MORPHOLOGY: TUTORIALS

I
1.What is morphology?
2. What is the scope of Morphology?
3. Why should we learn Morphology?

II

1.What is a Word?
2.What is a Word form?
3. What is a word token?
4. What is a Lexeme?
5. What is a lexical Item?
6. Identify the word forms of the following lexemes:
a) Go:
b) GREEN:
7. Count how many word forms, word tokens and lexemes in the following sentences:
a. She wears her new gown at her friend’s birthday party.
b. Joe is having a conversation with a new friend.
8.
1. In each of the following groups of word forms, identify those that are (or can be,
according to context) forms of the same lexeme:
(a) woman, woman’s, women, womanly, girl
(b) greenish, greener, green, greens
(c) written, wrote, writer, rewrites, writing.
2. What word form represents each of the following grammatical words?
(a) the plural of the noun NOOSE
(b) the plural of the noun GOOSE
(c) the plural of the noun MOOSE
(d) the past tense of the verb PLAY
(e) the past tense of the verb LAY
(f) the past tense of the verb LIE ‘rest horizontally’
(g) the past tense of the verb LIE ‘tell untruths’
(h) the third person singular past of the verb BE
(i) the perfect participle of the verb DIVE
(j) the perfect participle of the verb STRIVE
(k) the perfect participle of the verb GLIDE
(l) the perfect participle of the verb RIDE
(m) the perfect participle of the verb STRIDE
(n) the accusative of the pronoun YOU
(o) the accusative of the pronoun WE

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 III.
1.What is Morpheme?
2. a) Place a plus sign (+) between morphemes in each word listed below.
b) Label each morpheme as bound (B) or free (F).
Example: Reading = Read + ing F + B
a. telephone
b. infirm
c. farm
d. reformers
e. ranchers
f. actor
g. inaccessibility
h. ducklings
i. countess
j. boysenberry

3.List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free (F)
or bound (B).
1. creating 6. unhealthy
2. seaward 7. waiter wait
3. wastage 8. reconsider
4. poetic 9. keys
5. modernize modern 10. incompletion

4. Identify the free morphemes in the following words by underlining them:

a. kissed
b. freedom
c. stronger
d. follow
e. awe
f. goodness
g. talkative
h. teacher
i. actor

5. Consider the following words:

(a) tigers untimely decorating wholesome consumed leucocyte
speakers uniquely decentralizing gruesome consumption erythrocyte
b) Divide them into morphemes. What differences are there between the words in each pair?
c) Which of these morphemes are free and which are bound? Are the bound morphemes all
affixes, or are some of them roots or combining forms?

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d) Do any problems arise here for the view that morphemes are ‘the smallest units of language
that can be associated with meaning’ or ‘the minimal units of meaning’?

IV

1.Give a definition to:

a) affixation.
b) suffixation.
c) Prefixation
d) Explain the meaning of notions such as derivational and inflectional suffixes.
e) Root

2.Identify the roots of the following words.

readable
hearing
enlarge
performance
happiness
soften
speaker

3. Identify the affixation:

decompose, disqualify, foreword, international, misalign, nonsmoker, prerequisite, rewatch,
submarine, superimpose, unnatural, enable, American, happyness, relationship, brotherhood,
caramelize, womanly, jugdmental, reads, beautify, separated, usherette, speaker, fishing.

4. Separate the affixes from the stems in the following words:

Trains, succeeded, lighter, predetermined, retro + active, confusions, instructional.

5. Identify the suffixes by underlining them:

a. singing
b. unhappy
c. mechanism
d. trousers
e. brother
f. blackboard

6. Identify the prefixes by underlining them:

a. rewarded
b. misfortune
c. establish

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d. submit
e. strawberry
f. abnormal

V
1.Identify the root in these words by underlining it and state which syntactic category it
belongs to:

a. hushes:
b. kindness:
c. fried:
d. gamers:
e. heavily:
f. grandfathers:

2.Fill in the table using words from the text below:

A-powerful - of - agent - those - is - right - word – upon- come - intensely - right - we

-words - resulting - the -effect - is - physical - well - Whenever -spiritual -electrically -
and - prompt - as

Open class words Closed class words

3.Determine the lexical category of each root in each compound word listed. Then
determine the lexical category of the entire compound.
Example: greenhouse adjective/noun noun
1. textbook
2. hot dog
3. beachcomber
4. bunkhouse
5. blacktop

