MORPHOLOGY
Morphology
is a field of linguistics focused on the study
of the forms and formation of words in a language. A morpheme is
the smallest indivisible unit of a language that retains meaning. The rules of
morphology within a language tend to be relatively regular, so that if one sees
the nounmorphemes for
the first time, for example, one can deduce that it is likely related to the
wordmorpheme.
First,
some preliminaries. All languages have words and morphemes.
Words can be freely moved around in a sentence. For example, cats is a word:
I
like cats.
Cats, I like. (Hamsters, I don’t.)
Cats, I like. (Hamsters, I don’t.)
Cats is a complex word, made up of two
morphemes; a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or function within a
language. The two morphemes are the root catand –s, which means ‘plural’. –s is a bound morpheme,
meaning that it must attach to something else and cannot be freely moved
around; I can’t just say “-s” in response to the question “Do you have one cat
or more than one?” Free morphemes,
on the other hand, can stand alone as words.
English
often allows multiple bound morphemes within a single word by a process called affixation.
Affixation is the addition of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes to a root
morpheme Bound morphemes that follow the root are suffixes (things
like –ful, -ly, -ness in words like hopeful, quickly,
or weirdness), while morphemes that precede the root are prefixes (for
example, mis- as in misunderstand).
English,
like many languages, sometimes uses affixation to indicate
tense. Although most English words use the — ed suffix to indicate past tense (as inwalked, pushed),
irregular past tense is formed in various ways. Examples include the
replacement of the verb with one that is very different (go vs. went — an example of suppletion),
an internal change affecting
the vowel (sing vs. sang), or a zero
morpheme, which simply means no visible past-tense suffix is
attached (put vs. put).
How are
new words formed?
New words are regularly being formed through familiar word
formation processes; below are a few examples of these processes, along with
some words that result from their application.
· Acronym is formed out of the
first letter of each word of a phrase. It’s not uncommon to hear someone lol at a good joke (from LOL — laugh out
loud) or exclaim WTF when something unexpected happens. Scuba (Self-ContainedUnderwater Breathing Apparatus) and radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) are
examples of older acronyms that we don’t necessarily recognize as such anymore.
·
Backformation removes a part of the
word that resembles a morpheme in order to coin a new word. For example, in the
word burglar, English
speakers misanalyzed the –r as an agentive suffix (a suffix that
indicates someone does something),similar
to the –r in writer. This
process left us with the verb burgle, meaning
‘steal’. The Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee has a lounge area just
beyond security called the recombobulation area — formed by backformation from the
worddiscombobulate where the dis- was mistakenly taken to be a prefix
and then replaced with the common prefix re-. The
“recombobulation area” is a place where you can get yourself organized: put
your shoes back on, put your laptop back into your bag, and so on.
· Blend combines two words to
create a new word. Smog is a blend of smoke plusfog. Mockumentary combines mock and documentary. Jeggings are snug-fittingleggings that look like jeans.
Recently, Sarah Palin inadvertently created the wordrefudiate by
blending refute and repudiate.
·
Clipping is the reduction of a
word into one of its component parts. The recently-coined word app meaning ‘application for a mobile
device’ is clipped fromapplication.
·
Compounding is the combining of
two or more roots to make a new word, such asbirdhouse or redneck (‘hillbilly’). A recently-formed
compound is pumphead: a person
who has lost mental acuity after being attached to a heart-lung machine during
heart surgery.
Examples such as
these illustrate the creative capacity of language. Our knowledge of morphology
allows us to combine the pieces of old words to create something new.
Sources :
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