Morphology, Syntax and Semantics
Morphology, Syntax and Semantics
What is morphology?
• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core
part of linguistic study today.
• The term morphology is Greek
– morph- ‘shape, form’
– -ology - ‘the study of something’.
Morphemes
• the building blocks of morphology
• the smallest meaning-bearing units of language
• Words have internal structure: built of even smaller pieces
• SIMPLE WORDS:
– no internal structure (only consist of one morpheme) eg work, build, run.
– cannot be split into smaller parts which carry meaning or function.
• COMPLEX WORDS:
– internal structure (consist of two or more morphemes) eg worker: affix -er added to the
root word to form a noun.
Free vs Bound Morphemes
• Free morpheme:
– simple word, consisting of one morpheme
– eg house, work, high, chair, wrap. They are words in themselves.
• Bound morpheme:
– morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to receive meaning.
– EG: UNKINDNESS
– UN- and -NESS are the bound morphemes, requiring the root KIND to form the word.
– also called affixes as they are attached to the stem. There are two types as outlined below:
– Prefix (front of the base)= Un-
– Suffix (end of the base)= -ness
How many morphemes?
• Tempting
• Dog
• Cats
• Surfers
• Establishment
• Worrying
• Spice
How many morphemes?
• Tempt - ing
• Dog
• Cat - s
• Surf – er - s
• Establish - ment
• Worry - ing
• Spice
Characteristics of a Morpheme
Indivisible • the smallest unit of meaning
• cannot be subdivided and still have the same meaning
• e.g. sleep
Can have a number of syllables • Syllable is a unit of sound i.e. smallest pronounceable unit of a word
• A morpheme is a unit of meaning that may be made up of many
syllables
• Morphemes can be either root words or affixes of words
– Root: a morpheme that can stand alone with its own meaning, a free
morpheme
– Affixes:
– Suffix: a bound morpheme that appears at the end of a word and
changes its meaning, ex: (-s), (-ed), (-ly), (-er)
– Prefix: a bound morpheme that occurs at the beginning of a word and
changes its meaning, ex: (re-),(ex-),(de-),(un-), (be-)
Affixes can be distinguished as:
• Derivational morphemes:
– change the meaning of the root, such as making it mean the
opposite (ex: “happy” becomes “unhappy,” which means not
happy, when the prefix “un” is added on)
– change it’s part of speech or classification (ex: the word “read”
is a verb, but when the suffix “-er” is added to it it becomes
“reader,” a noun)
– These can be either prefixes or suffixes and can effect the
pronunciation of a root
• Inflectional morphemes:
– suffixes which work with a specific class of words (nouns, verbs, etc)
– have a grammatical function but do not change the class of a word
http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/morphology/what-is-morphology/
Examples of other tree diagrams
http://literacyreferencelem.pbworks.com/w/page/17979975/Morphology https://www.slideshare.net/amna-shahid/a-brief-introduction-of-morphology
Let’s Practise
• List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is
free (F) or bound (B).
creating unhealthy
seaward waiter
wastage reconsider
poetic keys
modernise incompletion
Let’s Practise
• Draw a tree diagram for each word below:
shipper simply
disobey jumping
resettled digitizes
anticlimaxes activity
disengagement confrontational
Why is Morphology important?
• influences spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension
• large words can be more easily understood by simply breaking them down
into smaller morphemes or combinations of morphemes.
• combine the knowledge of root word spellings with common affix spellings.
– magic – magician
– sign – signature
– grace – gracious
– perform – performance
Why is Morphology important?
• New words are often formed using combinations of morphemes
– Compounding- combinations of free morphemes
– Prefixing- placing a bound morpheme at the beginning of an existing word, which can be
either one free morpheme or a combination of free and bound morphemes
– Suffixing- placing a bound morpheme at the end of an existing word
• One root combined with many other morphemes can create countless new words
– courage – courageous, courageously, encourage, discourage, discouragingly
– relate – relates, related, relating, unrelated, relation, relations, relative, relatives, relationship,
relationships, relational, correlate, correlates, correlated, correlational, correlative
– struct – construct, constructed, constructing, constructions, reconstruct, reconstructed,
reconstructing, reconstruction, instruction, instructions, instructional, destruction, destructible,
indestructible, destructive, destructively,
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/06/11/cullum-on-morphology/
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/06/11/cullum-on-morphology/
Syntax
• Though language is infinite, there are only a small number of ways in which
words can be combined.
• Sentences have certain structures.
• A 'syntax' is the grammatical order or arrangement of words, as the rules
prescribe.
• The study of syntax
– ways in which the word categories can be ordered and combined.
– the order, or distribution, of those categories.