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6. into
7. forerunner
8. takeover
9. crybaby
10.workman
11. downshift
12. empty-handed

VI

1. Place a plus sign (+) between each morpheme boundary and label each morpheme as
free (F) or bound (B). Label each bound morpheme as derivational (D) or inflectional
(I). Example: Deepen deep + en F + BI
a. Bill's
b. running
c. player
d. action
e. roughest
f. comes (as in Here he comes .)
g. friendly
h. unfriendly
i. longer
j. lovable
k. judgment
l. banana
m. slowest
n. quicker
o. unhappy
p. semicircle
q. nobody
r. Aaron's (as in It is Aaron's toy .)
s. broken
t. happily

2. (1) Derivation or inflection? un-healthy, pig-s, go-ing, writ-er, friend-ly, mother’s

(2) Divide into morphemes, write down the rules in the correct order. Indicate
whether the rules are inflectional/derivational.
airsicknesses, bestranged (obsolete), unimaginable, grandmother’s, unrecoverable,

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prioritizing, rewriter, denumeration, budgetarily, fancifulness, tastier, softened,
decommercialize, transmittable, unicorns, illegally.

3.Complete the table .

Lexeme stem/root/base bound morphemes

impossibility
overrated
replacement
snowman
friendships
undertaker
crack
magically
ingratitude
rhinoceros
unimaginable
railway station
unquestionably
good-looking
halflings

4. What would you list as allomorphs of the morpheme ‘plural’ from this set of English
words : dogs , oxen , deer (zero morph) , judges , curricula ?

VII.
1.
a) What is Word Formation?
b. Coinage
c. Derivation
d. Conversion.
e. Blending
f. Acronyms
g. Compounding
h. Clipping
i. Suppletion
j. Apophony
k. Borrowing.
l. Back-formation
2. What is compounding?
3.Find examples for the following types of compounds.
N+N:
adj+V :
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N+V :
Prep+Prep :

4.Here are ten adjectives. What verbs can be formed from them by prefixation,
suffixation or conversion, and how many of these verbs are lexical items?

full -empty- poor -rich- active -national- long -short -humble-proud

5. Which of the following are compound words, which are phrases, and which are
phrasal words?
(a) moonlight, moonscape, harvest moon, blue moon (as in once in a blue moon)
(b) blueberry, bluebottle, greybeard, sky-blue, blue-pencil (as in they bluepencilled the script
heavily)
(c) pencil case, eyebrow pencil, pencil sharpener, pencil-thin, thin air (as in they vanished
into thin air)

6. Determine which word formation process is at work in the following examples.

lexeme meaning word formation process

backformation
bagonize
bartend
DHL
enthuse
EU
exam
hanky-panky
harmful
infotainment
nitty-gritty
to PDF
to DHL

pampers
PDF
pop (music)
orientated
restructure
sitcom
snafu
to DHL

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7. Draw tree diagrams to illustrate the structure of the following words, assigning
appropriate word class labels (N, A or V) to the roots and to the nodes in the trees:
greediness, deconsecration incorruptibility

8. Consider the following nouns in Zulu and then answer the questions that follow :
1. umfazi ‘ married woman ’ 9. abafazi ‘ married women ’
2. umfani ‘ boy ’ 10. abafani ‘ boys ’
3. umzali ‘ parent ’ 11. abazali ‘ parents ’
4. umfundisi ‘ teacher ’ 12. abafundisi ‘ teachers ’
5. umbazi ‘ carver ’ 13. ababazi ‘ carvers ’
6. umlimi ‘ farmer ’ 14. abalimi ‘ farmers ’
7. umdlali ‘ player ’ 15. abadlali ‘ players ’
8. umfundi ‘ reader ’ 16. abafundi ‘ readers ’

a. What is the morpheme meaning singular in Zulu?

b. What is the morpheme meaning plural in Zulu?
The following Zulu verbs are derived from noun stems by adding a verbal suffix : Fundisa ‘ to
teach ’ funda ‘ to read ’ lima ‘ to cultivate ’ baza ‘ to carve ’. Compare these words to the words
in section A that are related in meaning. For example, umfundisi ‘ teacher ’ / abafundisi ‘
teachers ’ / fundisa ‘ to teach ’.
a. What is the derivational suffix that specifies the category verb?
b. What is the nominal suffix (i.e the suffix that forms nouns?)

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