CHAPTER 6
Morphology
DESCRIPTION
REFLECTIONS
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of
words and forms a fundamental part of linguistic
study today. In linguistics, study of the internal
construction of words. Languages vary widely in the
degree to which words can be analyzed into word
elements, or morphemes. In English there are
numerous examples, such as “replacement,” which is
composed of re-, “place,” and -ment, and “walked,”
from the elements “walk” and -ed. Many American
Indian languages have a highly complex morphology;
other languages, such as Vietnamese or Chinese, have
very little or none. Morphology includes the
grammatical processes of inflection and derivation.
Inflection marks categories such as person, tense, and
case; e.g., “sings” contains a final -s, marker of the 3rd
person singular, and the German Mannes consists of
the stem Mann and the genitive singular inflection -es.
Derivation is the formation of new words from
existing words; e.g., “singer” from “sing” and
“acceptable” from “accept.” Derived words can also
be inflected: “singers” from “singer.”
We do not really have to go to
other languages like Swahili to
discover that "word
Forms "may consist of a number of
elements. We can recognize that
the English word
Forms such as conversations,
conversations, conversations and
conversations should consist of
one element
Number of other elements such as
-s, -er, -ed, and -ing. All these
elements are described
As morphemes and is something
that taught us this chapter to
demonstrate that words are what
we can discover and thus have a
better writing so we must study
more to learn and open more each
day.