English morpheme system and some applications of learning morpheme in establishing words

Language is the most important social communication among countries and people in the world

Firstly, we are deeply grateful to Ms Huyen Nguyen Thi Thanh, my supervisorfor her valuable instructions, corrections and assistance during theimplementation process of our graduation thesis

Secondly, we would like to give our special thanks to all lecturers and stafffrom the Foreign Language Faculty, English Department of Phuong DongUniversity for giving us opportunities and encouragement to complete ourstudy

Finally, we also would like to express our sincere thanks to TA vu Son Tungfor his support during our process to complete this essay

Group: Luong Thi Thuan

Ha Kim Phuong

Part I: Introduction

1 Rationale (reasons of the study) 3

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 4

Part II: Development. Chapter 1: Theoretical background I An overview of English morpheme I.1 Definition of Morpheme 5

I.2 Type of morpheme 6

II An overview of Vietnamese morpheme II.1 Definition of Vietnamese morpheme 9

II.2 Derivational morphology: word formation 9

Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology. 1 The similarities 11

2 The difference 13

3 Some suggestion 15

Part III: Conclusion 18

Exercises 19

References 23

Part I: Introduction

1 The rationale

“Language is the most important social communication among countries andpeople in the world”, said V.I Lenin As the world changes and develops, theglobal integration becomes the trend in all over the world All countries,including Viet Nam have been cooperated with each other in many aspects ofsociety in order to enhance development of economy It designatedinternational communication as an important part of all sectors English isconsidered as the international language which is widely used all over theworld However, each language as well as English has its own typical featureswhich make difficulties for learners To learn English well, first of all, weshould understand deeply about its morpheme system

Living in a community, human beings need a tool to communicate with eachother, and to carry on human and social affairs They, therefore, arbitrarilynamed the things and occurrences around making use of vocal sounds for thepurpose of communication After that they showed the vocal sounds and sets ofvocal sounds in written signals

Because of these reasons, we decided to choose the topic “English morpheme

system and some applications of learning morpheme in establishing words”

2 Aims of the study

We hope that our study is useful for English learners, for those who want toconsolidate their knowledge about morpheme Furthermore, it can help peoplesignificantly improve their vocabulary to apply in translation and finally, theycan also guess meanings new words without using dictionary

3 Scope of the study.

The elimination of the essay is from 15-20 pages, so we can only deal with

 Definition, types of English morpheme

 Definition, types of Vietnamese morpheme

 Some suggestions in forming words

4 The methods of the study.

To complete this study, we used some following methods:

+ Library research: we collected the data from curriculums, internet, and somevaluable books of foreign and domestic scholars We think these are valuablesources to effectively support for our study

+ Comparison: we gave out the similarities and differences between Englishmorpheme and Vietnamese morpheme

5 Design of the study.

Our essay is divided into five main parts:

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Development

This is divided into 2 chapters:

Chapter 1: Some theoretical background knowledge.

Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology

Part III: Conclusion

Part IV: References

Part V: Exercises

Part II Development

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

I An overview of English morpheme

I.1 Definition

A morpheme is the smallest isolable unit in the linguistic structure which caries

an independent meaning for example a noun or a verb stem as well as a suffix orprefix, and the meaning can be specific such as John (proper name), general such

as a house, or purely grammatical such as pluralize, verbalize, etc

The first part of the definition is the sequence of words smallest isolable unit,which means that these elements are the shortest stretches of sound which can bereplaced by another such segment, and which always have some element ofmeaning attached to them, however broad or general this meaning might be

The final requirement, for example, meaning associated with the segment, is

necessary to eliminate the possibility of having two morphemes, such as cut and cot in which it might be said that the meaning difference between the two

units was carried by the single phonemic distinction /ʌ/ and /ɔ/, which is ofcourse true on the phonemic level of analysis, but it is probable also true thatthe meaning distinction is carried by only a single distinctive feature on thedistinctive feature level of analysis

These are some examples of morpheme:

• One morpheme boy (one syllable)

desire, lady, water (two syllables)

crocodile (three syllables)

salamander (four syllables

 Two morpheme boy + ish

desire + able

• Three morpheme boy + ish + ness

desire + able + ity

• Four morpheme gentle+man+li + ness

un + desire + able + ity

• More than four un + gentle + man + li + ness

anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an +ism

I.2 Types of English morpheme

I.2.1 Root morpheme

A root is a morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts It is alsocalled the lexical morpheme or simply the root

The inflectional morpheme

The derivational morpheme

Prefix

Suffix

Example: book, system, school, etc

Free Root Morpheme: run, bottle, phone, etc

Bound Root Morpheme: receive, remit, uncouth,nonchalant, etc

1.2.1.1 Free morphemes

• Free morphemes are those that can stand alone as words

E.g.: girl system

1.2.1.2 Bound morphemes

Bound morphemes (affixes) must be attached to the word They are prefixes,

infixes, suffixes, such as {happy} as in unhappy, happily, happiness) or they may be grammatical (such as called, closing, and faster).

