Grammar
It refers to systematic patterns both within words and within sentences (morphology + syntax).
Morphology
It is the area of grammar that studies the structure of words. It is the area of grammar that studies how morphemes combine together to form words and so how they contribute to the creation of meaning and new words.
Morpheme is the smallest unit of language that combine both a meaning and, or a grammatical function. It is an abstract meaningful unit which combine to create words.
Morph is the concrete realization of a morpheme.
Allomorph is one of the different phonetic or graphic realizations of a morpheme, alternative realizations or variants of the same morpheme.
Polymorphemic or complex words = more than one morpheme.
Monomorphemic or simple words = one morpheme only.
Bound morpheme are morphemes that cannot occur on their own as separate words.
Root is the morpheme which determines the meaning of a word, with no affixes attached to it.
Base is the form of a word to which any affixes can be attached.
Derivational morphology
It refers to how words change to create new words (affixation).
Prefixes and suffixes
Exercises
- Free lexical morphemes: Believe, Heart, Morning, Close, Line, Feel, Run, Joy
- Free functional morphemes: The, A, To, By, After, And, While
Inflectional morphology
It refers to how words change to fit the grammatical context.
Regular English inflections according to word class
| Word class | Inflectional suffix | Grammatical function | Descriptive designation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun | -s | Plural | Number {pl.} | books |
| Noun | ‘s | Possessive | {poss.} case | Mary’s house |
| Verb | -s | 3rd person singular present tense | {3rd pers. sing.} | she plays |
| Verb | -ed | Past tense | {past} | they worked |
| Verb | -ed | Past participle | {past part.} | they have worked |
| Verb | -ing | Present participle | {pres. part.} | they are working |
| Adjective | -er | Comparative degree | {comp.} | taller |
| Adjective | -est | Superlative degree | {superl.} | tallest |
Forms of personal pronouns
| Person | Number | Gender | Subject case | Object case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Sing. | I | me | |
| 1st | Pl. | we | us | |
| 2nd | Sing. | you | you | |
| 2nd | Pl. | you | you | |
| 3rd | Sing. | Masc. | he | him |
| 3rd | Sing. | Fem. | she | her |
| 3rd | Sing. | Neuter | it | it |
| 3rd | Pl. | they | them |
Types of irregular plurals
| Irregular plurals | Description/Explanation | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Irregular suffixes | Nouns form the plural adding the Old English suffix -en | child – children, ox – oxen |
| Foreign plurals | Nouns of Greek, Latin and French derivation retain the original plural form | phenomenon – phenomena, datum – data, curriculum – curricula, medium – media, corpus – corpora, stimulus – stimuli, bureau – bureaux |
| Vowel mutation or replacive morph | Nouns form the plural by changing vowel of the root | tooth – teeth, man – men, goose – geese, mouse – mice |
| Voicing or final consonant | The last consonant of the root changes from voiceless to voiced and the inflectional suffix -s is added | wife – wives, hoof – hooves, scarf – scarves, knife – knives, leaf – leaves |
| Zero inflection/zero morph | The singular and the plural forms are identical | sheep – sheep, deer – deer, fish – fish, trout – trout |
Inflection of irregular verbs
- Zero morph: Hurt-hurt-hurt
- Vowel mutation: Swim-swam-swum
- Vowel mutation + irregular inflection: Speak-spoke-spoken
- Replacive morphs: Lose-lost-lost
- Suppletion: Go-went-gone
Word formation processes
Affixation: we add prefixes or suffixes to a base. Prefixes are class-maintaining and affect meaning, suffixes are class-changing.
- Noun suffixes: -(a)tion, -dom, -ee, -ery, -ess, -ette, -hood, -ism, -ity, -let, -ness, -ment, -ship.
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