Morphology

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that deals with the formation construction of the words of a language. This is a very important part of the language. A language cannot be able to communicate properly if it does not have abundant numbers of words or vocabulary. Vocabulary is the elements named on different things. For example, if we don’t have a Balochi name for computer, sky, mobile then a committee will be held by Balochi linguists to form words for these items in Balochi. When they create words in Balochi for the above-mentioned words, then they will not be implemented directly on all Balochi speakers or writers to be used but the first committee will do voting on the words if the majority agrees for the newly formed words then they will be introduced to the public speakers. This is how morphology creates words.

On the other hand, some popular intellects like prose writers or poets also invent and use new words in their creation then such words will be common and then the public uses them as a part of the language. If one glances the Shakespeare the great dramatist who had dubbed such name to his characters that sort of name people had not had in England in his era. For example, his one drama is titled Hamlet, and it is also the character's name. After this play being famous throughout the world then several parents dubbed this name to their children. This is also the work of morphology. One thing that should be kept in mind is that morphology has only the duty to form or create and the meaning will be given by semantics. For example, if morphology creates a word by putting some letters or segments together and naming it tolloo, but right now it has no meaning then semantics will come to give it meaning. Semantic defines it like this, it is a sort of container which is used for drinking water. However, here author's concentration is on morphology and now let’s study the all small pieces of morphology.

Words or forms are divided into two categories.

1: content words 2: functional words

Def: 1: Content words possess clear lexical meaning. They have complete meaning. They don’t need to take support to stand-alone rather they stand freely. The content words are noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. The noun is the name of a person place or thing, like Ali, Jusak, chocolate. The verb is a word that shows action like play, jump, and work. The adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun like beautiful, pretty, and bright. For example, she is pretty. Here pretty is defining pronoun she.

They are words for people, things, actions, and attributes

Open class: content words are considered open class because news can be added.

2: functioned words don’t have clear lexical meaning but do several functions in a language

Functions words are conjunctions, articles, prepositions, and pronoun

Considered closed class because we cannot add words to them.

Morphemes:

Definition: Words are made of one piece, some are made up of more than one piece, these pieces or components are called morphemes, morphemes are minimal units of meaning.

Example: cat, less, kill, un in, ly, good,

Some words contain one or more morphemes.

 Peace:                                         one morpheme

 Peaceful:                                    two morpheme

  Peacefulness:                            three

Antidisestablishmentarianism:   seven

Categories of morphemes

1: Free morphemes: can stand alone without the support of other morphemes are independent morphemes

 An open class such as boy, hate, and girl. Are considered free morphemes

And close class functional words such as the, and, for, it.

2: Bound morphemes

Another morpheme that can stand alone and can’t give a meaning without the support of another morpheme are called bound morphemes.

Such as fullness, ly, etc.

Bound morphemes are divided into two categories

Affixes and bound roots

Affixes are prefix un, in, dis, re, and suffixes full, ness, less, etc.

Bound roots, ceive.

Morphemes

 

Bound                                                                            free

                                                                             Open class            closed class

Affixes                                     roots, ceive                     content words                     functional words

 

Derivational                              inflectional                                         cute,                                      on     

                                                                                                      Away                                                 and

Prefix and suffixes            suffixes                                                 run                                                     yet

Two categories of affixes

Derivational affixes: when they are added to words, will be new words with new meaning,

Derivational affixes: change the grammatical categories of the words, eg, noun change to the verb, adjective, and adverb.

noun            adjective    adverb        verb

Beauty        beautiful      beautifully   beautify

Some derivational affixes don’t change the grammatical category of the words

Eg:       king+dom:         noun to noun

           Re+do:          verb to verb

          Blue+ish           :          adj to adj

 

Inflectional suffixes are only suffixes, they are only eight, which are added end of the words, won’t change their meaning instead they change the things, number or person.

Inflectional suffixes s’ ing, ed, s, en, s, er, est,

v She is playing with a doll.

v She played with a doll.

v She plays with a doll.

v Lila’s doll is torn.

v Her doll is taller than mine.

v Her doll is the tallest.

 

By: Sheela Nabi Bakhsh

The writer is a student in English Literature Departure University of Turbat

Kech Balochistan