Page 311 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 23: Word -Formation: Process and Rules

As said earlier a complex word is, either a combination of one free morpheme and one or more Notes
bound morphemes or two or more bound morphemes. The free morpheme in a word is called
‘base’ of the complex word. In case wherein a complex word is a combination of two or more
bound morphemes, the base cannot be a free morpheme. In such a case the base is a bound
morpheme, and is called ‘bound base’. And those bound morphemes which attach themselves
either at the beginning or at the end of the base are called ‘affixes’. Affixes are two types—prefixes
and suffixes. Prefixes are those which are attached before the base and suffixes are those which are
attached after the base. Common examples of prefixes are im-,de, etc. and the examples of suffixes
are -fy, and –ly, etc. Bases are not always a free morpheme or a bound morpheme, but sometimes
they can also be a combination of free and bound morphemes. ‘Stem’ is the synonym of ‘base’, i.e.
stems are either a free morpheme, or bound morpheme or a combination of free and bound
morphemes to which affixes are attached to make a new word.
Inflectional and Derivational Morphology: One of the most important and perhaps universal
classifications of morphemes is derivational and inflectional morphemes.
1. Derivational morphemes make new words from old ones (Crystal, p.90). Thus creation is
formed from create, but they are two separate words. Derivational morphemes generally
(a) change the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word. Thus-ment added to a verb,
forms a noun (judg-ment). Re-activate means “activate again”.
(b) are not required by syntactic relations outside the word. Thus un-kind combines un-and
kind into a single new word, but has no particular syntactic connections outside the word–
we can say he is unkind or he is kind or they are unkind or they are kind, depending on
what we mean.
(c) are often not productive—derivational morphemes can be selective about what they’ll
combine with, and may also have erratic effects on meaning. Thus the suffix-hood occurs
with just a few nouns such as brother, neighbour, and knight, but not with most others.
e.g., *friendhood, *daughterhood, or * candlehood. Furthermore “brotherhood” can mean
“the state or relationship of being brothers, ” but “neighbourhood” cannot mean “the state
or relationship of being neighbours.”
(d) typically occur between the stem and any inflectional affixes. Thus in governments, -ment,
a derivational suffix, preceedes –s, an inflectional suffix.
(e) in English, may appear either as prefixes or suffixes: pre-arrange, arrangement.
2. Inflectional Morphemes: Vary (or “inflect”) the form of words in order to express grammatical
features, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. Thus boy and boys, for example, are
two different forms of the “same” word; the choice between them, singular vs. plural, is a
matter of grammar and thus the business of inflectional morphology. (Crystal, p.90)
Inflectional Morphemes generally
(a) do not change basic meaning or part of speech, e.g. big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives.
(b) express grammatically required features or indicate relations between different words in
the sentence. Thus in Lee love-s Kim: -s marks the 3rd person singular present form of the
verb, and also relates it to the 3rd singular subject Lee.
(c) are productive. Inflectional morphemes typically combine freely with all members of some
large class of morphemes, with predictable effects on usage/meaning. Thus the plural
morpheme can be combined with nearly any noun, usually in the same form, and usually
with the same effect on meaning.
(d) occur outside any derivational morphemes. Thus in ration-al-ization-s the final -s is
inflectional, and appears at the very end of the word, outside the derivational morphemes
-al, -iz, -ation.
(e) in English, inflectional affixes are only suffixes.

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