MORPHOLOGY:

word structures and classes

MORPHOLOGY- is the study of the
structure of words in a language and it
considers the individual parts of the word.

Morphemes – the smallest unit of meaning

in the language. It is one of the most useful
concepts introduced in the 12th century
linguistic theory, as it gives a generic name
to those units of language that fall between
phonology and syntax and were previously
known only by different names (prefix,
suffix, base, and so on) according to their
behavior.
 WORD
STRUCTURE
 FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

• Free morphemes are essentially the

words of the language with no addition.
Examples: eat, date, weak
• Bound morphemes are the affixes
that are added to free morphemes. They
cannot normally occur on their own.
Examples: woman-womanly, kind-
kindness
WHAT IS ALLOMORPH?
• Allomorph describes the different form of a
morpheme can take
• Allomorph is analogous to phoneme-allophone
relationship.
• Example:
WHAT IS ALLOMORPH?
• Example:
 Word
formation
Three word formation processes (inflection,
derivation and compounding) have something in
common and that refers to its operation at the level of
the word, and all make use of the two basic kinds of
morpheme: free and bound.
• Inflection is the process by which the main
lexical word classes (noun, verb, adjective, and
adverb) in English acquire regular endings to form
particular grammatical structures.

• Note: English is not a highly inflected language compared

to Russian or Welsh.

• In English, the inflectional morphemes are all

suffixes, and they are all bound morphemes.
• In nouns, plural form by adding s, es (cats, fishes)
and other noun-forming suffix like like dancer,
violinist, player, orator, typist, etc.
• For gradable adjective (comparative and superlative)
inflected forms are added with er, est (nicer, nicest).
• For adverb formation, the adjective is inflected with
suffix ly, y, etc. (slowly, lengthy).
Derivation is the process by which
words have a morpheme added that changes
their meaning and often their class too.

Ex. Mature – maturation; motivate-motivation;

create-creation correct-correction,

Note: There is a kind of derivation in English which

occur between the noun and verb categories,
which is called as zero derivation.
Ex. a play/to play, a hammer/to hammer,
a drink/to drink
* a play (noun), to play (verb)
Compounding – is the process whereby
a word is from two equally free morphemes
and becomes a compound word. The meaning
of a compound word is always more specific
than a phrase made up of the same two free
forms would be, and this is emphasized in the
fact that it will only have a single word stress.

Ex. blackboard, Blackbird, paperback,

shoehorn

Note: The principle of compounding is that the

meaning of the resulting word is not simply
the sum of its parts, but has a further meaning
that could not be predicted immediately.
MAJOR WORD CLASSES IN ENGLISH
• Two major classes of word: Lexical and
Grammatical

• Lexical words are words which contain

semantic information in a text. They are
content words which denote meaning and
are very large and open-ended. They refer to
the four main lexical word classes: Noun,
verb, adjective and adverb.

• Grammatical words are called as function

words which are closed to change (close-
ended). The grammatical words in English
NOUN
NOUN makes up the largest word classes in
English and traditionally taught in school as
naming words.

The forms of nouns with inflectional morphology:

countable, proper, and mass nouns

Countable nouns: the dog’s tail, an idea’s origin

Proper nouns: John’s bike, Madrid’s traffic
problem
Mass nouns: sugar’s properties, anger’s triggers
FUNCTIONS OF NOUNS
• The basic function of a noun is to be the HEAD
of a noun phrase after a definite or indefinite
article or determiner (the cat, some air), and
may have a number of adjectives between the
article and the noun (the fat cat, the fresh
air).

• The cat (noun phrase)

noun

definite article
OTHER ASPECT OF NOUN
FUNCTIONS
• Other aspect of the functions of nouns is how
they operate as part of the noun phrase, or in
the clause structure.
• Subject: The crocodile (ate my hat).
• Object: (The president announced) his plans.
• Complement: (This substance is) refined
sugar.
• Adverbial: Every night, (they sing karaoke).

