GENERAL LINGUSTICS SEM 3 PBI UTY 13 Oktober 2015

Questions on Morphology!
Answer these questions:
1. What is 'morphology'?
2. Why do we need to study morphology?
3. What is morpheme?
4. How many kinds of morphemes are there?

A. Morphology
The second level of lingistic study is Morphology? Morphology is the study of morpheme? What is 'morpheme' then? When people use a language they do it for certain purposes: delivering ideas or meaning. Ask yourself: when you use a language, do you do it to entertain other people with your language like a bird singing? or to let other people know that are not dumb? None of them. You use a language to mean something, to make other people know what you have in mind with your language, the meaning. That's whay language is meaningful and the sound of the language should be meaningful. Any single part of a language which has meaning is called a morpheme.

B. 2 Kinds of Morphemes
Can you find different meaning between these pair of words?
a. book and books, b. child and children, c. go and goes, d. come and coming, e. child and childish
Do the pairs have different or the same meanings? what makes it different in a, b, c, d, and e?
-s in 'books' change the number of the books. When without '-s' it's singular (only one). It also happens to '-ren' in children. Can you give the reasoning for c, d, and e? After you give the reasonings, try to answer these questions?
Can you find the '-s', '-en', '-es', '-ing', and '-ish' stand by themselves and NOT bound to other morphemes in the real use of English? The answer is NO. Therefore, these kind of morpheme is called a bound morpheme.
On the other hand, morphemes like 'book', 'child', 'go', and 'come' can be easily found in the real use of English. They can stand by themselves. That 's why they are named free morphemes.


Task One. Identify the number and kinds of morphemes from the following phrases.
1. The red car hit a tree.
2. The birds flew in flocks to the south.
3. The aeroplane landed safely in the airport.
4. Your friends may be sick at their poor boarding houses.
5. Some people are not able to remember their own children's names.

Good luck!