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In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes , which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning .
Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, one effect of the English derivational suffix -ly is to change an adjective into an adverb (slow → slowly).
The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology is a 2013 book by Laurie Bauer, Rochelle Lieber and Ingo Plag in which the authors provide "a comprehensive reference volume covering the whole of contemporary English morphology".
These sample English words have the following morphological analyses: "Unbreakable" is composed of three morphemes: un- (a bound morpheme signifying negation ), break (a verb that is the root of unbreakable : a free morpheme), and -able (a bound morpheme as an adjective suffix signifying "capable of, fit for, or worthy of").
Affixes are bound by definition. [5] English language affixes are almost exclusively prefixes or suffixes: pre-in "precaution" and -ment in "shipment". Affixes may be inflectional, indicating how a certain word relates to other words in a larger phrase, or derivational, changing either the part of speech or the actual meaning of a word.
There is little to no morphological change in words: they tend to be uninflected. Grammatical categories are indicated by word order (for example, inversion of verb and subject for interrogative sentences) or by bringing in additional words (for example, a word for "some" or "many" instead of a plural inflection like English -s). Individual ...
In English give, gives, giving, gave and given are surface forms of the verb give. The lexical form would be "give", verb. There are two kinds of morphological dictionaries: morpheme-aligned dictionaries and full-form (non-aligned) dictionaries.
Schibsbye was a student of Jespersen's and co-author of the sixth volume –Morphology –of Jespersen's seven volume Modern English Grammar. Sinclair, John, ed. (1991). Collins COBUILD – English Grammar London: Collins ISBN 0-00-370257-X second edition, 2005 ISBN 0-00-718387-9.