Chapter 3 Word Formation I This chapter aims to analyze the morphological structures of words and gain a working knowledge of the different word forming elements. It also expounds the basic conceptions of morpheme, allomorph, classifies morphemes and differentiates root and stem.

Main Points 1. Morpheme 2. Allomorph 3. Types of Morphemes Free morpheme (content morpheme) Bound morpheme (grammatical morpheme) 4. Root and stem

3.1 Definition of Morpheme and Types of morphemes -- Morpheme is a minimal meaningful unit of a language, or the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words. A word is the smallest unit of a language that stands alone to communicate meaning. Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit because many words can be separated into smaller meaningful units. Words are composed of morphemes. What is usually considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more morphemes.

Example: One morpheme: nation Two morphemes: nation-al Three morphemes: nation-al-ize Four morphemes: de-nation-al-ize

--Type of Morphemes Free morpheme and bound morpheme --What is free Morpheme (content morpheme)? Free Morpheme has complete meaning in itself and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences. It is identical with free root. OR Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are considered to be free. Free morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences. Therefore, we might as well say that free morphemes are content morphemes or free roots( 自由词根 ). e.g. man, earth, car, hand, wind, faith, red, write, etc.

--What is bound morpheme (grammatical morpheme)? Bound morpheme has to occur with at least one other morpheme. Namely, it has to be bound to other morphemes to form words. It includes bound root and affix. OR Morphemes which cannot occur as separate words are bound. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words. Unlike free morphemes, they do not have independent semantic meaning; instead, they have attached meaning (un-kind, hope-ful) or grammatical meaning (cat-s, slow-ly, walk-ing, call-ed). They are also called grammatical morphemes. eg. –s, -ly, -ing, -tion, -ize, etc.

Types of bound morphemes 1. Bound roots( 粘着词根 ): A bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. Unlike a free root, it is a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make words. For example: dict- conveys the meaning of ‘say or speak’----- contradict, predict, contradiction, prediction, dictate, diction, dictionary…. dur-: ‘continuous’, during, duration, durable, endure…. 2. Affixes( 词缀 ): Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word elements to modify meaning or function. According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional and derivational affixes.

3.2 Inflectional and derivational affixes: 1)Affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. Modern English is an analytic language. Most endings are lost, leaving only a few inflectional affixes, such as plural forms of nouns -s (-es), and the comparative and superlative degree forms of adjectives:- er, -est. 2) Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes.

Morpheme Free morpheme （ free root ） Bound morpheme Bound root Affix Inflectional Derivational Prefix Suffix

3.3 Allomorphs An allomorph( 词素变体 ) is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds. For example: The morpheme of plurality {-s}: /s/ after the sounds /t, p, k/; /z/ after /d, b, g, l/; /iz/ after /s, z, …/ go: went, gone -ion/ -tion/ -sion/ -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix. Verbs ending with the sound /t/ usually take –ion (as in invent, invention); verbs ending with consonants other than /t/ take –tion (as in describe, description); verbs ending in –ify and –ize take –ation (as in justify, justification; modernize, modernization); verbs ending in –d, -de, or –mit, take –sion (as in expansion, decision, omission); there are exceptions: attend, attention; convert, conversion, etc.

A prefix like im- occurs before p, b, or m (imperfect, imbalance, immobile); its allomorphs are ir- before r (irregular, irresponsible); il- before l (illogical, illegal); in- before all other consonants and vowels (inflexible, incomplete).

3.4 Difference between Root and Stem A root is the basic form of a word which cannot be further analyzed. The root, whether free or bound, generally carries the main component of meaning in a word. A stem may consist of a single root or two root morphemes. It can be a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes. That is to say, it can be added to any kind of affixes.

Questions  1.Analyse the following words and show how many morphemes each of them contains: Specialize pretentious unsympathetic crudity indisputable bird’s eye downfall dining-room backburner  2.How are words classified on the morphemic level? On the morphemic level, words can be classified into monomorphemic words and polymorphemic words. Monomorphemic words are the words that only have one morpheme. Such words are also called root words. For example, earth, hand, boy, etc. polymorphemic words are the words that have more than one morpheme. Derivational words, compound words are polymorphemic words because they are composed of affixes and stems, or two words together.

 3.Write the terms in the blanks according to the definitions: 1) A minimal meaningful unit of a language (morpheme) 2) One of the variants that realize a morpheme (allomorph) 3) A morpheme that occurs with at least one other morpheme (bound morpheme) 4) A morpheme that can stand alone. (free morpheme) 5) A morpheme attached to a stem or root (affix) 6) An affix that indicates grammatical relationships (inflectional affix) 7) An affix that forms new words with a stem or root. (derivational affix) 8) What remains of a word after the removal of all affixes (root) 9) A form to which affixes of any kind can be added. (stem)