1.

Morphology

Morphology is an area of study that deals with the internal structure of words. In other words,
morphology can be conceived as the study of the analysis of minimally meaningful entities contained in
the internal structure of words. Words are thus its domain.

But what is a word? The word is understood differently by different scholars. Some consider the term
''word'' as the smallest unit of morphological analysis. They thus think of words as indivisible units of
meaning. This is due to the fact that many words in some languages are morphologically simple. For
example, words like cat, book, mosquito, etc cannot be segmented into smaller meaningful elements.
However, many some other English words can be segmented into smaller meaningful units as is
presented below:
books (book-s)
desks (desk-s)

The -s indicates the idea of plurality.

Other scholars, on the other hand, understand the term ''word'' in different ways. They then have
attempted to formulate their own definitions. Stephan Ullmann, Charles Hockett, and Leonard
Bloomfield, for instance, tried to provide what they think best defines the word. In short, their
definitions are what we call as:

a. The semantic definition of Ullmann;

b. The potential pause definition of Hockett; and
c. The minimally meaningful definition of Bloomfield

Other scholars say that these definitions lack specificity and hence are denied acceptance. In the
discussion we will be making below, we first get into the details of the concept ''word'' then the reasons
for denial are given following each definition.

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1.1 The word: Definitions and controversies

There basic criteria, as mentioned above, seem to be feasible to define the linguistic term word. It
includes its meaningfulness, phonological nature, and grammatical functions. Let's examine the
definitions of the three scholars considering these criteria.

1.1.1 The Semantic Definition

The definition states that the word is the union of a particular meaning with a certain complex of sounds
capable of a particular grammatical employment.
This delimitation makes it a necessary condition for a word to satisfy three properties to be what it is.
Thus, a word has to be:
a. Meaningful ( a semantic unit) ;
b. A collection of sounds (phonological unit); and
c. A grammatical item (functionally recurrent in sentential structures)

Although these properties seem to be satisfactory to define a word, some scholars disqualify them as
unsuitable. Their reason is presented in the controversy below.

THE CONTROVERSY

Words of a given language obviously satisfy the three conditions. But they are not only words that
satisfy these conditions, English phrase like 'the new house ', have a definite meaning, a definite
phonological shape and definite grammatical employment. So, Ullmann's definition lacks specificity.

1.1.2 The Potential Pause Definition

Another definition of the term ''word'' is that of Hockett's. He defines it as any segment of a sentence
bounded by successive points at which pausing is possible. This implies that a word is bounded by a
pause before and after it. As to this definition: '' The man killed the rat.'' has five words.

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This definition like the previous one is not free from criticism for the reason stated in the controversy
below.

THE CONTROVERSY
Two different reasons are raised to criticize what Hockett claims to be the definitions of the ''word''.

First, speakers do not normally pause between words. In certain English accents, for example, we very
often hear sentences like [ğublivit] for the stretched form “do you believe it?”

Secondly, in Amharic items like [ïnttäjajalän] lit. “we shall see each other”, several elements are fused
together without a pause within each. The concept of the potential pause cannot serve as a scientific
definition of the term “word”. Thus, what Hockett presented lacks specificity and failed to be a good
definition.

1.1.3. The Minimally Meaningful Definition

This sub definition of the term word comes from Bloomfield who says that the word is a minimally free
form with meaning. According to this definition, a linguistic term such as “teacher” may be considered
as a word as it is a free form which does not consist of other lesser forms. This, however, doesn’t mean
that the word cannot be segmented into:
teach (a free form)
-er (a bound form)
Bloomfield’s definition sounds to be the strongest of all. However, it like the previous ones, is subject to
criticism.

THE CONTROVERSY
It is obvious that a lot of free forms are meaningful. This always may not be true. Some bound forms
like “-er” (the bound form) have no or little meaning. Words like “a” and “the” occur alone and freely,
but they have no meaning in that situation. Prepositions have meaning only in relation with other words.
They have little meaning by themselves.

