Ch3: A Word and Its Parts: Roots, Affixes and Their Shape: Engt 243 Morphology Ghada Alghamdi

Ch3: A word and its parts: roots,
affixes and their shape

ENGT 243
Morphology
Ghada AlGhamdi
galghamdi@ksu.edu.sa 1
3.1 Taking words apart
What is Morphology?
The study of the internal structure of words and the
relationships between words involving the
morphemes that compose them.
from the Greek word morphe ‘form, shape’
Morphemes are the minimal units of morphology
3.1 Taking words apart
Characteristics of morphemes
To allow the meanings of some complex words
to be predictable, morphemes must
1. be identifiable from one word to another

and
2. contribute in some way to the meaning of the
whole word. (Activity)
MORPHEMES
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units.
This view is widespread precisely.

A complex word like helpfulness, is divided into
the morphemes help, -ful and –ness
- full (beautiful, cheerful, etc.)

- ness (sadness, happiness, etc.)
MORPHEMES
The meaning of helpfulness is entirely
determined by the meanings of the morphemes
that they contain.
The meaning of a word such as readable is

clearly related to the normal meanings or
functions of read and -able.
MORPHEMES
Morphemes do not have to be of any particular
length.
Some relatively long words, such as catamaran and

Knickerbocker, may consist of just one morpheme.
BUT, a single-syllable word, such as tenths, may

contain as many as three morphemes (ten, -th, -s).
3.2 Kinds of morpheme
What is the core of the word
helpfulness?
Why is help the core of the word
helpful?
- help supplies the most precise and concrete
element in its meaning, shared by a family
of related words like helper, helpless,
helplessness and unhelpful.
- help can stand on its own – that is, only

help can, in an appropriate context,
constitute an utterance by itself.
That is clearly not true of -ness, nor is it true
of –ful.
Free vs. Bound MORPHEMES
Free Morphemes can stand on their own
Bound Morphemes cant.
jk
Morphemes in General
Limited Morphemes
(1) the morpheme leg- ‘read’ in legible
it is found in only one other word, illegible
(2) Cranberry morphemes cran-, huckle- and

gorm- in cranberry, huckleberry and gormless.
CRANBERRY MORPHEMES
Cranberry and huckleberry are compounds
whose second element is the free morpheme
berry.
Berry is found in other compounds such as
strawberry, blackberry and blueberry;
cran- and huckle- occur nowhere outside these

compounds. They are called Cranberry
morphemes.
Root, Stem or Base
What is the difference between a root, a stem
and a base?
Walk
Walker
Walking
Walks
Root or Base
What is the difference between a root, a stem
and a base?
Walk
Walker
Walking
Walks
Root or Base
A root is the part of a word that cannot be
changed.
"Walk" is a root in: walking, walked, walker,

walkie-talkie, sidewalk, walk-light, walks etc.
Root or Base
A base is any part of a word that you can add inflections

to, or that you can add prefixes/suffixes that change the
meaning/part of speech.
"walk" is a root but also a base,

because you can add inflections (walking)
and can be turned into different words (walker is a noun).
Walker is a base BUT NOT a root, because you can add
inflectional plural -s (walkers is plural)
Root or Base
All roots are bases because they are the smallest chunk
that stays the same despite additions.
Not all bases are roots though, because sometimes the

root+inflection or root+derivation goes on to take
additional changes.
(Walker is a base, but the root is still walk).
Stem
A stem is the form of a word that inflections get added
onto.
"Walk" is the form that all the inflections (grammar-

affecting changes) gets added to,
- ~ing to turns it into a progressive verb or a gerund.

- ~ed turns it perfect.
- ~s makes it a plural noun, or makes it agree with a
singular subject.
Root and Affixes
The root of a complex word is usually free.
The non-root morphemes (affixes):

Prefixes precede the root (like en- in enlarge) are
called prefixes.
Suffixes follow the root (like -ance in
performance.
Root and Affixes
Only root morphemes can be free.
Affixes are necessarily bound.
Affixes are always bound,

but it is not the case that roots are always free.
Why?
Roots are not always free. Why?
A free root is easier to be identified. A bound root is not.
Free vs. Bound root
Two Types of Words
• 1- Single free root
Read-able
Hear-ing
• 2- Single bound root
Leg-ible
Audi-ence
COMPOUNDS
COMPOUNDS
Complex word containing two or more free roots
Examples are bookcase, motorbike, penknife, truck-driver.
COMBINING FORMS
Complex word containing two or more bound roots
Examples are electrolysis, microscopy, microcosm,
They are mostly scientific.
Other words which, like cranberry, contain one bound and one
free root are microfilm, electrometer
Combining Forms
COMBINING FORMS
all technical terms of scientific vocabulary, coined self-
consciously out of non-English elements, mostly from Latin
and Greek.
Some combining forms ‘acquired their freedom’

‘Photo’ in Photograph must now be classified as a free
morpheme.
• micro- and macro- (as in at a micro level or on a macro

scale)
• retro- now ‘Retro’, as applied to music or fashion.
Morphemes and their allomorphs
• An allomorph is a variety of a single morpheme.
• The English plural morpheme has 3 allomorphs:

- /әz/… as in busses
- /z/… as in twigs
- /s/… as in cats
The allomorph is conditioned by the phonetic or
sound environment of the word…
Allomorphs of English Plural
/әz/ /s/ /z/
Bushes Cats Pens
Judges Tips Dogs
Buses Books Cars
1. [əz] occurs on nouns ending in s, z, š, z, č, j.

2.[s] occurs following all other voiceless sounds
3.[z] occurs following all other voiced sounds
The allomorphs of English plural are: [әz] [s] [z]

Allomorphs of English Past Tense
/t/ /d/ /әd/
Stopped Grabbed Wanted
Talked Begged Waited
Kissed Buzzed Demanded
1. [əd] occurs on nouns ending in t, and d.

