Morpholgy

I. Some Basic Concept

I.1. Definitions of Morphology

            According to Crystal (1980:232-233) Morphology is the branch of grammar which studies the structure of words, primarily through the use of morphem construct.

Morphology can be divided in two branches is :

The study of inflection (inflectional morphology).

Word formation (lexical or derivational morphology).

                        As with any other area of linguistic theory, we must distinguish between general morphology and the morphology of a particular language. General morphological theory is concerned with delimiting exactly what types of morphological rules can be found in natural languages. The morphology of a particular language, on the other hand, is a set of rules with a dual function. First, these rules are responsible for word formation, the formation of new words. Second, they represent the speaker’s unconscious knowledge of the internal structure of the already existing words of their language.

I.2. Words and Morphemes

What is word ? O’ Grady and Dobrovolsky (1989:90-91) state that the word is best defined in terms of the way in which it patterns syntactically. In this way, the word can be defined as a minimal free form. A free form is an element that can occur in isolation and/or whose position with respect to neighboring elements is not fixed.

Words, though they may be definable as minimal free forms, are not minimal meaningful units of language we are looking for, since they are often broken down further. In linguistic, these minimal meaningful units are called morphemes. A word may consist of one or more morphemes. The word friend, for example, only consists of one morpheme; the word friendly consists of two morphemes , and the word friendliness consists of three morphemes. Thus, the difference between words and morphemes can be stated that all (simple) words are morphemes, but not all morphemes are words.

I.3. Free and Bound Morphemes

            According to whether they can stand alone or not, morphemes can be divided into free morphemes and bound morphemes. Free morphemes are all morphemes that can stand alone, namely, morphemes which can constitute words by themselves; and bound morphemes are all morphemes which must attach to other elements. Roots or stems usually belong to free morphemes, whereas affixes belong to bound morphemes.

I.4. Morpheme, Morph, and Allomorph

            Bauer (1983:13-16) defines a morpheme as the minimal unit of grammatical analysis; a morph as a segment of a word-form which represents a particular morpheme; and an allomorph as a phonetically, lexically, or grammatically conditioned member of a set of morphs representing a particular morpheme.

I.5. Inflection and Derivation

            According to O’Grady and Dobrovolsky (1989:108-109), the differences between inflection and derivation are as follows :

First, inflection does not change the grammatical category of the word to which it applies, whereas derivation changes the category and/or the meaning of the form to which it applies.

Example :

[[book]n s]

[[hospital]  ize]

Second, a derivational affix (DA) must be closer to the root than an inflection affix (IA).

Example :     neigh       hood         s

                      Root         DA      IA             

This example shows that inflection takes place after all word formation processes, including derivation.

Third, based on their productivity, inflectional affixes typically have very few exceptions, whereas derivational affixes characteriscally apply to restricted classes of stem.

II. Word Structure

                  Complex words have an internal structure. The complex word denationalization, for example, contains five morphemes: de nation al ize ation. Nation is a free morpheme, because it can stand alone as a word, while the others are bound morphemes. The negative affix de- attaches to verbs and forms other than verbs; the affix –al forms adjectives from nouns; the affix –ize forms verbs from adjectives; and the affix –ation forms nouns from verbs.

To show the internal structure of this word, these parts or morphemes must be put together in a particular way, with particular arrangement and order. The order is so strict because each of the bound morphemes is an affix. Furthermore, each affix attaches only to a particular lexical category (either N or V or Adj), called its base, and result in another particular lexical category.

III. Word Formation

According to O’Grady and Dobrovolsky (1989:100), the two most common types of word formation are :

a. Derivation.

              Derivation is the process by which a new words is built from a base, usually thriugh the addition of an affix.Derivation creates a new word by changing the category and or meaning of the base to which it applies. The derivational affix –er , for example :          Verb                            Derived noun

            [help]                              [[help]  er]

            [teach]                            [[teach]  er]

(1) English Derivational Affixes.

                  In the following table , O’Grady and Dobrovolsky (1989:97) list some of the English derivational affixes :

Affixes

Prefix              change             Semantic effect                  Example

-ation               V- N               the result of “X”ing            realization

-er                     V-N               one who X’s                        worker

Etc.

(2) Word-Formation Rules.

            Each line in the preceding table is basically a word-formation rule which predicts how words may be formed in English. Thus, if there is a rule whereby the prefix un- may be added to an adjective X, resulting in another adjective X, un X, with the meaning ‘not x’, then we predict that an adjective like harmonious may be combined with this prefix to form the adjective unharmonious, which means ‘not harmonious’

b. Compounding.

            Compounding is a process involving the combination of two words (with or without accompanying affixes) to generate a new word. Compounding is very productive in English. In English, compounds can be found in all the major lexical categories-nouns (doorstop), verb (stagemanage), adjevtives (winedark)-but nouns are by far the most common type of compounds.

Structurally, two features of compounds are clear. One is fact that the constituent members of a compound are not equal.

The second structural feature of compounds is that a compound never has more than two constituent. This is not to say that a compound may never consist of more than two.