Morphology

VOCABULARY &
MORPHOLOGY
EPC 552: Week 4
Do you know the meaning of these
words?
love marriage (Indian) co-brother (Indian)
farang (Thai) visa run (Thai)
kiasu (Singaporean) killer litter (Singaporean)
put to bed (Nigerian) k-leg (Nigerian)
Ambo (Australian) Arvo (Australian)

Word classes
Content words – words that have clear lexical
meanings and concepts (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs)
New words are

usually added to
Open class words this class
Function words – words that have grammatical

meanings (e.g. determiners, articles, prepositions)
Closed class words

Look at the following excerpt. Identify the content and
function words.
“How much is that doggie in the window?

The one with the waggly tail.
How much is that doggie in the window?
I do hope that doggie's for sale.”
Morphology: word structure & formation
• Morpheme – the smallest meaningful unit of a word
e.g.
cat à 1 word, 1 morpheme
unlock à 1 word, 2 morphemes
un + lock
undesirable à 1 word, 3 morphemes
un + desire + able
How about ‘a cat’?

Morphemes
• Morphemes à free morphemes and bound morphemes
Free morphemes can stand alone as a single word.
Bound morphemes must be attached to a free

morpheme.
e.g. un + desire + able

bound free bound
Bound morphemes: Affixes
• Prefixes occur before other morphemes.
e.g. impossible, irregular, undo
• Suffixes occur after other morphemes.
e.g. boyish, maker, writable
• Infixes are inserted into other morphemes.
e.g. (Bontoc)
fusal (enemy) à fumusal (to be an enemy)
(English: no true infixes)
absobloominlutely, edubloodycation
• Circumfixes occur both before and after a based morpheme.
e.g. (Malay) adil = fair, ke〉 〈an (-ness)
keadilan = fairness
Root and Stem
Root – the smallest content morpheme (can be either a
‘word’ or ‘non-word’ morpheme)
Stem – a root + an affix
root system noun

stem system + atic noun + suffix
stem un + system + atic prefix + noun + suffix
stem un + system + atic + cal prefix + noun + suffix + suffix
word un + system + atic + cal + ly prefix + noun + suffix + suffix + suffix
Activity
Identify free and bound morphemes in the following words.
1. learners
2. inappropriateness
3. overhanging
4. internationalisation
5. disconnected
Free morpheme and Bound morpheme
Derivational morphemes
When derivational morphemes are attached to a root or
stem, it changes the meaning and/or part of speech of
that root word.
e.g. pure + ify à to make sth pure

re + write à to write again
learn + er à a person who learn
English derivational morphemes
• noun to adjective
e.g. childish, useful, atomic
• noun to verb
e.g. standardize, vaccinate,
• verb to noun
e.g. singer, clearance, standardization
• adjective to noun
e.g. happiness, alcoholism, specificity
• adjective to adverb
e.g. happily, quickly
• verb to adjective
e.g. readable, creative, advisory
* Not all derivational morphemes cause a change in the
part of speech.
• noun to noun
e.g. friendship, humanity
• verb to verb
e.g. undo, recover
• adjective to adjective
e.g. pinkish, inappropriate
* Most of the prefixes do not change the part of speech.

e.g. rewrite, subset, supernatural, impossible
Inflectional morphemes
• When an inflectional morphemes is attached to a root or
stem, they mark grammatical functions such as tense,
number, aspect.
e.g.
I walk to that building.
He walks to that building.
They walked to that building.
I am walking.
English Inflectional morphemes
-s third-person singular present
e.g. She walks.
-ed past tense
e.g. She walked.
-ing progressive
e.g. She is eating.
-en past participle
e.g. She has eaten.
-s plural
e.g. She has two pens.
-’s possessive
e.g. Ann’s house is there.
-er comparative
e.g. That house is bigger than anothor.
-est superlative
e.g. That house is the biggest one in town.
Irregular forms
• Some English words are irregular.
• Irregular words do not conform to the regular
morphological rules.
e.g. child à children
man à men
sheep à sheep
eat à ate
go à went
Activity
Divide the following words into morphemes. Then, identify
the type of each morpheme.
e.g. relationships:
relate = free morpheme
tion = bound, derivational morpheme
ship = bound, derivational morpheme
s = bound, inflectional morpheme
1. learners
2. inappropriateness
3. overhanging
4. internationalisation
5. disconnected
Think…
• Does your native language have derivational morphemes,
inflectional morphemes, and/or irregular word forms?
Provide some examples.
• Do the differences in your language system affect the way

in which the people use English?
Word formation process
How do we get new words?
Creating/Coinage:
Some new words are created from nothing, some are created to
resemble some sound in nature (onomatopoeia), or some are
coined from existing words but for different meaning.
e.g. Xerox, hoover, google
When the words are coined, they then acquire grammatical rules
of the language.
e.g. google – noun or verb

verb – googled, googling
Borrowing: Getting new words from other languages.
• Simple loanwords: new words are adopted directed from another

language.
e.g. bungalow, kimono, dim sum
• Adapted loanwords: new words are borrowed from another language

then they are adapted to suit the system of the language that borrows.
e.g. café (French) à coffee
kindergarten (German = children’s garden)
• Loan translations: new words are created by translating cultural

meaning from another language using words in the language that
borrows.
e.g. co-brother, visa run, killer litter
Combining: New words are created by combining existing
words or word parts (morphemes).
• Compounds: combining two words (new meaning)
e.g. flowerbed, textbook, big data, binge-watch
• Derivatives: using affixes
e.g. telemedicine, Unfriend
Shortening: New words are created by omitting some
parts of an old word.
• Clipping: omitting some parts of a long word or expression
e.g. condo (minium), pic (ture), vet (erinarian)
• Backformation: Reinterpreting of how a word form is
structured.The word is shorten by omitting the part that is or is
thought to be an affix.
e.g. zip from zipper, televise from television
• Hypocorism: reducing long word + y or ie
e.g. Aussie from Australian, movie from moving pictures
• Conversion: change of part of speech with no backformation
e.g. I’m watering the flowers
• Acronyms: initial letters of a set of words
e.g. UN, KMUTT, OMG
Blending: The process of combining and shortening.
part of word 1 + part of word 2
e.g. gasohol from gasoline+alcohol
gaydar from gay + radar
vlog from video + log
chillax from chill out + relax
screenager from screen + teenager
Activity
How would you explain the words ‘Twitter’, ‘Tweet’ (as a
verb) and ‘Tweet’ (as a noun) based on the theory of word
formation process.

Morphology

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VOCABULARY &

love marriage (Indian) co-brother (Indian)

farang (Thai) visa run (Thai)

kiasu (Singaporean) killer litter (Singaporean)

put to bed (Nigerian) k-leg (Nigerian)

Ambo (Australian) Arvo (Australian)

New words are

Function words – words that have grammatical

Closed class words

“How much is that doggie in the window?

How about ‘a cat’?

Free morphemes can stand alone as a single word.

Bound morphemes must be attached to a free

e.g. un + desire + able

root system noun

e.g. pure + ify à to make sth pure

* Most of the prefixes do not change the part of speech.

• Do the differences in your language system affect the way

e.g. Xerox, hoover, google

e.g. google – noun or verb

• Simple loanwords: new words are adopted directed from another

• Adapted loanwords: new words are borrowed from another language

• Loan translations: new words are created by translating cultural

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