- In many languages, what may appear as a single word can actually consist of multiple "word-like" elements.

- An example of this is seen in Swahili, where the form "nitakupenda" conveys the meaning of "I will love you."

- The Swahili form is composed of several elements: ni-ta-ku-penda, which can be roughly translated to I-will-you-love.

- This raises questions about the nature of what constitutes a "word" in different languages and challenges the traditional understanding of a word.

- The idea of investigating basic forms in language is known as morphology, which literally means "the study of forms."

- Morphology involves studying the basic elements used in a language, and these elements are technically referred to as "morphemes."

- The exploration of morphemes allows for a more nuanced understanding of language structures beyond the traditional concept of isolated words.

- This chapter highlights the importance of considering linguistic elements and morphemes when analyzing and comparing languages.

- **Morphemes: Minimal Units of Meaning or Grammatical Function**

  - English word forms like talks, talker, talked, and talking can be broken down into morphemes.

  - A morpheme is defined as "a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function."

- **Types of Morphemes**

  - **Free Morphemes:**

    - Can stand alone as single words (e.g., new, tour).

  - **Bound Morphemes:**

    - Typically attached to another form and cannot stand alone.

    - Examples include affixes like re-, -ist, -ed, -s.

- **Affixes and Stems**

  - All affixes (prefixes and suffixes) in English are bound morphemes.

  - Free morphemes, when used with bound morphemes, are called stems.

- **Bound Stems**

  - Some words, particularly derived from Latin, have elements treated as stems that are not free morphemes (e.g., receive, reduce, repeat). These are called "bound stems."

- **Lexical and Functional Morphemes**

  - **Lexical Morphemes:**

    - Include ordinary nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs carrying the content of messages.

    - An "open" class that can easily add new words.

  - **Functional Morphemes:**

    - Include articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns.

    - A "closed" class with almost no addition of new morphemes.

- **Derivational Morphemes**

  - Affixes used to create new words or change the grammatical category of the stem.

  - Examples include suffixes like -ment and -ify and prefixes like re-, pre-, ex-, mis-, co-, un-.

- **Inflectional Morphemes**

  - Bound morphemes indicating grammatical functions rather than creating new words.

  - Used to show plural or singular, past tense, present participle, past participle, comparative, and superlative forms.

  - English has eight inflectional morphemes, all suffixes.

- **Examples of Inflectional Morphemes**

  - Nouns: -'s (possessive), -s (plural)

  - Verbs: -s (3rd person singular, present tense), -ing (present participle), -ed (past tense), -en (past participle)

  - Adjectives: -er (comparative), -est (superlative)

- **Variations in Inflectional Morphemes**

  - Some variations exist in the form of inflectional morphemes, such as the possessive appearing as -s' and the past participle often being -ed.

- **Derivational vs. Inflectional Morphemes**

  - **Derivational Morphemes:**

    - Change the grammatical category of a word.

    - Example: The verb "teach" becomes the noun "teacher" by adding the derivational morpheme -er.

  - **Inflectional Morphemes:**

    - Do not change the grammatical category of a word.

    - Example: "Old" and "older" are both adjectives; the -er inflection creates a different version of the adjective.

- **Similar-Looking Morphemes, Different Functions**

  - The suffix -er in Modern English can serve as both an inflectional morpheme (part of an adjective) and a distinct derivational morpheme (part of a noun).

  - Despite similar visual appearance (-er), they perform different linguistic functions.

- **Order of Derivational and Inflectional Suffixes**

  - When a derivational suffix and an inflectional suffix are used together, they always appear in a specific order.

  - Example: In forming "teachers," the derivational suffix (-er) is attached first to "teach," followed by the inflectional suffix (-s).

- **Example Sentence Analysis**

  - Sentence: "The teacher’s wildness shocked the girls’ parents."

  - Morphemes Identified: 13

    - "The" (functional), "teach" (lexical), "-er" (derivational), "'s" (functional), "wild" (lexical), "-ness" (derivational), "shock" (lexical), "-ed" (inflectional), "the" (functional), "girl" (lexical), "-s" (inflectional), "' parents" (lexical), "-s" (inflectional).

- **Morpheme Categories in the Sentence**

  - Functional, Lexical, Derivational, and Inflectional morphemes are identified in the example sentence.

  - The morphemes are organized according to their respective categories in the sentence.

- **Morphological Analysis Power**

  - Armed with these morphological terms, one can analyze most English sentences by breaking them down into their constituent morphemes.

  - This analytical approach provides insights into the structure and composition of words in a sentence.

- **Morphs, Allomorphs, and Special Cases in English Morphology**

  - **Outstanding Problems:**

    - Exceptional cases like "sheep" (plural: sheep) and "men" (plural: men) pose challenges to the general pattern observed in inflectional morphology.

  - **Morphological Realization Rules:**

    - Regular differences in inflectional morphemes can be described through morphological realization rules.

    - Analogous to phonology, where phones are the actual phonetic realization of phonemes.

  - **Morphs as Actual Forms:**

    - Words like "cats," "dogs," and "horses" are analyzed as consisting of two parts: a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme.

    - For the inflectional morpheme "plural," there are at least three forms (/s/, /z/, and /əz/) used to realize it.

  - **Allomorphs of a Morpheme:**

    - Just as phonemes have allophones, morphemes have allomorphs.

    - Allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme.

    - Example: Three allomorphs of the morpheme "plural" are shown in Table 6.3 (/s/, /z/, and /əz/).

  - **Table 6.3: Morpheme Allomorphs**

    - /-s/ ("cats")

    - /-z/ ("dogs")

    - /-əz/ ("horses")

  - **Special Cases and "Zero-Morph":**

    - Special cases like "sheep" may involve a "zero-morph" when adding the "plural" morpheme, represented as /ʃip/ + /⊘/.

