Understanding morphology is not just a theoretical concept, but a practical tool that will significantly enhance your English learning process. Let’s explore its practical benefits.
What is morphology? It is like a puzzle that helps us comprehend how words are made.
Learning it makes us understand that if we take the word “play” and add “-ed”, it becomes “played,” which means it happened in the past.
In other words, if you have a good grasp of it, you’ll be able to figure out new words and have a better reading and understanding of the English language.
In this article, we will delve into the key aspects of morphology in English, including:
- the concept of morphemes,
- types of morphology
- role of roots and compound words.
Let’s dive in.
Understanding Morphemes
Morphology in linguistics is the study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed from smaller units called morphemes.
They are the smallest units of meaning, like the tiny pieces you use to build something. Imagine words are like puzzles, and morphemes are the puzzle pieces.
Based on how independent they are, here are two types of them:
1. Free Morphemes
These are complete on their own – no need to be a part of others to have a meaning. They’re like the puzzle pieces you can use by themselves.
Example: cat, run, eat -those are complete words.
2. Bound Morphemes
These do not make sense if they are on their own. They need to be bound to others. Usually, they come as an affix, a group of letters added to the beginning or end of a word that changes its meaning or function, that changes the meaning of free morphemes.
Examples:
- “-ed” in “walked” – This adds the meaning of the past tense.
- “-s” in “cats” – This shows there’s more than one cat.
- “un-” in “unhappy” – This means “not”.
Types of Morphology
Comprehending the morphology types will help us understand how words change and how their meanings can follow. Based on that, there are two types of morphology.
1. Derivational Morphology
Derivational morphology is all about making new words by adding special parts to the beginning or end of a word. These particular parts are called affixes, which contain prefixes and suffixes.
For example, when we take the word “happy” and add “un-” in front of it, we get “unhappy,” which means “not happy.” So, we changed the word and its meaning!
Another example is the word “enjoy.” If we attach “-able, at the back, it becomes “enjoyable,” which means something you can enjoy, like a fun movie.
So, by perceiving this, we can create many different words and express our ideas in more nuanced ways.
2. Inflectional Morphology
Inflectional morphology, on the other hand, involves changing words slightly to show different things, like when something happened or how many there are. It doesn’t create new words, but it changes the form of a word to express different grammatical categories.
For example, if we take the word “cat” and want to talk about more than one, we add “-s,” so it becomes “cats.” Now we’re talking about two or more cats!
Another example is the word “walk.” If we want to say that someone walked in the past, we add “-ed” to make it “walked.” And if we want to show that someone is currently walking, we add “-ing” to make it “walking.”
Word Roots and Compound Words
Word roots are the core parts of words that carry the basic meaning. They’re like the foundation of a building. Understanding word roots can help us learn new words more efficiently and expand our vocabulary.
Examples:
- “Bio” means life, so biology is the study of life.
- “Graph” means write, so autograph is our signature.
Knowing word roots helps us to figure out the meanings of new words. For example, if there is a word geology and we know that “geo” means earth and “logy” means the study of, we can guess that geology is the study of the earth!
On the other hand, compound words are not as complicated as they may seem. They are simply made by putting two smaller words together to create a new one. The meaning of the new one usually comes from the two it’s made of.
For example, “snowman” refers to a man made out of snow, and “fireplace” refers to a place where a fire is kept.
It is easy, isn’t it? Once we know how compound words work, we can guess or make up new ones.
In conclusion, understanding morphology is crucial in mastering the English language. Embracing it makes language learning easier and deepens our overall understanding of English.
Do you want to explore English beyond morphology? Come and join our intermediate English program at Fun English Course. Send a message to our WhatsApp number to get a quick response.