Morphology Exercises

Chapter 2:

1. a. break breaking breakable breakage

read reading readable
punish punishing punishable punishment
b. conceive conceivable conception
receive receptive receivable reception
perceive perceptive perceivable perception
c. gregarious gregariousness gregariously
happy happiness happily
high highness highly

The words: break, read, punish, conceive, receive, perceive, gregarious, happy and
high are deserve as lexical items because they have unpredictable meaning. On the
contrary, other words have affixes: -ing (an act or relating to), -able (capable of being), -
age (act or condition), -ment (state of being), -ive (have the characteristic of), -ion (thing
or action), -ly (in a way that is), -ness (thing or state that is). Those words are not deserve
as lexical item because their meanings is predictable by combine the original meanings
and meanings of suffixes.

2. The original word that is deserve to be listed in the dictionary: care (act or an
action)
Careful (do something with care), careless (do something without care), carefully
(in a careful way), carelessness (the characteristic of giving no care)
3. Words:
- Feedback: composed of “feed” and “back”, adults cannot guest its meaning
- Beach ball: the inflated ball for used at the beach, people can guest
- Motel: hotel with parking lot for motor, cannot guest
- Double-park: to park a vehicle parallelly to another, can be guested
- Astronaut: “astr” means star and “naut” means sailor, cannot be guested
4.

a. They put the cat among the hamsters. (Allocate position)

b. They put the cat among the pigeons. (To say or do something that causes trouble or
makes a lot of people very angry)

c. They put out the cat before going to bed. (Allocate position)

d. They put out the light before going to bed. (To make a light stop shining by
pressing or moving a switch)

e. They really put themselves out for us. (to make an effort to do something to help
someone, even if it is not convenient)

f. They looked really put out. (To be caused trouble or extra work by someone)

g. Roger is a man who keeps his promises. (An adult male human being)

h. Richard is a man of his word. (A type of people who keeps promises, who can be
trusted)

i. A man in the road witnessed the accident. (An adult male human being)

j. The man in the street is not interested in economic policy. (An adult male human
being)

k. Rupert is a man about town. (a fashionable male socialite)

l. I met a man with an umbrella. (An adult male human being)

m. May the best man win. (An adult male human being that has best characteristics)

n. The best man unfortunately lost the rings on the way to the

wedding. (A male friend or relative chosen by a bridegroom to assist him at his

wedding)

- According to listed meanings, “put” in sentence a and c, “man” in sentence g, i, j, l,

and m may deserve to be regarded as lexical items because they have the same or
nearly same meaning. The others have the same orders of letters and pronunciation
but they, use with other words, form unpredictable meanings just by understanding
the meanings of each component.
5.
- Sensitiveness: the quality of being easily upset by the things people say or do
- Perplexed: confused, because something is difficult to understand or solve
 - Urbanise: to build houses, offices, etc. in an area of countryside so that it becomes
a town
We can easily look up the root meaning and then we add prefixes or suffixes to
guest the whole meaning of the words.

Chapter 3:

Consider the following words:

(a) tigers (b) untimely (c) decorating
speakers uniquely decentralizing
(d) wholesome (e) consumed (f ) leucocyte
gruesome consumption erythrocyte
1. Morphemes:
a. Tigers = tiger + s
Speaker = speak + er + s
b. Untimely = un + time + ly
Uniquely = unique + ly
c. Decorating = decorate + ing
Decentralizing = decentralize + ing
d. Wholesome = wholesome
Gruesome = gruesome
e. Consumed = consume + ed
Consumption = consume + tion
f. Leucocyte = leuc + ocyte
Erythrocyte = erythr + oocyte
2. Allomorphs:
- s: /z/, /s/, /iz/
- ed: /t/, /d/, /id/
3. Which is bound and which is free?
a. speakers: speak (free) + er (bound) s (bound)
tigers: tiger (f) + s (b)
b. untimely: un (b) + time (f) + ly (b)
uniquely: unique (f) + ly (b)
c. decorating: decorate (f) + ing (b)
decentralizing: de (b) + centralize (f) + ing (b)
d. wholesome (f)
 gruesome (f)
e. consumed: consume (f) + ed (b)
consumption: consume (f) + tion (b)
f. leucocyte: leuc (b) + ocyte (b)
erythrocyte: eryth (b) + ocyte (b)
- Affixes: s, er, un, ly, ing, al, ed, tion
- Root bound morphemes: greu, sum, sump
4. Greu- is a cranberry morpheme, occurring only in the word “gruesome”
-sum although it is identifiable as a morpheme in many words, it makes n
consistent contribution to their meaning.
5. The allomorphs are as follows:
- When the preceding sound is a “t” or “d” sound as in “wait” or “load”; the /id/
allomorph occurs
- Otherwise, when the preceding sound is voiceless (as in “rip, lick or wash), the
“al” /t/ allomorph occurs.
- Otherwise, (i.e after a vowel or a voiced consonant as in “drag” or “play”) the /d/
allomorph occurs. The second and third conditions are the same as for the plural
“s”, only the first different.