• Note: Words can change class in certain

regular ways. The noun could look like a verb:
Joshua Bell’s playing was divine.
• The noun playing considering its word-class
VERB
• Verbs are the other very large lexical word class in
English and were traditionally called ‘doing words’.
Like the noun class, the lexical verb class also
includes ‘not doing words’ (have and be), but
expressing state of being, rather than processes and
still others that describe events with no intentional
action behind them (die, fall).
VERB: FORMAL & FUNCTIONAL FEATURES

• Lexical verbs are also identified with formal

and functional features with the inflectional
morphemes used to modify the verb such as:
• Present tense
• third person singular morpheme (-s)
• the past tense regular morpheme (-d, -ed)
• the progressive form (-ing)
SINGLE VERB FUNCTION &
FORM
• The following clauses present a single verb
functioning in the predicator role:
• s
• The students worked hard all year.
• No one suspects me.
• Although dancing as well as ever…
• Dropped from the team…
• To sit in the sun with a drink in your hand…

• Note: The first two clause examples are complete

sentences, whereas the last three samples are
subordinate clauses. The different verb examples
demonstrate certain forms of verb: non-finite
forms.
NON-FINITE VERB FORMS

• Non-finite verb forms include the verb

with the –ing form, the -en form, and the
i-form; they are also called as the
progressive form, the perfective form,
and the infinitive form. The non-finite
verb forms need auxiliary verb in order
to function such as:

• She was dancing as well as ever.

• He was dropped from the team.
• I shall sit in the sun with a drink in my
FINITE VERB FORMS

• Finite forms of verbs are lexical verbs that

do not need an auxiliary verb in order to
function in main clauses.

• The girl plays her doll.

• The students break their silence.
• Some prayed on their camps.
 FORMS OF ENGLISH VERBS

Forms of English verbs

Citation Form Break Play Sing Forget

Present Tense break play sing forget

Present third
person breaks plays sings forgets

Past tense broken played sang forgot

Progressive
participle breaking playing singing forgetting
Perfective
participle broken played sung forgotten

Infinitive break play sing forget

SUBCLASSES OF LEXICAL VERB
• The subclasses of lexical verb are inclusive of
intransitive verb, transitive verb, and ditransitive verb.
They can be identified based on the context in which
they occur.

• Intransitive verbs do not have an object and will occur

in subject and predicator structures.
• Ex. I’m dying.

• Transitive verbs occur with an object in subject-

predicator-object structure.
• Ex. She hates you.

• Ditransitive verbs occur with both indirect and direct

objects.
OTHER SUBCLASSES OF VERBS
1. Verbs that occur with compulsory adverbials:
• Ex. John went home and I put the cigarette back
in the pocket.

2. intensive verbs (such as be) – occur with

subject complements, and
Ex. She was really tired.
Those verbs which occur with objects and object
complements:
Ex. You make me happy.

Note: Intensive verbs have particular semantic

effect that invoke existence (there is a tree) and
LEXICAL ADJECTIVES
• The adjective word class is smaller than the
noun and the verb and has a more
restricted set of forms than the verb and
more limited set of functions than the noun.

• Adjective has smaller subclasses such as

gradable and non-gradable adjectives
GRADABLE ADJECTIVES

• Gradable adjectives form comparative and

superlative forms either by the addition of
morphemes, or by the insertion of adverbs.

• Ex. big bigger biggest

smart smarter smartest
scared more scared most scared
NON-GRADABLE ADJECTIVES

Non-gradable adjectives can be considered to

belong to groups such as color, material,
nationality, and not strictly syntactic
categories as they are not defined by their
form or function.

Interestingly, non-gradable adjectives are

sometimes treated as gradable by the
addition of comparative and superlative
adverbs.

Ex. He looked more Chinese than I expected.

That was the most wooden acting I’ve
SYNTACTICAL FUNCTIONS OF
ADJECTIVES

1. As head of the adjective phrase

Ex. totally awful, very unhappy, clearly pretty

2. As premodifier to the head noun in the noun

phrase
Ex. brilliant artist, cute baby.

3.As complement of a clause/sentence.

Ex. The artist is brilliant.
ADVERB

• The adverb class is the least class-like of all

as it consists of a number of subclasses that
have relatively little in common, except that
they do not perform the most central role in
a clause or sentence and often not essential
to the grammatical completeness of the
utterance in which they occur.

• Adverbs come as for example: very,

suddenly, now, then, really, quietly
SUBCLASSES OF ADVERBS
1. The first class of adverbs are those derived
from gradable adjectives by the addition of –ly:
happily, terribly, heartily, truly, etc.

