Unit 7 Morphology Instructional Objectives Upon completion of this unit, you should: explain what morphemes are distinguish between a free morpheme and bound morpheme; explain the affixes of words; comment on some of the irregular morphemes in English. TWO KEY WORDS Morphology is the study of morphemes. These two words (morphology and morpheme) are derived from the same root (morph). They differ significantly at the end of each word, one ending in logy, and the other in eme. Note further that: the suffix in morphology is logy; It indicates a branch of knowledge (compare biology, theology, etc). the suffix in morphemes is eme; It is something related to minimal distinctive unit. that is the smallest unit that can be distinguished in some systems of classification. The root of the words comes from Greek word morphe which means form or shape. The words morphology and morpheme have the same structure, that is morph+logy, and morph+eme of which they differ in suffixes (attached to the same root morph ). Morphology is particularly important feature in English. It is called the grammar of words (while syntax discussed late in Unit 9 is the grammar of sentences). Morphology is part of grammar which mostly causes language learning to be difficult, and therefore, it is important to deal with the morphological systems. Task 7-1 Fill each blank with one word Grammar can be divided into two main parts, namely and syntax. Morphology concerns the form of whereas deals with the order and grouping of words in sentences. MORPHEMES There are several ways in which words are formed in English. The most obvious way is to add something to the beginning or the end of a word. For 1
example, we can add ed to the end of a word to show a past action, so walk becomes walk+ed; un at the start of a word shows an opposite meaning, so happy becomes un+happy. But, there are other ways of forming a word, such as by changing the root forms of words. For example, bring becomes brought in the past form, and man becomes men in the plural form. It can be generalized that the concept of morphemes is very suitable for the first type of change as shown from the example walk + ed, forming a new word by adding together two morphemes. But morphemes also make the second type of change, although less obviously. For the moment, let us concentrate on the first type of change. Look at the following words walks walked Both words consist of two morphemes walk = walk + s walked = walk + ed Here are another pair of words happily unhappy Again, both words consist of two morphemes happily = happy + ly unhappy = un = happy These examples show the following points about morphemes Some morphemes are complete words (e.g. walk, happy) and others are not (e.g. s, --ed, --ly, --un). In English, some morphemes can be added to the end of words (e.g. walks), and some morphemes to the beginning of words (unhappy). Sometimes the form or spelling of a word changes slightly when a morpheme is added (e.g. happy happily) Each morpheme has a meaning, even if it is a morpheme that consists of only one letter. For example, the s of walks can mean plural I love going for walks., or third person singular, present tense she walks to work every morning. We can also us s to indicate possessive the girl s love story. Thus, morphology tells us a lot about how language works. Task 7-2 State how many morphemes are in each of the following words and identify what those morphemes are. Two examples have been done for you. Word Number of morphemes Breakdown 2
1. Morphemes 3 morph + eme + s 2. Watching 2 watch + ing 3. Houses 4. Book 5. Playfully 6. Stayed 7. Trying 8. Unbreakable 9. Runners 10. Sorry 11. Noisy 12. Magelang s What about sorry and noisy? Do not worry the answers are: Sorry = 1 morpheme = sorry Noisy = 2 morphemes = nois(e) + y Did you get it right? How does the y differ in the two words?. The y in both words is the phoneme /i/, but it is not a morpheme in both words. In sorry, the y is not a morpheme. It is a part of the whole root sorry. Thus, we cannot break sorry into any smaller meaningful unit; so the whole word is a single morpheme. In noisy, the y is a morpheme as it has been added to the word noise to change its meaning. The y is a very small unit, but it carries meaning. Remember the definition of a morpheme: A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. Now, we are going to look at the difference between two types of morphemes: morphemes which can be complete words by themselves are called free morpheme; and morphemes which cannot stand on their own are called bound morphemes. Free Morphemes As the word free suggests, free morpheme is a morpheme which can stand on own as a word. Examples of words which are free morphemes are: walk sorry book course watch The concept of free morphemes is quite straightforward and this area does not usually cause problem for the students, no details are therefore required here. 3
Instead, we will turn our attention to an area that is potentially much more problematic. Bound Morphemes Bound morpheme must be attached to a free morpheme in order to form a new word. That is why it is called bound, which comes from the word bind meaning to tie together. We have to tie a bound morpheme to a free morpheme. The following table will clarify: Table 7-1 Free and Bound Morphemes word Free morpheme Bound Morpheme Function walks walks -s To show tense and plurality unhappy unhappy un- To change the meaning of a word walked walked -ed To show tense houses houses -s To show plurality disagree disagree dis- To change the meaning of a word Task 7-3 Classify the following words into free and bound morphemes. Two examples are given to you. Word Free morpheme Bound morpheme 1. teacher teach -er 2. bicycle cycle bi- 3. typed 4. triangle 5. walking 6. kingdom 7. feasting 8. misspell 9. burnt 10. impolite 11. suddenly 12. children Affixes The most common form of bound morpheme is an affix. Both teachers and students benefit if they have a good understanding of how the English affix system 4