    - This adds another form (/⊘/) to the set of allomorphs of "plural."

  - **Vowel Change as a Morph:**

    - In irregular plurals like "men," the vowel change (æ → ɛ) may be considered a morph producing the "irregular" plural form.

  - **Comparison with Past Tense:**

    - Similar patterns exist in the realization of the "past tense" in English.

    - Regular forms like "flirted" contrast with irregular forms treated as separate lexical morphemes, such as "go/went" and "be/was/were."

- **Morphological Patterns in Different Languages**

  - **Kanuri (Nigeria):**

    - **Adjective-Noun Derivation:**

      - Adjective "karitenəm" ("excellent") yields the noun "karite" ("excellence").

      - Adjective "kuranəm" ("big") yields the noun "kura" ("bigness").

      - Adjective "gananəm" ("small") yields the noun "gana" ("smallness").

      - Adjective "dibinəm" ("bad") yields the noun "dibi" ("badness").

    - **Derivational Morpheme:**

      - The prefix "nəm-" functions as a derivational morpheme, converting adjectives into nouns.

      - Analogous to the English use of the suffix "-ness" (e.g., "big" to "bigness").

  - **Ganda (Uganda):**

    - **Singular-Plural Inflection:**

      - Singular "omusawo" ("doctor") becomes plural "abasawo" ("doctors").

      - Singular "omukazi" ("woman") becomes plural "abakazi" ("women").

      - Singular "omuwala" ("girl") becomes plural "abawala" ("girls").

      - Singular "omusika" ("heir") becomes plural "abasika" ("heirs").

    - **Inflectional Morphemes:**

      - The prefix "omu-" is used with singular nouns.

      - The prefix "aba-" is used with the plural of those nouns.

  - **Ilocano (Philippines):**

    - **Plural Marking through Reduplication:**

      - Singular "úlo" ("head") becomes plural "ulúlo" ("heads").

      - Singular "dálan" ("road") becomes plural "daldálan" ("roads").

      - Singular "bíag" ("life") becomes plural "bibíag" ("lives").

      - Singular "múla" ("plant") becomes plural "mulmúla" ("plants").

    - **Reduplication Process:**

      - Reduplication involves repeating all or part of a form.

      - Plurals in Ilocano are marked through reduplication.

  - **Tagalog (Philippines):**

    - **Future Tense Marking:**

      - The stem "basa" ("read") transforms into "bumasa" ("Read!").

      - The stem "tawag" ("call") transforms into "tumawag" ("Call!").

      - The stem "sulat" ("write") transforms into "sumulat" ("Write!").

      - Future tense is marked through various processes:

        - Insertion of "um-" after the first consonant (infix).

        - Reduplication (repetition of the first syllable).

    - **Examples of Future Tense:**

      - "babasa" ("will read") from "basa."

      - "tatawag" ("will call") from "tawag."

      - "susulat" ("will write") from "sulat."

  - **Application in Tagalog:**

    - Given this information, one can construct examples:

      - "lumakad" ("will walk") using the infix "-um-."

      - "lalakad" ("will walk") using reduplication.

      - "lumapit" ("will come here") using the infix "-um-."

      - "lalapit" ("will come here") using reduplication.

  - **Summary:**

    - Different languages use diverse morphological patterns to convey meaning, such as derivational prefixes, inflectional prefixes, and reduplication, providing insights into the rich diversity of linguistic structures.

**Study Questions:**

1. **How many morphemes are there in the word "terrorists"?**

   - Answer: Three morphemes - terror + -ist + -s.

2. **What kind of morpheme is the suffix in "slowly"?**

   - Answer: The suffix "-ly" in "slowly" is an inflectional morpheme indicating the manner or speed of the action.

3. **What are the functional morphemes in the following sentence?**

   - *"When she walked into the room, the doctor asked me if I had a sore throat or an annoying cough."*

   - Answer: Functional morphemes include articles (the), pronouns (she, me, I), conjunctions (when, or, if), and prepositions (into, for).

4. **List the bound morphemes in the following words:**

   - (i) fearlessly, happier, misleads, previewer, shortening, unreconstructed

   - (ii) Which of these words has a bound stem: consist, deceive, introduce, repeat?

   - (iii) Which of these words contains an allomorph of the morpheme “past tense”: are, have, must, sitting, waits?

5. **Classify the words in the sentences:**

   - (i) In "Bob brought hot donuts to class," which word(s) are in a closed class?

   - (ii) In "I put it on the shelf near you and him," which word(s) are in an open class?

6. **How many regular inflectional morphemes are there in English?**

   - Answer: There are eight regular inflectional morphemes in English.

7. **Identify the inflectional morphemes in these expressions:**

   - (a) Have you eaten yet?

   - (b) Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?

   - (c) She’s younger than me and always dresses in the latest style.

   - (d) We looked through my grandmother’s old photo albums.

   - (e) My parents’ parents were all from Scotland.

8. **What are the allomorphs of the morpheme “plural” in the following set of English words?**

   - Criteria, dogs, oxen, deer, judges, stimuli.

9. **In Indonesian, the singular form translating “child” is "anak" and the plural form (“children”) is "anakanak." What is the technical term used to describe this relationship?**

   - Answer: Reduplication.

10. **Provide equivalent forms in the listed languages:**

   - (a) Ganda: omuloŋgo (“twin”) – ("twins")

   - (b) Ilocano: tawtáwa (“windows”) – ("window")

   - (c) Ilocano: tálon (“field”) – ("fields")

   - (d) Kanuri: nəmkəǰi (“sweetness”) – ("sweet")

   - (e) Tagalog: bili (“buy”) – ("will buy") 

   - (f) Tagalog: kain (“eat”) – ("Eat!")