2011م - 1444هـ
Intro to Linguistics { Morphology

Jirka Hana { October 31, 2011





Overview of topics

1. Basic terminology

2. Classication of morphemes

3. Structure of words

4. Morphological processes

5. Word formation

6. Language Typology

7. Processing morphology

1 Basic terminology

* Morphology { study of internal structure of words

* Morpheme { the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning or grammatical func-

tion. Words are composed of morphemes (one or more). There are some complications

with this simple denition.

The order of morphemes matters:

talked 6= *edtalk, re
write 6= *writere

* Morph. The term morpheme is used both to refer to an abstract entity and its concrete

realization(s) in speech or writing. When it is needed to maintain the signied and

signier distinction, the term morph is used to refer to the concrete entity, while the

term morpheme is reserved for the abstract entity only.

* Allomorphs { morphemes having the same function but dierent form. Unlike the

synonyms they usually cannot be replaced one by the other.

(1) a. indenite article: an orange { a building