works. If you can recognize and use affixes, it is easier to both decode a message and build words. There are two types of affix: prefixes; and suffixes A prefix is an affix that goes in front of root word and changes the meaning of that root word in some way. Have a look at the examples in Table 7-2 Table 7-2 Prefixes in English Prefix Main area of meaning autoself, without help bi- two bio- living organism co- together dec- ten sub- below tri- three Examples automatic, automobile, autobiography bicycle, binary, biped, bilingual, bifocal biology, biodegradable, biography, biodiversity cooperative, coordinate, cohabit, coeducation deciliter, decimate, decapods, decade, decibel submarine, substandard, subhuman, submerge triangle, tripod, triennium, trilogy, tricycle Mini Project 7-1 Get an English text, preferably a news item. Select words from the text that have prefixes, and identify the area of meaning. Suffixes A suffix, (apart from being a plural and tense marker) is an affix that is attached at the end of a root word, to change the word from one part of speech to another (e.g. changing a noun to an adjective, or an adjective to an adverb. Look at the examples in Table 7.3 Table 7-3 Suffixes in English Prefix Part of Speech Examples -en -cal -ing -ism -ly -ship -wards verb or adjective adjective present participle and, gerund noun adverb noun adjective and adverb soften, lengthen, darken, widen, enlighten broken, golden, wooden, woven, spoken musical, practical, historical, theatrical swimming, reading, opening, walking listening, learning, reading, decoding, building tourism, fascism, racism, Hinduism happily, slowly, unfortunately, gradually relationship, partnership, censorship backwards, homewards, upwards downwards 5
Mini Project 7-2 Get an English text, preferably a news item. Select words from the text that have suffixes and identify their functions (i.e. adverb formation, noun formation, etc.) Irregular Morphemes Apart from the regular morphemes as described above, there are also irregular morphemes. Some linguists called them marked morphemes in that they do not follow the rules in word-formation. For example: man men (plural) buy bought (past) am was (past) bind bound (past) bring brought catch caught goose geese is was Based on the above example, there are possibly three types of change: internal change, e.g. man to men almost complete, e.g. buy to bought complete, e.g. am to was Task 7-4 Continue classifying the above irregular morphemes into internal change, almost complete change, and complete change. Mini Project 7-3 Get an English text, preferably a news item. Select words from the text that have undergone irregular morphemic process, and classify them into three categories above (internal change, almost complete change, and complete change). DIFFERENT LANGUAGES HAVE DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGICAL SYSTEM Let us turn our attention to the morphological systems of other languages. This area is important because English is a foreign language to our students. They have already learnt at least two languages. We need to remember that the morphological system of their first language involves using a new system to communicate information, thoughts, and feelings. And part of that system is morphology. 6
The important thing to remember is that different languages have different system. English uses far more prefixes, suffixes, and other morphemes than languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian group (which is the group that most Pacific languages belong to). Take the plural system as an example. We ve seen that many English nouns generally have an -s morpheme to show plurals. There are also the unusual plurals such as women, children, geese, and fish. Compare the English system with the Indonesian system with respect to plural nouns. English one book two books a woman two women Indonesian sebuah buku dua buah buku seorang wanita dua orang wanita When the meaning changes from singular to plural, in Indonesian, no morphemic changes take place in the noun ( buku buku / wanita wanita). However, changes do occur in the unit of quantity ( sebuah dua buah, dua=two). With respect to the quantifying element, it is very complex. The general form is buah (dua buah buku); for human, it is orang (dua orang wanita). The others are quite complex. See below. dua utas tali dua kuntum bunga dua biji kelereng dua ekor sapi dua lembar kertas etc. (two ropes) (two flowers) (two marbles) (two cows) (two pieces of paper) Task 7-5 Based on the data above, please predict the learning problems encountered by Indonesian students learning English as a foreign language. Language 1 The first example to demonstrate the Bauan morphological system is: yavaqu = my foot / leg Yavaqu is made up of two morphemes: yava is a free morpheme (meaning leg / foot) 7
qu is a bound morpheme (meaning my) A second example is noqu i tau = my friend The literal translation for this phrase is my + grammatical marker+ friend. Thus, the phrase consists of three separate words and three morphemes (the i is a special grammatical feature). Based on the two examples, it is clear that the Bauan dialect shows two different ways of indicating possession in that language. In some contexts, a bound morpheme (-qu) is added; for other words, a free morpheme (noqu) comes before the noun, provided that a particle (i) is added between them. To conclude, basically there are two types of language with respect to morphological analysis. In isolating languages, words cannot be broken into smaller unit. That is, each word is a morpheme. Polynesian languages, such as Samoan are in this group; and In synthetic languages, words often consist of more than one morpheme. (Synthesis means putting together. In this case, the morphemes are put together). Included in this group are Micronesian and Melanesian languages. Task 7-6 What about Indonesian and Javanese? Do they belong to isolating language or synthetic language? Justify your answer with linguistic evidence. MORPHEMES AND MISTAKES Look at the following advertisement: TEA s AND COFEE s This sort of problem occurs because the s morpheme has several functions in English, and the above picture shows that the writer was confused with the plural and possessive. Note that this advertisement comes from the United Kingdom so it is not just second or foreign language speakers who have problems! 8