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 Example: Out of the room not inside
Out of action non-operational
Out of one’s mind forgetful

Furthermore, if relation with other words is considered for meaning, bound forms also have as is
illustrated in the example below:

farm farmer (noun marker)

dark darker (comparative marker)

Bounds forms have meaning that come from relation with other words. They, thus, have significance in
grammatical analysis. Determining the smallest unit of morphological analysis seems challenging.
Modern linguists say that morph is an entity that ranks below the ‘‘word’’. To them, morph is a form
which may be:
free
bound or
a combination of these

The morph is then our concern in what follows.

1.2 MORPH, MORPHEME, AND ALLOMORPH

Two opposing views on what has to be the smallest unit of meaning for grammatical or morphological
analysis were discussed in the previous section. As a panacea to this problem, they rest upon the term
they call '' morph''.

Morph is a form. When a morph is assigned with meaning, it takes the name ''morpheme''. Two or more
morphemes that take a reference to the same meaning are referred to as ''allomorphs''.

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1.2.1 THE MORPH:

A morph is a phoneme or a sequence of phonemes or even a combination of morphemes forming a unit,

but as yet not assigned to a particular morpheme (meaning).

Example:

a. ''-er'' is a form. We can conceive it as a morph, not as a morpheme, as it is not yet assigned to a
particular meaning. However, it turns out with a specific meaning when it is assigned to a particular free
form.
farm + ''_er'' ---- farmer (it is a noun maker)
dark + '' _ er'' ---- darker (it is a comparative degree maker)

b. A morph can also be a collection of morphemes whose specific meanings add up to jointly make
reference to a particular content or concept.

The morphs, '' inter-, ''nation'' ''al'' and ''ism'' combine to make ''internationalism ''

MORPH TYPES

There are different morph types.

i. Free form: such morphs are minimally meaningful units; and hence are called free morphs.

Example chair it good

table he she
bed car bad, etc

ii. Bound form: they are not free forms and cannot stand alone as they are not yet meaningful. So, they
cannot be called morphemes in an isolated situation. They become meaningful morphemes when they
are assigned to a particular meaning in combination with other morphs. The underlined parts in all
below are bound morphemes.

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 Ex. Short ------------ shorten (verb maker)
quick ----------- quickly (manner maker)
boy -------------- boys (plural maker)

iii. Discontinuous form: English present perfect and present continuous tenses are expressed using
discontinuous or non -consecutive forms.
Ex. have finished
is coming
“have ---- ed” and “is --- ing” are discontinuous morphs.

iv. Zero morph: the symbol for this is (Ǿ). It makes a reference to those morphs whose absence has a
grammatical significance.
Ex: He hits ---- (the /-s/ indicates present tense)
He hit ----- ( the absence of /-s/ here indicates past tense)
English irregular verbs like put, cut, shut, and nouns such as sheep, deer make use of zero morph for
indicating past tense and plural number respectively.

v. Portmanteau morph: is a situation where a single morph marks or expresses two or more
“meanings” or grammatical functions.

1.2.2 The Morpheme

A morpheme is a minimum, meaningful and recurrent unit in the syntactic description of a certain
language. Our definition to morpheme contains three precise characteristics of a morpheme. These are
minimum, meaningful, and recurrent unit.

I. A morpheme is a minimum form in that it can not be divided into smaller meaningful forms. It
stands alone as one item of meaning.
II. A morpheme is meaningful in that it has a direct relation to some part of the content or concept
system.
III. A morpheme is a recurrent unit. It is a unit that appears in different structural environments with
a relatively stable or consistent meaning.