2.[t] occurs following all other voiceless sounds
3.[d] occurs following all other voiced sounds
The allomorphs of English plural are: [әd] [t] [d]

Allomorphy
Allomorphy is not always a morphological matter
that applies to the rules of phonology.
• E.g., Lie
Its plural form is lies, with [z] –ends in a vowel
sound.
If we experiment by replacing the [z] of lies with [s],

we get an actual word (lice, the plural of louse),
Allomorphy
• Phonology may influence the choice of

allomorphs of a morpheme. (+V, -V, etc.)
E.g. laugh, cliff, fife and oaf [s]
both end in the same voiceless consonant.
Allomorphy
But what about wife and loaf ?
They end in the same voiceless consonant as laugh

and cliff;
yet their plurals are not *wifes and *loafs but wives
and loaves.
knives, lives, hooves,
They use their voiced allomorph
Allomorphy
Grammar or vocabulary may influence the choice of
allomorphs of a morpheme, too.
My wife’s job
[s]
wife, knife and the rest DO NOT USE THEIR
VOICED ALLOMORPH (wive- etc.) before the
‘apostrophe s’ morpheme that indicates
possession
except plural -s – wives and loaves.

knives, lives, hooves,
Allomorphy
So the allomorphy here is determined
(1) Phonologically ((+V, -V, etc.)

(2) lexically (it is restricted to certain nouns only)
(3) grammatically (it occurs before the plural
suffix -s but not before other morphemes).
Identifying morphemes independently of
meaning
The prefix re- and its possible The same prefix re- occurs in
allomorphs.
(1) Added to verbs (again) (1) revive, return, restore,
rewrite, reread, repaint, revise, reverse,
revisit. (2) pronounced with a so-
(2) represented phonetically called ‘reduced vowel’,
as [ri] as in see [rI] or [rə].
Identifying morphemes independently of
meaning
• revive means ‘bring back to life’, return means

‘come back’ or ‘give back’, restore means ‘bring
back to a former condition’,
• It may therefore seem natural to treat [ri] and

[rə] as allomorphs of the same morpheme re-.
I turned the steaks on the barbecue a minute
ago, and I’ll re-turn them soon.
He returned to America in the late autumn
Are ‘return’ and ‘re-turn’ the same? Discuss.
There are some roots with which both[ri] and [rə] can
occur, yielding different meanings:
The meanings of restore and return are distinct from

those for re-store ‘store again’ and re-turn ‘turn again’.
How?
(1) The [ri] prefix can be added to almost any verb, with
the consistent meaning ‘again’ re-store and re-turn
(2) the [rə] prefix is lexically much more restricted as well
as harder to pin down semantically restore and return
The two prefixes pronounced [ri] and [rə] are
not allomorphs of one morpheme BUT belong to
distinct morphemes in modern English.
It is just that their phonetic and semantic

similarities are historical
3.5 Identifying morphemes
independently of meaning
Another Conclusion
(Another school in linguistics)
They consider rejecting the analysis of revive, return,

restore, revise and reverse
as consisting of a prefix plus a root.
instead treat them as monomorphemic.
This has unwelcome consequences too
Explanation →
If revive and revise are single morphemes,
that leads us to say that they have no parts in
common (except phonologically) with
survive and supervise.
But that is unwelcome,
because it will stop us from recognizing
sur- and super- as morphemes that recur in

surpass and superimpose.
p.24
Prefixes and roots that they comprise such
complex words are identifiable without
reference to meaning.
If we stick to the view that individual

morphemes must be meaningful, then all these
words must be treated as monomorphemic.

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Ch3: A word and its parts: roots,

afﬁxes and their shape

from the Greek word morphe ‘form, shape’

Morphemes are the minimal units of morphology

1. be identiﬁable from one word to another

This view is widespread precisely.

- full (beautiful, cheerful, etc.)

The meaning of a word such as readable is

Some relatively long words, such as catamaran and

BUT, a single-syllable word, such as tenths, may

- help can stand on its own – that is, only

(2) Cranberry morphemes cran-, huckle- and

cran- and huckle- occur nowhere outside these

"Walk" is a root in: walking, walked, walker,

A base is any part of a word that you can add inflections

"walk" is a root but also a base,

Not all bases are roots though, because sometimes the

(Walker is a base, but the root is still walk).

"Walk" is the form that all the inflections (grammar-

- ~ing to turns it into a progressive verb or a gerund.

The non-root morphemes (affixes):

Afﬁxes are always bound,

A free root is easier to be identified. A bound root is not.

Some combining forms ‘acquired their freedom’

• micro- and macro- (as in at a micro level or on a macro

• The English plural morpheme has 3 allomorphs:

1. [əz] occurs on nouns ending in s, z, š, z, č, j.

The allomorphs of English plural are: [әz] [s] [z]

1. [əd] occurs on nouns ending in t, and d.

The allomorphs of English plural are: [әd] [t] [d]

If we experiment by replacing the [z] of lies with [s],

• Phonology may inﬂuence the choice of

They end in the same voiceless consonant as laugh

except plural -s – wives and loaves.

So the allomorphy here is determined

(1) Phonologically ((+V, -V, etc.)

• revive means ‘bring back to life’, return means

• It may therefore seem natural to treat [ri] and

Are ‘return’ and ‘re-turn’ the same? Discuss.

The meanings of restore and return are distinct from

It is just that their phonetic and semantic

They consider rejecting the analysis of revive, return,

This has unwelcome consequences too

sur- and super- as morphemes that recur in

If we stick to the view that individual

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