Chapter 4:

1. Lexeme:
a. Woman, woman’s, woman and womanly: lexeme woman
b. Greenish, green, greens: lexeme green
c. Written, wrote, writer, rewrites, writing: lexeme write
2.
(a) the plural of the noun NOOSE: nooses
(b) the plural of the noun GOOSE: geese
(c) the plural of the noun MOOSE: moose
(d) the past tense of the verb PLAY: played
(e) the past tense of the verb LAY: laid
(f) the past tense of the verb LIE ‘rest horizontally: lay
(g) the past tense of the verb LIE ‘tell untruths’: lied
(h) the third person singular past of the verb BE: is
(i) the perfect participle of the verb DIVE: dived
 (j) the perfect participle of the verb STRIVE: strived
(k) the perfect participle of the verb GLIDE: glided or glid
(l) the perfect participle of the verb RIDE: riven
(m) the perfect participle of the verb STRIDE: striven
(n) the accusative of the pronoun YOU: you
(o) the accusative of the pronoun WE: us
3. Irregular instances: b, c, f, h, k, l, m, o
4. Big, bigger, biggest / bad, worse, worst
5. Commonest, remotest

Chapter 5:

1.
define defer detain
refine refer retain
confine confer contain
- Define: definition, definitive, definite, definement, definiens, definiendum, definer,
definitiveness, definiteness, definability, definedness, definitionlessness, define,
definitude, definitenesses, definienda, definements, definitives, definitions,
definitudes, definientia, definites, defines, definers.
- Refine: refinement, refinery, refined, refiner, refinedness, refinability, refining,
refinement, refinings, refineries, refineds, refiners.
- Confine: confines, confinement, confiner, confine, confinedness, confination,
confine, confinements, confiners.
- Defer: deferral, deferent, deference, deferrer, deferring, deferrings, deferences,
deferments, defferrers, deferents, deferrals.
- Refer: reference, referee, referendary, referral, referrer, referent, referment,
referend, referentiality, refereeing, refereeship, referrer, referrers, refereeships,
referendaries, refereeings, references, referends, referents, referrers, referrals,
referees,
- Confer: conference, conferencier, conferee, conferralism, conferral,
conferencegoer, conferrer, conferalist, conference, conference, conferee,
conferring, conferencegoers, conferralists, conferenciers, conferencees,
conferrences, conferments, conferences, conferrings, conferrals, conferees,
conferrers, conferees.
- Detain: detention, detainer, detainment, detainee, detaining, detainments,
detainings, detentions, detainees, detainers.
- Retain: retention, retainer, retentivity, retainership, retainal, retainability,
retentiveness, retentive, retent, retainment, retainerships, retentivities, retainments,
retentions, retentives, retainers, retents
- Contain: container, containment, containership, containerload, containerization,
containership, containerization, containerful, containing containerizations,
containerloads, containerships, containersful, containerfuls, containments,
containants, containings, containers.
2. J
- Full: fill
- Poor: impoverish
- Long: lengthen
- Active: activate
- Humble: humble
- Empty: empty
- Rich: enrich
- Short: shorten
- National: nationalize
- Proud: humiliate
3. Organism, Buddhism, magnetism, animism.
4. Mouthful, handful, spoonful, boxful
5. Form nouns: Friendly, costly, beastly, ghostly
From adjectives: kindly, goodly, clearly
6. -ar: plar, solar, lunar, regular, nuclear, circular, modular, linear and cellular => The
base contains the sound (L). By contrst, most adjectives in -al have bases that (L)
(although there are some exceptions: local, floral)
7. We consider 2 statements:
- They cook all the food (1)
- The cooks were busy (2)

Cooked in (1) can be substituted by baked and so, cooks in (2) can be substituted by
bakers. We can easily conclude that these agent nouns are derived from the
corresponding verbs, although without a suffix.
8. De-doggification: the process of removing the action of “doggify”
Redecompartmentalissation: the process of again reserving distribution into
compartments.