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Consider the example given below.
Ex: bright (light)
brighten (make light)

The only difference between the two is the added /-n/ of ‘‘brighten’’ (note: the vowel before /-n/ is a
silent one - a schwa''). Moreover, /-n/ is a verb maker. It also occurs with words like: cheapen, darken,
deepen, soften, stiffen, etc.
The same morpheme /-n/ on the other hand, can function as a past participle maker and plural maker as
is given below:
known
fallen
risen
oxen
These three instance of /-n/ are different morphemes as they have different meaning. Such different
morphemes that have arbitrary similarities of the above kind are referred to as homophones or
homographs.

MORPHEMES CLASSIFICATION
Morphemes are classified into two major classifications.

i) Free and Bound Morphemes

The free morphemes are the ones that can stand alone and convey a particular meaning. The bound
morphemes, on the other hand, cannot be uttered alone with meaning. They always need to be affixed to
one or more morphemes to give meaning.

Ex. Free Morphemes Bound Morphemes

School - en
Man - er
Work un-
Green, etc il - , etc

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ii) Affixes, Roots, stems and Bases

The linguistic terms roots, stems, and bases are interchangeably used by some linguists. But to others
there exist both similarities and differences. Let’s further discuss each, but affixes first.

AFFIXES: An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before, in, or after a word. Those that appear
before are named prefixes. The ones that are inserted in the middle are called infixes. The third ones are
the suffixes which often follow words. English doesn’t have infixes. We can consider Amharic verbs.
The root for the Amharic verbs is a set of consonants which carry the basic lexical meaning. Vowels are
infixed within the set of consonants when the verb is inflected for tense, person, number, gender, etc.

Example: ‘sbr’ is the root for ‘break’

säbbär-ä marks 3rd person, singular, masculine, past
Here, the discontinuous morpheme ä. ä . ä that enter into the root to show the above grammatical
categories (person, number, gender and tense).

English affixes, in addition to these three classifications, can further be categorized into: inflectional and
derivational types.

Inflectional Affixes
These affixes, when attached to a word, do not change the word class (parts of speech) of that particular
word. The changes are only grammatical features which include number, person, tense, gender, case,
and voice. The examples below illustrate what has been stated here.

Example: a) Inflection for number in English

ox oxen
cat cats
b) Inflection for tense in English
eat eating (progressive) ate (simple past) eaten (past participle)
play playing (progressive) played (simple past) played (past participle)

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 c) Inflection for gender in English

Masulsine Feminine
director directress
hero heroine
duke duchess

d) Inflections for marking genitive case (possession) in English

Smith Smith’s
The students The students’

Derivational Affixes
Derivational affixes change one form class into another. They change a word from one part of speech to
another.

Example: teach teacher (V N)

Short shorten (Adj V)
nation national (N Adj)
beauty beautiful (Adj N)
Careful carefully (Adj Adv)

Here the symbol means “becomes”.

Root: A root is a morpheme in a word which carries the main meaning. In the word “teacher”, for
example, there are two morphemes. “teach” and “- er”. The first one is the root and the second one is an
affix. An affix is a morpheme but a bound one.

Stem: A stem is the part that is left of a word when all inflectional affixes have been removed. In the
word” teaches”, for example, “teach” is the root and “-es” is the inflectional affix. “teach” is thus a stem.
Moreover, “teach” in teacher is a root and a stem at the same time. This does not mean that root and
stem can be used interchangeably everywhere. However, in “teacher”, ”teach” is a root but not a stem. If
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we further consider the word “teachers”, the two morpheme word “teacher”, is a stem as the inflectional
affix which was affixed to is now dropped. “teach” is a root for “ teaches” , “teacher”, and “teachers”.

BASE: A base is a morpheme or a combination of morphemes to which either an inflectional affix or

derivational affixes can be added.

Example: learn in learners is a base.

untouchables has four morphemes: un = negative marker
touch = verb
-able = adjective marker
-s = plural marker
And it follows that “touch” is a root; it is also a base as it allows a derivational affix to be affixed.
“touchable”, in untouchable, is a base only as the prefix un – is a derivational affix. And “untouchable”,
in untouchables, is both a stem and a base, because ‘- s’ is an inflectional affix.

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