Morphology is a branch of linguistics that explores the structure of words and their constituent parts. It deals with how words are formed and the rules that govern their structure within a language.
What are Morphemes?
The fundamental element in the study of morphology is the morpheme, the smallest linguistic unit with a meaning or a grammatical function. Morphemes are not necessarily words on their own but can be. There are two main types of morphemes:
- Free morphemes: These can stand alone as words. Examples include “cat”, “go”, and “magnify”.
- Bound morphemes: These cannot stand alone and must be attached to other morphemes to convey meaning. These include prefixes and suffixes like “un-” in “unhappy” or “-ed” in “walked”.
Types of Morphemes
- Roots: The core part of a word, carrying the principal meaning. For instance, “run” is the root in “running”.
- Affixes: These are bound morphemes that modify the meaning of the root or change its word class. They can be:
Prefixes: Affixes that appear before the root (e.g., “pre-” in “predefine”).
Suffixes: Affixes that are added to the end of the root (e.g., “-able” in “readable”).
Infixes: These are inserted within the root, though they are less common in English and more prevalent in other languages like Tagalog.
Word Formation Processes
Morphology isn’t just about the types of morphemes and how they combine to form words. Here are some key processes:
- Derivation: This involves adding affixes to a base (root) morpheme, changing the meaning or the grammatical category of the word. For example, the noun “kindness” derives from the adjective “kind” by adding the suffix “-ness”.
- Inflection: This refers to modifying a word to express different grammatical aspects such as tense, mood, number, and gender. Inflection does not alter the word’s grammatical category. For instance, “talk” becomes “talked” in the past tense.
- Compounding: Combining two or more free morphemes to create a new word. “Fireplace” is a compound of “fire” and “place.”
- Reduplication: Repeating a whole or part of a word to change its meaning. This is seen more in other languages than in English.
- Clipping: Shortening a longer word without changing its meaning, like “fridge” from “refrigerator”.
- Blending: Merging parts of two words into a new word, such as “smog” (from “smoke” and “fog”).
Examples of Morphological Analysis
Let’s analyze a few words to understand their morphological structure:
- Unbelievable
“Un-” (prefix) + “believe” (root) + “-able” (suffix)
This word means “not able to be believed”, showing how prefixes and suffixes alter the root’s meaning. - Reactivation
“Re-” (prefix) + “act” (root) + “-iv-” (suffix, used for forming adjectives) + “-ation” (suffix, used for forming nouns)
This word means “the act of making something active again”, illustrating both derivation and the layering of affixes. - Houses
“House” (root) + “-s” (suffix for plural)
A simple example of inflection where the suffix changes the number.
