Practice 1: Morphological Analysis

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 572.

Exercise 9

Specify the morphological categories expressed by the inflectional morphemes in the words below:

traveled

lived

days

was

slower

lasting

involving

customs

waited

boat's

arrived

being

heading

Colonies

best

encountered

Brothers'

lasted

ship's

later

Analyze each of the items below morphologically. Determine how many morphemes each item contains (1 or more than 1);

if there is more than one morpheme, which are free and which bound;

if there is more than one morpheme, which one is the root; and what are the remaining morphemes: prefixes or suffixes;

if there are prefixes and/or suffixes, which are derivational and which inflectional (use elimination: if there is an affix and it is not in the list of inflectional morphemes, then it's derivational);

whether the word(s) is(are) simple, compound, or complex and finally,

if a word is inflected, is the inflection regular or irregular?

Remember: One or both of the words that make up a compound word may be complex. Such items count as both compound and complex words.

Warning: Don't let variations in spelling disturb you too much. Sometimes adding suffixes changes the way the base word or suffix is spelled.

Examples:

A. slept:

2 morphemes

both bound

root: slep- suffix: -t

suffix -t inflectional (marks past tense on a verb)

complex word

suffix -t: irregular

B. dehumidifiers

5 morphemes

free: humid bound: de- (prefix), -ify, -er, -s (suffixes)

root: humid

derivational: de-, -ify, -er inflectional: -s

complex word

inflectional suffix -s: regular

1 re-established

2 spaghetti

3 apologize

4 statements

5 snowboarding

6 nationality

7 security blanket

8 preregistration

9 relationship

10 burnt (as in burnt toast)

11 apology

12 American

13 antennae

14 bolder

15 uneaten

16 apologetic

17 gradually

18 kindnesses

19 microwave

20 wavelength