2. Another class are known as intensifiers as

they quantify the amount of gradable
adjectives: dead proud, quite tired, completely
shattered

3. The prepositional phrases as having the

adverbial function which adds information
about the circumstances of the process.
Ex. On Saturday, we went to the theatre.
• Note: The prepositional phrases can be
replaced with adverbs, though they will not
always be specific as the phrases:

• Ex. Then we went here.

• When the match started, it was raining
hard.
• Suddenly, they had disappeared
GRAMMATICAL WORD CLASSES

• Grammatical word classes are

described as closed systems because
the members of grammatical classes
are intertwined semantically, so that
the addition of a new member or loss
of an existing one would radically
alter the meaning of some or all the
other members of the class.

• Note: It is not easy to consider change in this

class since the most significant aspect of their
meaning is its relation to the lexical word classes
• Take note of the given sentence below:

All the children will enjoy my party if

they arrive on time.
*Children enjoy party arrive time

***If you take out all the grammatical

(underlined) words, the result will be a list of
lexical words with no clear links or information.
On such note, it can be concluded that
grammatical words have a very important
function in English, that is, to make explicit the
links between the lexical words and to create
the context in which the lexical words can
operate successfully.
 GRAMMATICAL WORD
CLASSES
IN ENGLISH
1. Pronoun
2. Determiner
3. Preposition
4. Conjunctions
5. Auxiliary Verb
PRONOUNS
• Pronouns, although a grammatical class,
function syntactically in similar ways to
the noun class because they can be
subjects, objects, and complements.

• Hence, the role of the pronouns is to

substitute for more complex nouns and
noun phrases in order to make the
language more efficient and avoid
repetition.
• Note: Imagine what happens to the
passage when the pronouns are
replaced by the full nouns and noun
phrases.

My sister and her family went to Malta for

their holiday. She said they wanted to have a
relaxing time with sun and sea, but they
found that the hotel was miles inland, it didn’t
have a pool and the weather could be cloudy
in August.
 The table below shows the pronouns of
English and their relationship to each other.
One of the striking things about English
pronouns is that there is no variation in the
form of the second person pronoun between
subject and object functions.
The subject, object and possessive pronouns in English:
First Person Second Person Third Person
Subject pronouns:

Singular I you he, she it

Plural We you they

Object pronouns:

Singular me you him, her, it

Plural us you them

Possessive pronouns:

Singular mine yours his, hers, its

Plural ours yours theirs
FUNCTIONS OF PRONOUNS
• You should come to my office at 10 a.m.
• The Head teacher will see you now.

• He/she should come to my office at 10 a.m.

• The Head teacher will see him/her now.

• You and I are best friends, aren’t we?

• I don’t think he likes you and I.

• Mine is a gin and tonic.

• They like mine.
FUNCTIONS OF PRONOUNS
• You should come to my office at 10 a.m.
(Subject)
• The Head teacher will see you now. (Object)

• He/she should come to my office at 10 a.m.

(Subject)
• The Head teacher will see him/her now.
(Object)

• You and I are best friends, aren’t we?

(Subject)
• I don’t think he likes you and I. (Object)
Further Noticeable Features of Pronouns:

*We need the situational context to work with

the referent of the pronoun.

*Worth noting feature is the fact that the third

person singular pronouns are divided into three
groups, according to animateness and gender.
Things that are clearly inanimate (e.i. cups, houses)
are referred to as it (and any features they possess
are indicated by its).

*The animate beings (animals and so on) that

share the planet with us are sometimes honored with
the human pronouns (she, he).

*It is also used for largely human identity if we

cannot identify their gender.
DETERMINER
• The determiner is defined by its positioning
within the noun phrase. Determiners are
situated before the head of the noun phrase,
and before any adjectives that may be in a
noun phrase.

• 3 main subclasses of Determiners:

1. Articles
2. Demonstrative adjectives
3. Possessive adjectives
Two Articles:
1. Definite article (the) – e.g. the story
2. Indefinite article (a, an) – e.g. an apple, a dog

Demonstrative Adjectives ( this, these, that and

those)
* demonstratives function like definite article,
however demonstratives are identified into two:
distal and proximal demonstratives. Distal refers
to things or people that are distant to the
speaker. (That car is red). Proximal is when object
or people is physically close to the speaker (This
dress is my favorite).

