcome derivative are not the same. By the same token, bases are called stems when only
inflectional suffixes are to be added, as in bookmark + -s = bookmarks and delicaly + -s =
delicacies.

As can be verified by the examples above, a base can be a simple lexical form such as hand, or it
can be a more complex structure consisting of a root and affixes, one or more as in industrialise.
Finally, a base can be of compound structure, involving at least two free forms, such as open-
mind in the lexeme open-minded.

4.3 STEM
The term STEM refers to that form in word structure which is obtained after all the derivational
affixes have been added to the root. Stems must be some sort of base at the same time, since
stems are forms to which affixes are added.

a. Man-‘s
b. Clear-ed,
c. Point-s
d. Endanger-ed
e. Death-defy-ing

Information can be a base for informational and informationless, but no nominal inflection can
be appended on the form, *information-s.

Depending on their structural characteristics, stems can be classified as SIMPLE STEMS, rooms,
cars, trees, books, or if a complex item serves as a base, it is called a CMPLEX (derived) stem,
as in: memorising, friendlier, nationalities, and finally COMPOUND STEMS: daydreaming,
bathrooms, bad-mouthed.

4.3.1 STEM EXTENSIONS

There are formative elements in word structure which are apparently unaccounted for. These
formatives are called EMPTY MORPHS.

Child + r + en

One such formative is the remnant of the old English plural ending –er, which stayed on after
another plural ending –en was added.

Breth-(e)r-en

Thus, a word form is analysable in the following manner: enlargements is a word or to be more
precise a word form, just like untouchables, for example. Their roots are large and touch,
respectively. After the affixes en- and –ment are added to the first, what we get is the stem
enlargement.

Enlargement s entire form: word form

 Boldfaced: root

Underlined: stem

The ROOT of a word will be whatever remains after we have removed all the affixes there are.
On the other hand, STEM of a word is whatever we are left with when the inflectional suffixes
are removed.

4.4 AFFIXES

AFFIXES are an important and often an integral part of word structure. There are five different
types of affixes: PREFIXES, SUFFIXES, and INTERFIXES, that are existent in English
morphology, plus INFIXES and CIRCUMFIXES, types of affixes which are not present in the
language.

As for the impact they can have on the base, affixes can be INFLECTIONAL, added to stems
and producing forms with particular grammatical purpose and DERIVATIONAL or formative,
affixes that are added to roots or other bases in the process of forming stems.

4.4.1 PREFIXES

Prefixes are affixes positioned before or to the front part of the base with which they combine to
form a complex lexeme: sub-terranean, in-credible, un-believable, en-danger.

4.4.2 SUFFIXES

These affixal morphemes are placed after the root of the word they make up in combination,
either free or bound roots:

a. Friend-ly, aware-ness, beauty-ful

b. Hope-ful-ly, faith-ful-ness, govern-ment-al
c. Nat-ion-al-ist, nat-ur-al-it-ical-ly

Chapter 5

MORPHOLOGICAL RULES
The form help does not change its form on the occasion of changing the lexical category by
adding a suffix such as –ful, as in helpful. The from decide changes its phonological content into
decis- when the adjective forming suffix –ive is to be appended, so as to obtain the form decisive.

5.1 MORPHOLOGICAL RULES

By the help of morphological rules, lexical and grammatical morphemes are ordered in
accordance with logic, meaning, grammar and communication purposes, so as to obtain
acceptable units of language. Such generalisations guide our regular language production as in
V{move}+{-ed}=moved N{car}+{-s}=cars, and prevent us from combining noun
stems with the past tense morpheme of verbs or any other “illicit” structure as shown in
N{car}+{-ed}=*carred N{speed}+{-est}=*speedest. These morphological rules which
concern producing different forms of the same lexeme to correspond to different grammatical
roles are called INFLECTIONAL RULES. Unless prevented by a restrictive factor or another
irregularity, all English nouns should be pluralised by the application of the plural morpheme {-
s}.

In order to show that morphological rules are productively used by speakers to generate words,
we can use the famous wug test. If we assume that a thing is called !bittle, two or more of them
would be referred to as !bittle-s, judging by the intuition by the native speakers.

Morphological rules that pertain to producing different lexemes are called DERIVATIONAL or
LEXEME FORMATION RULES and they are rules that run the synthesis of lexical morphemes.

a. V{day}+{dream}=daydream
b. N{dream}+{day}=*dreamday
c. ADJ{prude}+{-ish}+{-ness}=*ishprudeness
d. ADV{affect}+{-ion}+{-ate}+{-ly}=affectionately

In English morphology, inflectional rules are applied only after all the derivational ones have
been applied.

N{industry}+{-al}+{-ise}+{-ed}=V industrialised

5.2 MORPHOPHONEMIC RULES

MORPHOPHONEME is a term which belongs to the intersection of morphology and phonology.

Morphophonemic rules or morphological changes are changes which occur in the phonological
content of morphemes so that they can adapt to different grammatical functions or categories.

a. Contrite /’kəntrait/ + -ion > contrition /kən’triʃən/

b. Malice /’mælis/ + -ous > malicious /mə’liʃəs/

The affix can exert such influence on the base that it either changes one or more phonemes in its
structure, or it is fairly mutated, as with the past tense of the verb GO which is went.

5.2.1 Morphophonemic RULES AFFECTING THE AFFIX

5.2.1.1 ASSIMILATION

Assimilation is such a morphophonemic change in which the last consonant of the prefixal
morpheme undergoes assimilation of sorts, changes into a phoneme identical with the starting
phoneme of the word root. If the last prefixal phoneme changes completely and is identified with
initial in the root, it practically merges with it and disappears in pronunciation. More or less, this
is a case of loss of phonemes. This is called complete assimilation.

a. In + literate > illiterate

b. In + mortal > immortal
c. In + regular > irregular

There is also partial assimilation when the last prefixal phoneme is not completely merged, but
changed into another from the set of phonemes articulated on the same place of articulation.

a. En + bellish > embellish

b. In + balance > imbalance
c. In + possible >impossible