1.2.2 Affixational morpheme

The affixational morpheme is further divided into inflectional morpheme andderivational morpheme

1.2.2.1 The inflectional morpheme

Inflectional morphemes have grammatical meaning or function in the sentence,they never change part of speech It also called grammatical morpheme

Words can have an internal structure much like the syntax of phrases

Morphemes such as the, -s, and re- near the grammatical end of the continuum

are called grammatical morphemes

Note that grammatical morphemes include forms that we can consider to be

words like the, a, and, and of and others that make up parts of words like –s and -ed

E.g pencils walked

1.2.2.2 The derivational morpheme

Root morpheme combines with Derivational Morpheme forming a new wordwith a new meaning (usually change grammatical class)

N + Derivational Morpheme > Adj

 E.g.: mountain + ous,

Verb + Derivational Morpheme > Noun

 E.g.: clear + ance

Adj + Derivational Morpheme > Adverb

 E.g.: Exact + ly

The Derivational morpheme consists of affix, which includes prefix and suffix.Affix is a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix)

of a base morpheme An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone

Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness

A few exceptions are able, like, and less

a Prefix is an affix that comes before a base morpheme

E.g.: The -in in inspect.

b Suffix is an affix that comes after a base morpheme

E.g.: The -s in cats

II Vietnamese morpheme

II.1 Definition of Vietnamese morpheme

A Vietnamese morpheme is the smallest isolable unit in the linguistic structurewhich caries an independent meaning, forming by the repetition of thatmorpheme itself or some variants of that word

II.2 Derivational morpheme: word formation

There are 3 types of words in Vietnamese: simple (từ đơn), reduplicative (từláy) and compound (từ ghép) Moreover, Vietnamese has borrowedvocabulary from other languages, including Chinese, French and English

II.2.1 Simple words

Most simple words in Vietnamese are monosyllabic.The number ofpolysyllabic simple words such as bù nhìn (scarecrow), ễnh ương (frog), mồhôi (sweat), mà cả (bargain) is relatively small

II.2.2 Reduplicative words

Reduplication is a specific type of word-formation in Vietnamese Vietnamese isamong the languages in the world which most frequently use reduplicatives

b Subordinate compounds

Subordinate compounds are formed by two morphemes, one of which modifiesthe other one

khó tính (be difficult to please) khó chịu (unbearable)khó nghe (be difficult to hear) khó thương (unlovable)trắng tinh (immaculate) trắng muốt (pure white)

trắng hếu (very light, white, of skin) trắng phau (very white)

nhà doanh nghiệp (businessman) nhà thơ (poet)hội trưởng (president of association) đội trưởng (head of group)nhóm trưởng (head of group) tổ trưởng (head of smallgroup)

Many morphemes in this type may be regarded as affixes

c Isolated compounds

Unlike the coordinate and subordinate compounds, isolated compounds do notform systems Such compounds as mè nheo (bother with requests), thiêu thân(May fly), tai hồng (a part of bicycle) belong to the isolated type of compounds

Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology

2.1 The similarities

 First, both English morphemes and Vietnamese morphemes are the smallestunit of language and can not be divided into smaller parts

They both have affix (prefix and suffix)

E.g.: Some Vietnamese affix

Prefixes

khả- "ability" khả kính "satisfactory "respectable" khả quan

Phi- "not" Phi nghĩa "unethical" phi chính phủ "non-governmental"

Siêu- "better”, “superior" Siêu siêu đẳng "outstanding" thị "supermarket"

thứ- ordinal (added to numerals) thứ thứ bốn mươi ba "forty-third" mười "tenth",

lão- familiar (added to surnames)lão Thinh "ol’ Thinh, good old Thinh" (lão- + Thinh surname)

Suffixes

-gia "profession" chính trị gia "politician" (chính trị "politics" + -gia), khoa học gia "scientist" (khoa học "science" + -gia)

-giả agentive tác giả "author" (tác "to create" + -giả), học giả "scholar" (học "to learn" + -giả)

-học "field of study" ngôn ngữ học "linguistics" (ngôn ngữ "language" + -học), động vật học "zoology" (động vật "animal" + -học) -sĩ "expert" hoạ sĩ "artist" (hoạ "to draw" + -sĩ), văn sĩ "writer" (văn "literature" + -sĩ)

-viên agentive quan sát viên "observer" (quan sát "to observe" + -viên)

Some English affix:

Suffix meaning example

-ship State, condition, skill, art Friendship, Scholarship

-tion (-sion) Action, state or result Devotion, Solution, Decision

-ance Naming an act, state,

-ful

-ly full of, abounding in characteristic of Hopeful, Useful,Manly, fatherly, daily, weakly

