Morphology: National University of San Martin

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SAN MARTIN
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND HUMANITIES
PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL OF "LANGUAGES"
MORPHOLOGY
COURSE : PROBLEMS OF THE APPLIED LINGUISTIC
TEACHER : LIC. JUANA PAOLA RUIZ
STUDENT : MARIA RAQUEL VILLACORTA DE LA CRUZ

JUDITH BURGOS LLATAS
Tarapoto – Perú
2020
Contenido
INTRODUTION .......................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 1. WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY? .......................................................................... 4
1.1. Concept ......................................................................................................... 4
2. WHAT IS A WORD?............................................................................................. 4
 Smallest independent units of language................................................................. 4
2.1. Root / Independent ......................................................................................... 4
2.2. Morphemes – the building blocks of morphology ................................................ 5
2.2.1. SIMPLE WORDS.................................................................................... 5
2.2.2. COMPLEX WORDS................................................................................ 5
3. FREE VS BOUND MORPHEMES.............................................................................. 5
3.1. Free morpheme: ............................................................................................. 5
3.2. Bound morpheme: .......................................................................................... 6
3.2.1. Prefix (front of the base) ........................................................................... 6
3.2.2. Suffix..................................................................................................... 6
3.2.3. EXPLANATORY MAP OF MORPHEM .................................................... 7
4. SOME EXCEPTIONS IN ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY .......................................... 8
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 9
LINKOGRPHY .......................................................................................................... 10
INTRODUTION
Morphology is the area of study of linguistics that specializes in the analysis of

the formation or construction of words.
The word is understood as a minimum unit of complete meaning, but it is made

up of minor elements that, depending on their function, meaning and location, will receive
different names.
It is easy to recognize when a word is related or related to another by the mere

observation of similar elements in its construction, such is the case of words such as: food,
dining room, diners, eat, for example. We immediately notice that these words are in a
relationship by their meaning, but we notice at the same time that certain parts of them
remain constant. These elements that we can recognize as constants and that give words
a minimal meaning in common, are called lexemes, they are also called base or root.
CHAPTER 1. WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
1.1. Concept
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core part
of linguistic study today.
Morphology is commonly defined as the study of the internal structure of words

and the rules governing the formation of words in a language. It is once again part
of our grammatical knowledge of a language, and like linguistic knowledge it is
generally unconscious knowledge. Students of English need to establish a sound
knowledge base in understanding the structure of words and word formation
processes. Developing an awareness of English morphology will enable language
teachers to help their learners understand how words enter a language, what they
consist of and how they are formed by combining prefixes, suffixes, and roots.
Recent research suggests that learners with an awareness of word-formation
processes tend to have larger vocabulary and better reading comprehension
(Kieffer and Lesaux, 2008; Kieffer and Lesaux, 2012a/2012b), and by extension
better writing (Templeton, 2012). Consequently, morphology can be a valuable
instructional tool for language learners to develop and use vocabulary creatively.
 The term morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph- meaning ‘shape,

form’, and -ology which means ‘the study of something.
 Morphology as a sub-discipline of linguistics was named for the first time

in 1859 by the German linguist August Schleicher who used the term for
the study of the form of words.
2. WHAT IS A WORD?
 Smallest independent units of language
2.1. Root / Independent
The root is the main part of the English word. It doesn’t have any prefixes,
suffixes, etc.
 do not depend on other words.
 can be separated from other units
 can change position.
Example:
Kind
Mix
Fix
 The man looked at the horses.
 s is the plural marker, dependent on the noun horse to receive meaning
 Horses is a word: can occur in other positions or stand on its own
EG:
The horses looked at the man.
– What is the man looking at? – Horses.
Words are thus both independent since they can be separated from other words and
move around in sentences, and the smallest units of language since they are the only
units of language for which this is possible.
2.2. Morphemes – the building blocks of morphology
Words have internal structure: built of even smaller pieces
2.2.1. SIMPLE WORDS: Don’t have internal structure (only consist of one
morpheme) eg work, build, run. They can’t be split into smaller parts which
carry meaning or function.
2.2.2. COMPLEX WORDS: Have internal structure (consist of two or more
morphemes) eg worker: affix -er added to the root work to form a noun.
Morphemes are the smallest meaning-bearing units of language.
3. FREE VS BOUND MORPHEMES
3.1. Free morpheme:
A simple word, consisting of one morpheme

Eg: house, work, high, chair, wrap. They are words in themselves.
3.2. Bound morpheme:
Morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to receive meaning.
EG: UNKINDNESS
 UN- and -NESS are the bound morphemes, requiring the root KIND to form the
word.
These are also called affixes as they are attached to the stem. There are two types as
outlined below:
3.2.1. Prefix (front of the base) = are added to the root and change its meaning.
Affixes are prefixes that are placed in front of the root (Un-)
3.2.2. Suffix (end of the base)= are placed at the end of the word, and infixes are
inserted in the middle of the word ( -ness).
3.2.3. EXPLANATORY MAP OF MORPHEMA
4. SOME EXCEPTIONS IN ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY
As in many languages of the world, English also has some irregularities or exceptions
in its morphology. So far, we have only exemplified English words in which various
inflectional and derivational morphemes can be simply recognized as distinct
minimal units of meaning or grammatical function. The plural morpheme -s is
attached to boy, and the plural boys is created. Although the vast majority of nouns
pluralize in English by adding –s, some nouns form their plurals irregularly. Typical
examples of such irregular plurals in English are man-men, woman-women, foot-feet,
mouse-mice, toothteeth, sheep-sheep and deer-deer. There are also exceptions in the
forms of the past tense verbs in English, for example began, broke, went and ran.
Both historical influences and the effect of borrowed words play a role in accounting
for such irregularities. For pedagogical purposes, most grammar and writing
textbooks include long lists of these exceptions in English morphology.
CONCLUSION
We have seen above that the forms of words can carry complex and highly structured
information. Words do not serve simply as minimal signs, arbitrary chunks of sound that
bear meaning simply by virtue of being distinct from one another. Some aspects of a
word’s form may indicate the relation of its underlying lexeme to others (markers of
derivational morphology or of compound structure), while others indicate properties of
the grammatical structure within which it is found (markers of inflectional properties).
LINKOGRAPHY
1. file:///C:/Users/MR/Downloads/Oz_2014_Morphology_and_implications_fo
rEnglish_language_teaching.pdf
2. https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2007/ling001/morphology.html
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics)
4. http://lovelylanguage.com/grammar/grammar-rules/the-english-
morphology/

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NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SAN MARTIN

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND HUMANITIES

PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL OF "LANGUAGES"

TEACHER : LIC. JUANA PAOLA RUIZ

STUDENT : MARIA RAQUEL VILLACORTA DE LA CRUZ

Morphology is the area of study of linguistics that specializes in the analysis of

The word is understood as a minimum unit of complete meaning, but it is made

It is easy to recognize when a word is related or related to another by the mere

Morphology is commonly defined as the study of the internal structure of words

 The term morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph- meaning ‘shape,

 Morphology as a sub-discipline of linguistics was named for the first time

 Smallest independent units of language

2.1. Root / Independent

2.2. Morphemes – the building blocks of morphology

Words have internal structure: built of even smaller pieces

Morphemes are the smallest meaning-bearing units of language.

3. FREE VS BOUND MORPHEMES

3.1. Free morpheme:

A simple word, consisting of one morpheme

3.2. Bound morpheme:

Morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to receive meaning.

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