What is Morphology?
Morphology is the study of word structure. Morphology describes how words are formed from morphemes, the smallest unit of meaning in a word (Curzan & Adams, 2012). A morpheme may be as short as one letter, such as the letter "s," which can add plurality to a word. Likewise, a morpheme can consist of letter combinations that contain meaning, such as prefixes (e.g., photo-) and suffixes (e.g., -ed). Morphemes can be manipulated to create new words and/or change a word's meaning.
There are two classes of morphemes: open and closed (Curzan & Adams, 2012). Closed-class morphemes tend to not change form, regardless of how they are used in a sentence (e.g., "the" never changes). This class of morphemes includes conjunctions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs (e.g., "may"), determiners (e.g., "the"), prepositions (e.g., "in"), and inflectional suffixes (e.g., -s) (Curzan & Adams, 2012). They are critical for sentence-level meaning. Conversely, open-class morphemes are those that adapt to new grammatical and semantic demands (e.g., nouns, adjectives, and adverbs) (Curzan & Adams, 2012). New words can be created and added to this category by using several methods. These include (Curzan & Adams, 2012):
In addition to these two classes, morphemes can be classified as free or as bound (Curzan & Adams, 2012) Free morphemes are those that can stand on their own (e.g., "child"). Bound morphemes must be attached to other words or morphemes (i.e., affixes), which include prefixes (e.g., un- in unusual) and suffixes (e.g., -ish in childish). There are two classes of bound morphemes: inflectional and derivational (Curzan & Adams, 2012). Inflectional morphemes (e.g., plural -s) change the meaning of words without changing their part of speech (e.g., "blog" remains a noun even if -s is added, "blogs"). Conversely, derivational morphemes (e.g., -er) do change a word's part of speech (e.g., "uptalk" (verb) + -er = "uptalker" (noun)).
There are two classes of morphemes: open and closed (Curzan & Adams, 2012). Closed-class morphemes tend to not change form, regardless of how they are used in a sentence (e.g., "the" never changes). This class of morphemes includes conjunctions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs (e.g., "may"), determiners (e.g., "the"), prepositions (e.g., "in"), and inflectional suffixes (e.g., -s) (Curzan & Adams, 2012). They are critical for sentence-level meaning. Conversely, open-class morphemes are those that adapt to new grammatical and semantic demands (e.g., nouns, adjectives, and adverbs) (Curzan & Adams, 2012). New words can be created and added to this category by using several methods. These include (Curzan & Adams, 2012):
- Combining- creating compound words, as well as words with affixes (e.g., preschool)
- Shortening- shortening words to make new words. Examples include alphabetism (e.g., URL for Universal Resource Locator), acronymy (e.g., shortened to initials and then pronounced like a word, ROM), clipping (e.g., scanner for optical scanner), and backformation (e.g., remove an affix, beg from beggar).
- Blending- joining two or more words, one of which has been clipped (e.g., smoke + fog = smog).
- Shifting- changing from one part of speech to another (e.g., blog (noun) to blog (verb))
- Reduplication- repeating a morpheme (e.g., knock-knock)
- Borrowing- adopting words from different languages (e.g., burrito from Spanish)
In addition to these two classes, morphemes can be classified as free or as bound (Curzan & Adams, 2012) Free morphemes are those that can stand on their own (e.g., "child"). Bound morphemes must be attached to other words or morphemes (i.e., affixes), which include prefixes (e.g., un- in unusual) and suffixes (e.g., -ish in childish). There are two classes of bound morphemes: inflectional and derivational (Curzan & Adams, 2012). Inflectional morphemes (e.g., plural -s) change the meaning of words without changing their part of speech (e.g., "blog" remains a noun even if -s is added, "blogs"). Conversely, derivational morphemes (e.g., -er) do change a word's part of speech (e.g., "uptalk" (verb) + -er = "uptalker" (noun)).
Why is Morphology Important For ELL Students to Understand?
