2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Morphology
Morphology is a branch of linguistics which studies about the internal structure of words. Bloomfield (1933:207) states “By the morphology of a language, we mean the constructions in which bound forms appear among the constituents, by definition, the resultants forms are either bound forms or words, but never phrases”. While Hocket (1958:177) says “Morphology includes the stock of segmental morpheme and the ways in which words are built out of them”. According to the description above, we can say that morphology concerned with the construction of word which is words are built from morpheme or morphemes.
2.2Morpheme
The term morpheme is used to refer to the smallest units of semantic content or grammatical function which words are made up of. By definition, a morpheme cannot be decomposed into smaller units which are either meaningful by themselves or mark a grammatical function like singular or plural number in the noun. Hockett (1958:123) says “Morphemes are the smallest individually meaningful elements in the utterances of a language”.
2.3 Bound and Free Morphemes
Morphemes may be classified in more than one dimension. Firstly, morphemes are bound and free. A free morpheme is one that may constitute a word (free form) by itself. A bound morpheme is one that must appear with at least one other morpheme, bound or free, in a word. In English cats, cat is free, since cat is a word in its own right, and –s is bound, as it is not a word in its own right. Secondly, morpheme may be divided into roots and affixes, the root being that part of a word structure which is left when all the affixes have been removed.
Affixes are bound morphemes, they are limited in number, though their numbers vary from language to language, and they may be exhaustively listed. In the English paradigm try, tries, trying, tried, the form try is the root and –s, -ing, and –ed are affixes. In loveliness, manliness, react, recover, and remove, love, man, act, cover and move are roots, and –li-, -ness and re- are affixes. Roots and affixes may be of any structure and length, though affixes generally tend to be shorter than roots.
English words; the plural formative –s, -en, etc. are suffixes and so are the verb paradigm affixes –ing, -ed, etc.
Infixes are affixes that appear within the consonant and vowel sequence of root forms; they occupy fixed positions that are statable by reference to consonants and vowels. Infixes are less commonly met with, and are not found in English apart from one mode of analysis of plurals like feet, men.
2.4 Prefixes
A prefix is an the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix un- is added to the word happy, it creates the word unhappy. Particularly, in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can be either of the word with the same basic meaning and same different role in the sentence), or new like all other affixes, are usually
Example :
Inflectional prefixes :
in- + accurate → inaccurate Adj Adj un- + tie → untie
V V
re- + write → rewrite
V V
ex- + boyfriend → ex-boyfriend N N Derivational prefixes :
en- + large → enlarge Adj V en- + cage →
2.5Suffixes
encage
N V
In Common examples are nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the
Suffixes can carry grammatical information ) or
lexical informa).
2.5.1 Inflectional Suffixes
An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a changes the grammatical properties of a word within its
Examples :
Girls, where the suffix -s marks the
He makes, where suffix -s marks the It closed, where the suffix -ed marks the
-s third person singular present
-t past tense
-s plural
-en plural (irregular)
-er
-est
-n't
2.5.2
Derivectional suffixes can be divided into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation. In English, they include :
class remaining an adjective)