Possessive Adjectives (my, your, his her, its, our,

and their)
PREPOSITION
• The prepositions in English are Legendary
mainly because there are many of them and
that their meanings are rather slippery.
• The preposition always introduces a phrase
that consists of itself and a noun phrase, and
the meaning of the whole phrase usually
indicates some circumstances in which the
action of the clause is occurring, or the context
of a previous noun phrase:

The tiger came into the room.

The cat in the garden wasn’t hers.

 Take Note:

The English prepositions make up a fairly

large grammatical word class, with a large
set of two or even three-word units that
function very much like single-word
prepositions (as well as , over and above).
Common single-word ones include: in, on,
under, over, through, by, near, for, to, of
• The clearest example of a prepositions are
those which relate actions or entities in
space. The earlier examples dealt with
space, so here are some examples of time
prepositions:

• In a day or so, you will feel better.

• The concert on Saturday is in aid of charity.

• The prepositional phrases here relate to the

action in the first sentence (when the
process of feeling better will take place)
and the noun phrase (the concert) in the
second sentence.
• It is also important to understand that some
prepositions and adverbs have the same form
but they are very easy to tell apart, as the
preposition is always followed by a noun
phrase and the adverb stands alone. Consider
comparing the following sentences below:

• I often go running through the park.

(Preposition)
• Will you take me through. (Adverb)

• Note that the prepositional form is followed

by the noun phrase the park whereas the
adverb form is intended to convey the whole
of the situation in which the action will take
place.
CONJUNCTION

• Two major conjunctions in English

1. Coordinating Conjunctions – consist of a,
three-word set: and, but, or, which between
them cover the logical possibilities of adding
equal units together or contrasting them.
(more detail on this in clause structure
discussion).
2. Subordinating Conjunctions – larger than the
other conjunctions, (if, so, that, although,
then and so on ) and are used in English not to
give equal weight to parts of a structure, but
to make clear that one unit or structure is less
important grammatically and semantically
than the other.
• Coordinating conjunctions allow us to say
things more succinctly and with less
repetition:

• I like John. I like Andy. I like John and Andy.

• He was firm. He was nice. He was firm but
nice.
• Were you awake? Were you asleep? Were
you awake or asleep?
• Subordinating conjunctions usually
introduce a clause or element (underlined in
the examples below) that either sets the
scene for the main clause, as the first two
examples, or acts as the object or
complement of the main verb, as in the final
example. Identifying a conjunction can be
the key to understanding which part of a
complex sentence is the subordinate and
which is the main clause.

• Although it was late, she rang the doorbell.

• When you get to the hotel, give me a ring.
• I know that you have taken it,
AUXILIARY VERB
• Auxiliary verb are so called because they
support the lexical verbs by introducing some
of the regular meanings that are needed by
all verbs, such as tense. It carries a great
deal of meaning.

• The auxiliary verbs are made up of the

modals (may, must, might and so on), have
(perfective) and be (progressive and passive).
• Note: Some of the uses of the auxiliary
function: to construct questions, to
provide emphasis, and to carry
negation.

• To construct question:
She will be coming. Will she be coming?
Jane has been hurt. Has Jane been hurt?

To provide emphasis (emphatic use through

stress and intonation pattern on the auxiliary)
She will be coming.
Jane has been hurt
Dave might find it.
• To carry negation
The negation in English sentences is carried by
the verb phrase in the form of a negative
particle, which intervenes in the verb phrase
after the first auxiliary and before the
following auxiliary or lexical verb:

She won’t be coming.

Jane hasn’t been hurt.
Dave might not find it.

The negative particle is often attached to the

auxiliary verb, though in the case of might the
reduced form (mightn’t) is less common now.
NOTE:
All three special uses of the auxiliary require
some attention to the first auxiliary of a verb
phrase. This may be a modal auxiliary or it
may be have or be. Whichever it is, the verb
is known as the ‘operator’ because it has the
special functions described above.

In the absence of an auxiliary (that is ,

where there is only a lexical verb), the
dummy operator – the verb do – is used
instead:
Does Donald know the answer?
Donald does know the answer!
Donald doesn’t know the answer.
• To conclude, the dummy
operator, then, performs the
three functions of the other
auxiliaries, but it does not carry
any meaning of its own to add to
the verb phrase.

• oOo
End of this chapter…

See you on the next

chapter.

Good Luck!!!