MORPHOLOGY

WORD
(Inflectional Suffixes and Homophone of Inflectional Suffixes) Lecturer: Ulfatmi azlan, S.S., M.A

Arrange by: Siti Humairoh Soffia Molina Citra Widya Astuti ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF TARBIYAH FACULTY THE STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC STUDY SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN JAMBI

INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES AND HOMOPHONE OF INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES

A. INTRODUCTION In linguistics, a suffix (also sometimes called a postfix or ending) is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes) or lexical information (derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence1. Inflectional changes grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. Derivational gives related word different meanings and/or show that they belong to different word classes. Homophones (from the Greek words homos, meaning 'the same' and phone, meaning 'sound') are words which are pronounced the same, but which have different spellings and meanings. B. INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of original word. So in everyday I walked to school and everyday I walked to school, the words walk and walked have the same basic meaning. In I have one car and I have two cars, the basic meaning of the words car and cars are exactly the same. In these cases, the suffix is added simply for grammatical correctness. Inflectional morphemes: vary (or "inflect") the form of words in order to express grammatical features, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. Thus

Boy and boys, for example, are two different forms of the "same" word; the choice between them, singular vs. plural, is a matter of grammar and thus the business of inflectional morphology. (Crystal, p. 90.) Inflectional Morphemes generally: 1) Do not change basic meaning or part of speech, e.g., big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives. 2) Express grammatically-required features or indicate relations between different words in the sentence. Thus in Lee love-s Kim: -s marks the 3rd person singular present form of the verb, and also relates it to the 3rd singular subject Lee. 3) Are productive. Inflectional morphemes typically combine freely with all members of some large class of morphemes, with predictable effects on usage/meaning. Thus the plural morpheme can be combined with nearly any noun, usually in the same form, and usually with the same effect on meaning. 4) Occur outside any derivational morphemes. Thus in ration-al-iz-ation-s the final -s is inflectional, and appears at the very end of the word, outside the derivational morphemes -al, -iz, -ation. example example original word suffixed word dog ox dogs oxen he likes he worked he has worked he has eaten he is sleeping

suffix grammatical change -s -en -s -ed -en -ing plural plural (irregular)

3rd person singular present like past tense past participle past participle (irregular) continuous/progressive work eat sleep

-er -est s nt2

comparative superlative possessive Negative

big big adam Do

bigger the biggest Adams apple Dont

Notice how most of them give a relatively unambiguous clue to the word class of the word containing them. s marks a noun as plural, but a present tense verb as (third person) singular: e.g. The books look interesting but The book looks interesting; s changes to es after a hissing sound (e.g. hiss - hisses) ed marks a verb as either a past tense or a past participle: e.g. She walked or She has walked. ing marks a verb as a present participle: e.g. She was walking. er marks an adjective or adverb as comparative: e.g. quicker, sooner. est marks an adjective or adverb as superlative: e.g. quickest, soonest.

C. HOMOPHONE OF INFLECTIOAL SUFFIXES What are homophones? They are morphemes of identical pronunciation but with distinct meaning. Examples: meat /mi:t/ meet /mi:t/ See /si:/ sea /si:/

Zwicky, Arnold M.; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1983), "Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n't", Language (Language, Vol. 59, No. 3) 59 (3): 502513

Homophones of inflectional suffixes are morphemes of identical pronunciation of some words. It is sometime difficult to differentiate between inflectional suffixes and derivational suffixes, even inflectional it self. Examples: She walks to school (s means third person singular) There are some books (s means plural noun) Adams aplle (s means possessive)

Speaker (doer) Better (comparative) Chatter (repetation)

Making money is my obsession (gerund) Anne was cleaning the bathroom (present participle)

Jhon has visited his mom (past participle) The departed passengers have been worried about their flight (adjective)

REFERRENCE

Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English wordformation: A synchronic-diachronic approach. Munich: Beck McCharty, Andrew Carstairs. 2002. An introduction to English Morphology. Edinburg University: Great Britain Oxford University. 2008. Oxford Learners Pocke dictionary. Oxford: London
Stageberg, Norman C. and Dallin D. Oaks. 2000. An Introductory English Grammar, Henle, Boston: USA Zwicky, Arnold M.; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1983), "Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n't", Language (Language, Vol. 59, No. 3)

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