MORPHOLOGY ANALYSIS

How to do morphological analysis (or any other kind of linguistic analysis)

Morphology is the study of word formation – how words are built up from smaller pieces. When we do morphological analysis, then, we’re asking questions like, what pieces does this word have? What does each of them mean? How are they combined?

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• Types of morphemes Morpheme A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning we have – that is, the smallest piece of a word that contributes meaning to a word. Example The word trainings has 3 morphemes in it: train-ing-s. To break a word into morphemes, try starting at the beginning of the word and seeing how far into the word you need to go to find a sub-part of the word that has some meaning. For example, in the word unbreakable, the first two letters un- are independently meaningful in a way that just the first letter, u-, is not – un- means something like ‘not (whatever)’, and changes the meaning of the word it attaches to in a predictable way; sub-parts of un-, like u- or –n-, don’t have this property. This means that un- is a morpheme.

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• Free A free morpheme is one that can stand on its own – that is, it’s an entire word. to them; crucially, though, they don’t need to have other morphemes on them. Bound A bound morpheme cannot stand on its own, but rather must be attached to a free morpheme whenever you say it. Examples re-, un-, -est, -er. Some morphemes are roots; others are affixes. Root The primary piece of meaning in a word, to which affixes can be added. In English, a root is often a word itself. Examples cat, pretty, -fer Affix A morpheme which attaches to roots,changing their meaning in regular ways. Examples the, cat, run, pretty, trapezoid Free morphemes may appear with other bound morphemes attached

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• The affixes we just talk about are distinctive in one more way. They are acting in a particular way when attached to the base. Either they are giving grammatical information or they are creating a new word. INFLECTION = the process by which affixes combine with roots to indicate basic grammatical categories such as tense or plurality (e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' an d'-ed' are inflectional suffixes). Inflection is viewed as the process of adding very general meanings to existing words, not as the creation of new words. DERIVATION = the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new words (e.g. in 'modern-ize', 'read-er', '-ize' and '-er' are derivational suffixes). Derivation is viewed as using existing words to make new words.

INFIX

• An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word). It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for interlinear glossing, most affixes are separated with a hyphen, but infixes are separated with ⟨angle brackets⟩.

CIRCUMFIX

• A circumfix (abbreviated circ)is an affix which has two parts, one placed at the start of a word, and the other at the end. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, attached at the end; and infixes, inserted in the middle.

SIMULFIX

• In linguistics, a simulfix is a type of affix that changes one or more existing phonemes in order to modify the meaning of a morpheme. Examples of simulfixes in English are generally considered irregularities, all of which left over from pluralization rules that existed before the Great Vowel Shift. They include: man → men, woman → women louse → lice, mouse → mice foot → feet, tooth → teeth The transfixes of the Semitic languages may be considered a form of discontinuous simulfix.

SUPRAFIX

• In linguistics, a suprafix is a type of affix that adds a suprasegmental pattern (such as tone or stress) to a neutral base in order to convey a derivational or inflectional meaning. For example, a number of African languages express tense / aspect distinctions by tone. The term was suggested by Eugene Nida and taken up in Peter Matthews' influential morphology textbook[3] but is not very widely used. Some linguists prefer superfix, which was introduced by George L. Trager for the stress pattern of a word, which he regarded as a special morpheme that combines and unifies the parts of a word.