• In English, the syntax is usually in the SVO format (S - Subject V -
Verb O - Object)
– Normal syntax: Jane ate a cake.
– The format is SVO in this case.
Subject : Jane
Verb : ate
Object : Cake
http://www.bukuinggris.co.id/aturan-aturan-dalam-
membuat-parallel-sentences/
http://www.czrt.info/examples-of-syntax
More Complex Syntactic Structures
• Embedding
– "The boy with red shorts kicked the
ball."
– "with red shorts" is a prepositional
phrase that further describes “the
boy”
– the Prepositional Phrase (PP) “with
red shorts” is embedded within the
subject Noun Phrase (NP) so that the
subject is subdivided into a Noun
Phrase and Prepositional Phrase
(PP).
– The Prepositional Phrase itself
contains a further Noun Phrase.
http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
More Complex Syntactic Structures
• Conjoining
– extend sentences by
joining together complete
structures or complete
and incomplete structures
– The conjunction “and”
joins together the
complete sentence: "The
boy with red shorts
kicked the ball“ and the
verb phrase: “scored a
goal"
http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
Grammaticality vs Semantic Soundness
• Intension
– the concepts/mental images that the word/phrase evokes.
The Relationships between Words
• Synonymy
– synonymous/ synonyms
– words can be used to mean the same thing in some contexts
– e.g. Begin and start, Big and large, Youth and adolescent.
• Antonymy
– antonyms
– words that have opposite meanings
– e.g. Big and small, Come and go, Up and down.
The Relationships between Words
• Hyponym
– meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another, broader term
– vegetable and carrot: carrot is a hyponym of vegetable
– cutlery includes knife, fork, spoon; cod, guppy, salmon and trout are
hyponyms for fish
• Metonymy
– replace the name of something with the name of another thing closely
associated with it
– e.g. suit – business person, plastic – credit card, Hollywood? Silicon
Valley?
The Relationships between Words
• Polysemy
– words can have two or more related meanings
– one form but mean two different things.
– two meanings are related in some way
– e.g. Bright (shining) and bright (intelligent). Mouse (animal) and mouse (computer
hardware), paper, head, deposit
• Homophony
– words with the same pronunciation but differs in meaning
– may be spelled e.g. rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as
carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.
– e.g. Bat (flying mammal) and bat (sports equipment). Pen (writing instrument) and pen
(small cage).
The Relationships between Sentences
• Paraphrase
– the same truth conditions
– ‘The boys like the girls’ and ‘the girls are liked by the boys’,
– ‘John gave the book to Chris’ and ‘John gave Chris the book’.
• Mutual entailment
– Each sentence must be true for the other to be true.
– ‘John is married to Rachel’ and ‘Rachel is John’s wife’,
– ‘Chris is a man’ and ‘Chris is human’.
The Relationships between Sentences
• Asymmetrical entailment
– One of the sentences must be true for the other to be true, but that sentence may be true
without the other sentence necessarily having to be true.
– ‘Rachel is John’s wife’ entails ‘John is married’ (but John is married does not entail
Rachel being his wife),
– ‘Rachel has two brothers’ entails ‘Rachel is not an only child’ (but Rachel not being an
only child does not entail Rachel having two brothers).
• Contradiction
– One sentence is true and the other cannot be true.
– ‘Rachel is an only child’ and ‘Rachel’s brother is called Phil’,
– ‘Alex is alive’ and ‘Alex died last week’.
Ambiguity
• Lexical Ambiguity
– two or more possible meanings due to polysemous or homophonous words
– Prostitutes appeal to the Pope
– "You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note
on the windscreen; it said, 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."(English comedian Tim Vine)
– 'Do you believe in clubs for young people?' someone asked W.C. Fields. 'Only when
kindness fails,' replied Fields.
• Structural Ambiguity
– words in a sentence can be combined in different ways which create different meanings
– Enraged cow injures farmer with axe
– Lung Cancer In Women Mushrooms
– Juvenile Court To Try Shooting defendant
Lexical Ambiguity
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2014/07/
Structural Ambiguity
https://arnoldzwicky.org/category/ambiguity/page/10/
Grammatical Aspects of Language
• Phonetics governs the structure of sounds
• Morphology governs the structure of words
• Syntax governs the structure of sentences
• Semantics governs the meanings of words and sentences
References
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/morphology/what-is-
morphology
/
• http://literacyreferencelem.pbworks.com/w/page/17979975/Morphology
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/syntax/what-does-sy
ntax-study
/
• http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
• http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~hana/teaching/2015wi-ling/06-Syntax.pdf
• https://www.albany.edu/~krassi/lin220/lecture%20notes/syntax/
• http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/semantics/what-does
-semantics-study
/