Understanding Lexemes, Morphemes, and Word Formation
Lexemes and Grammatical Words
Lexeme – an abstract grammatical entity which is represented by different inflected forms. E.g., the lexeme JUMP is represented by jump, jumps, jumped, jumping.
Grammatical Word – the lexemic and grammatical content of a word form in context. E.g., in jumps over the lazy dog’s head, jumps represents the grammatical word ‘present tense of verb JUMP’; however, in huge jumps it represents the grammatical word ‘plural form of noun JUMP’
Words and Lexical Items
Words – the building blocks of sentences.
Some words are not lexical items, e.g., the meaning of jumping can be guessed from jump.
Lexical items – items whose meaning cannot be predicted from their form.
Some lexical items are not words, e.g., phrasal verbs, idioms, proverbs.
Morphemes
Morphemes must:
- Be identifiable from one word to another.
- Contribute in some way to a meaning as a whole.
The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with relationships between words involving the morphemes that compose them is technically called morphology. Morphemes can be thought of as the minimal units of morphology.
Morphemes that can stand on their own are free morphemes; those that need to be attached to another morpheme are bound morphemes.
Many morphemes have two or more different pronunciations, called allomorphs, the choice between them being determined by the context.
Defective Lexemes
BEWARE, BEGONE (DEFECTIVE)
- Beware and begone are only used in the imperative. You cannot say he bewares of the dog.
- He takes care/is careful with the dog.
CAN/COULD, MAY/MIGHT, SHALL/SHOULD, MUST, OUGHT, WILL/WOULD
- No 3rd person singular, or past form (can does have past form). You cannot say yesterday he may come, he mays buy food.
- Yesterday, he may have come/ he may buy food.
SCISSORS, PANTS
- Two scissors? Two pants? (no plural form *scissorses, pantses)
- Two pairs of scissors, two pairs of pants.
Suppletion
Suppletion: One lexeme may be represented by two (or more) quite distinct root morphemes (not allomorphs). One lexeme is represented by two or more different roots, depending on the context; for example, the verb GO is represented by went in the past tense and go elsewhere.
‘Suppletion’ is generally applied only to roots, not to affixes. Example: good, better, best/ bad, worse, worst/ small, smaller, smallest/ great, greater, greatest / be, was, were, is, are/ go, went/
Inflectional Morphology
Plural: -s, -z, -iz (cats, horses, dogs, elements, these)
Tense: -d, -t, -id, -ing (stopped, running, stirred, waited)
Possession: -‘s (Alex’s)
Comparison: -er, -en : greater, heighten.
Derivational Morphology
Process of forming a new word from an existing word, adding a prefix or suffix.
un-: unhelpful, unhappy
-ness: happiness
Dis-: disconnect
-able: predictable
Comparison: -er : greater
Nouns Derived from Nouns
-let, -ette, -ie : droplet, novelette/majorette, doggie
-ess, -ine : waitress, princess/goddess, heroine/doctrine
-er , -(i)an : Londoner, islander, villager, newcomer, Norwegian, Etonian
-ship, -hood: kingship, ladyship, scholarship, motherhood, priesthood, manhood
-ful: spoonful, mouthful
-ist, -ian: contortionist, novelist, Marxist, logician, historian, phonetician
Nouns Derived from Adjectives
-ity: purity, equality, ferocity, sensitivity, civility
-ness: goodness, tallness, fierceness, sensitiveness, kindness
-ism: radicalism, paganism, heroism
Nouns Derived from Verbs
-ance, -ence: appearance, resemblance, performance, ignorance, reference, convergence, dependence
-ing: painting, singing, building, ignoring, walking
– ((a)t)ion : denunciation, starvation, commission, organization, relation, confusion, union
-al: refusal, arrival, referral, committal, denial
1. noun + -ful : helpful, spoonful, harmful
2. noun + – ly: beastly, daily, cowardly
3. en- + adjective + en: enliven
4. adjective + -ly playfully, gradually
5. noun + -ar polar, solar, circular, etc