-fy Naming action (make, form

Un, dis-, non-,

mis-, in- (ill-, im-,

ir-)

negation Unlucky, dishonest, nonsense,

misunderstand, incorrect, illegal, impolite, irregular

Un-, dis-, re- Reversal or repetition Unlock, disconnect, redo, retell, replay

Pre-, post-, fore-,

over-, super- Space and time relationship Prewar, postwar, foresee, oversleep, supermarket

 Second, some morphemes in the 2 language can increase or decrease theintensity of verbs, adjectives…

E.g.:

The reduplication increasing intensity:

 đau → đau điếng: hurt → agony

 mạnh → mạnh mẽ: strong → powerful

 rực → rực rỡ: flaring → blazing

The reduplication decreasing intensity:

 nhẹ → nhè nhẹ: soft → mild (less)

 xinh → xinh xinh: pretty → cute

 đỏ → đo đỏ: red → reddish

 xanh → xanh xanh: blue/green → bluish/ greenish

 In addition, both of them can change the part of speeds of somewords.

E.g.: English: work  worker, working, hardworking

Vietnamese: học  học hành, học vấn, học giả, học thuyết, hoá học, etc

E.g.: Vietnamese: ‘quên, quên lãng, quên bẵng, quên béng, khó quên

English: forget, forgetful, forgetfulness, unforgettable

 Next, Vietnamese has the following tonal alternations (or tonal ablaut) which are used grammatically that English don’t have

tone alternation

đây "here" đấy "there" (ngang tone-sắc tone)

bây giờ "now" bấy giờ "then" (ngang tone-sắc tone)

kia "the other" kìa "yonder" (ngang tone-huyền tone)

It leads to the difference when forming a Reduplicant

 bự "be big" > bứ bự "be very big" (base: bự, initial reduplicant: bứ-)

 khẳn "fetid" > khăn khẳn "stinking" (base: khẳn, initial

reduplicant/affix: khăn-)

 vàng " yellow" > vàng vàng "yellowish"

 vui "be joyful" > vui vui "jovial, fun,merry"

 nói "to talk" > nói nói "to keep talking and talking”

 Moreover, English morpheme is not as concrete as Vietnamesemorpheme

In English sometimes when we pronounce some sounds are lost and some arecombined but it doesn’t happen with Vietnamese

E.g.: unforgettable: /'ʌnfə'getəbl/

We can NOT read all morphemes ‘un’/forget’/able/ clearly and separately butwith Vietnamese: ‘không / thể/ quên /được’ we can read each morphemeclearly and separately

 One more difference is that: Vietnamese still do not have thephenomenon called ‘Elision ’

It is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or awhole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for thespeaker to pronounce Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect

Elision is normally unintentional, but it may be deliberate The result may beimpressionistically described as "slurred" or "muted."

E.g.: "leave (it)" : /li:v vit/; "Middle (East)", /midl li:st/, or "LA" (LosAngeles) : /el lei/; "MA" (Master of Arts), /em mei/

Other while in Vietnamese we can not do like that

E.g.: "cảm ơn", can not be read: "cảm mơn", "im ắng", can not be: "immắng"

II.3 Some nuisances and suggestions

2.3.1 The deep understanding of morpheme can help you become a good editor or translator because you can analyze words to understand it even without dictionary

The morpheme-based approach is the first one that beginners to morphologyusually think of, and which laymen tend to find the most obvious This is so tosuch an extent that very often beginners think that morphemes are aninevitable, fundamental notion of morphology, and many five-minuteexplanations of morphology are, in fact, five-minute explanations ofmorpheme-based morphology This is, however, not so The fundamental idea

of morphology is that the words of a language are related to each other bydifferent kinds of rules Analyzing words as sequences of morphemes is onehelpful ways

Applying a strictly morpheme-based model quickly leads to complicationswhen one tries to analyze many forms of allomorphy For example, the worddogs is easily broken into the root dog and the plural morpheme -s The sameanalysis is straightforward for oxen, assuming the stem ox and a suppressiveplural morpheme -en How then would the same analysis "split up" the wordgeese into a root and a plural morpheme? In the same manner, how to splitsome words like HEN, DUCK, APPLE , MANGO , CHAIR, HOUSESTREET, BIRD ,CAR,SHEEP ?

Theorists wishing to maintain a strict morpheme-based approach often preservethe idea in cases like these by saying that geese are goose followed by a nullmorpheme (a morpheme that has no phonological content), and that the vowelchange in the stem is a morph phonological rule Also, morpheme-basedanalyses commonly posit null morphemes even in the absence of anyallomorphy For example, if the plural noun “dogs” is analyzed as a root dogfollowed by a plural morpheme -s, then one might analyze the singular dog asthe root dog followed by a null morpheme for the singular

Therefore, if you have deep understanding about morpheme you will neversplit up the word ‘dog’ into smaller piece because it is impossible

Another trouble is how to understand the word you do not know?

First, you have to read all document related to that word

Second, you need to analyze that word But how to do that? The answer is that