What is Morphology?

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Blogging, bromance, ridonkulous.

These are some newer words that have been added to English to describe new concepts, ideas, and current trends.  Though they may seem spontaneous and unstructured at times, these and all words use set patterns of word formation, structure, and meaning, outlined in the study of morphology.

All words are made up of small units called morphemes, some of which can be used independently (i.e. and, dog, fun), and some of which are not independently words but hold meaning (i.e. prefixes: un-, re-; suffixes: -ing, -ly).

Morphemes are grouped into two main classes: 
  • Closed Classes:  Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are unchangeable, including conjunctions (i.e. and), pronouns (i.e. he, she), auxiliary verbs (i.e. may, can), determiners (i.e. the, a), prepositions (i.e. of, from), and inflectional suffixes (i.e. XXX). 
  • Open Classes: Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and meaning of a sentence, including nouns (i.e. dogà dogs), verbs (i.e. walkà walking), adjectives (i.e. poor), adverbs (i.e. poorly), and derivational affixes (i.e. prefixes: in-, un-; and suffixes: - ly, -s).
In both open and closed morpheme groups, morphemes can be separated into free and bound morphemes:
  • Free morphemes: Words that are made up of only one morpheme and can stand alone as an English word  (i.e. quick, up). Most root words in English are free morphemes.
  • Bound morphemes: Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached to a free morpheme.
    • Inflectional bound morphemes can change the meaning of the entire word, but does not change the meaning of the root word or the part of speech.  It includes all suffixes, plural –s (dogs), possessive –s (doctor’s), third-person singular present –s (he walks), progressive –ing (he is walking), past tense –ed (he walked), past participle –ed/-en (he has walked/taken), comparative –er (funnier), and superlative –est (funniest).
    • Derivational morphemes often changes the part of the speech of the word, like from a noun to a verb, and the meaning of the word.  These include prefixes (i.e. anti-, pre-, un-) and some suffixes (i.e. –ness, -er both change verbs to nouns).
Words are made based on a hierarchy of morphemes, or morphology tree, where the root word first provides the core meaning of the word, followed by derivational morphemes, and last inflectional morphemes.  It is a complex and structured process that is often automatic and intuitive for native English speakers.
Here are some ways that new words can be formed, from most to least common:

Combining Processes:
  • Compounding- Combining free morphemes to create new word (i.e. lunchroom, hallway, punchbowl).
  • Prefixing- Adding a prefix at the beginning of a word (i.e. rerun, untie, and decode).
  • Suffixing- Adding a suffix at the end of a word (i.e. lovely, hacker, diskette)
Shifting- when a word is used in one grammatical category and then switches to a new use, it has functionally shifted and is a new word (i.e. e-mail and text were initially only nouns, but underwent shift to also become verbs).

Shortening Processes
  • Alphabetism- Forming new word from initials of a phrase and word is pronounced as letters (i.e. “CPU” from Central Processing Unit or “DRA” from Developmental Reading Assessment)
  • Acronymy- Forming new words from initials, but pronounced as a word (RAM for Random Access Memory or radar for radio detection and ranging).
  • Clipping- Word is shortened by taking a part away, at the beginning or end of the word near its root word (i.e. net from Internet or cell from cellular).
  • Backformation- Affix is removed from a word to form a new word (i.e. defragment – using backformation by taking off suffix in fragmentation to make “fragment,” and then prefixing with de-)

Blending- joining two or more words, but one word is shortened in the process (i.e. Internet from interconnected network).

Reduplication- repeating a morpheme to make new word (i.e. knock-knock or no-no).  This is a lesser used process, but common in children’s developing language (mama, dada, booboo) and literature (rhyming pairs like Henny Penny, Humpty Dumpty).  It is also more common in South Asian languages. 

in the classroom

Tips for Applying Morphology:
  • Teach reading, writing, and meaning of sight words: Many high frequency words fall into the group of closed morphemes, words that do not change spelling in different contexts.  Teach and continually practice with ELLs, to help with reading fluency, word solving, and writing.  These words are also packed with meaning and grammatical and semantic relationships, showing relation between the words around them, so explicitly teach meanings to ELLs.  Provide students with opportunities to listen to, speak, read, and write with high frequency words, considering different meanings of words and how they are used in different contexts.  This site has 220 dolch words sorted by grade level and frequency:  http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch-words-all-freq-by-grade.html
  • Be careful with "Does that sound right?" When considering word formation, an ELL might not intuitively know or understand the complex rules governing word formation, which might be second nature to a native speaker.  In reading or writing, the cue questions of “Does that sound right?” may not work for ELLs, as they have not yet had enough experience hearing English to know if certain words are formed correctly or not.  In these cases, explicitly point out the correct word formation or, if incorrect patterns arise, teach correct use (i.e. adding prefixes or suffixes to change words).
  • Cross Language Connections and Transfer: When considering affixes, particularly the prefix and suffix, some languages do share very similar affixes as English.  When thinking about the suffix –ing in English, Spanish uses –ando to achieve the same suffix meaning, or –tion in radiation, and –ción in radiación.  For older students, making this connection explicit can help them in cross language transfer and understanding meaning and learning new words.  Research some of the morphological processes that govern other languages spoken by ELLs at your school, and use possible connections in understanding and teaching ELLs. 
  • Expand students' vocabularies by studying word structure and morphemes:  Find patterns in words and meaning and lead lessons and games studying affixes and other morphemes.  Here are some activities and lesson plans on affixes from the Florida Center for Reading Research:
affix_concentration.pdf
File Size: 135 kb
File Type: pdf
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affix_game.pdf
File Size: 119 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
lesson_plan_for_teaching_word_meaning_using_base_word_and_affix.pdf
File Size: 87 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
For more activities and lessons, go to the Florida Center for Reading Research’s website:

http://www.fcrr.org/.  The search tool on the site helps teachers to find activities based on different morphological and literacy concepts and skills.