Morphological knowledge influences listening, spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension (Hong Xu, 2010):
- Knowledge of morphemes makes decoding easier by allowing students to break words into recognizable segments to speed their decoding skills.
- Large words, whether written and spoken, can be more easily understood by simply breaking them down into smaller morphemes.
- Morphology assists greatly in spelling knowledge development by allowing students to combine the knowledge of root word spellings with common affix spellings.
- It is estimated that a well-prepared and privileged seventeen year-old will have learned over 80,000 words. This means that the average student must learn 14 words per day to achieve this level. ELL's typically lag their peers in terms of their acquired vocabulary. Morphological knowledge provides students with the tools they need in order to acquire vocabulary words more quickly, and to comprehend complex content vocabulary that is presented in text.
Challenges for ELLs.
The morphology challenges for ELLs vary across different native languages. For example, in Spanish, verbs, adjectives, nouns, and and articles are inflected. In particular, Spanish verbs are considerably inflected, providing information about gender, tense, and number (Hong Xu, 2010). Subsequently, these students may apply their native language's strategy to represent gender, tense, and number by inappropriately adding additional letters to English words. Regardless of the native language, rules governing English morphology that are nonexistent in some native languages and not consistent across all the words will be hard for most ELLs to master. These rules include (Hong Xu, 2010):
(1) rules about changes in spelling and pronunciation of new words formed by suffixes added to a base word
(2) rules about adding inflectional morphemes (e.g., plurals)
(3) rules about change in pronunciation of the suffix -ed (e.g., worked, planned)
(4) the change in irregular verb tense (e.g., present tense=go, past tense=went)
(5) comparatives and superlatives (e.g., nice, nicer, nicest)
(1) rules about changes in spelling and pronunciation of new words formed by suffixes added to a base word
(2) rules about adding inflectional morphemes (e.g., plurals)
(3) rules about change in pronunciation of the suffix -ed (e.g., worked, planned)
(4) the change in irregular verb tense (e.g., present tense=go, past tense=went)
(5) comparatives and superlatives (e.g., nice, nicer, nicest)
Which SOL Goals May Be Influenced By Limited English Morphological Knowledge?
Oral Language
SOL Objective 1- The student will demonstrate an understanding of oral language structures.
SOL Objective 7- The student will expand vocabulary when reading.
SOL Objective 1- The student will demonstrate an understanding of oral language structures.
- Use correct verb tenses in oral communication.
- Add or delete phonemes (sounds) to make words.
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words at the syllable level.
SOL Objective 7- The student will expand vocabulary when reading.
- Use knowledge of prefixes and suffixes.
What Difficulties May Teachers Observe?
Depending on a students native language's morphological rules, a teacher may observe students having difficulty conjugating verb tenses (SOL Objective 1). For example, students native language does not show tense by adding a suffix to the word (e.g., past tense -ed), then these students may fail to do so in English. Additionally, if students have no background knowledge in the English morphemes, teachers may observe that students have difficulty identifying and manipulating the different morphemes in a word (SOL Objectives 4 & 7).
Strategies Teachers Can Use to Help Their ELLs Acquire English Morphological Rules.
Not only will teaching ELLs English's rules of morphology assist them in meeting the above stated goals, they should aid them in meeting their other SOL goals as well. Having English morphological knowledge provides ELLs (and native speaking students) a means to break down words into their subordinate parts in order to derive meaning. This provides ELLs the means to acquire new vocabulary (which would benefit SOL Objective 2- The student will expand understanding and use of word meanings), helps them to decode difficult words (which would benefit SOL Objectives 3 and 8 that focus on both listening and reading comprehension), and assists with their writing/spelling (which is prioritized in SOL Objective 12).
Suggested strategies include:
Suggested strategies include:
- Know and teach the "secrets" of English morphology. Explicitly teach morphemes (both closed/open and bound/unbound), root words, word families, and how new words are formed. Encourage students to experiment with words and create new ones.
- Focus on explicitly teaching common prefixes and suffixes. Some of the most common prefixes and suffixes in the English language can be found here.
- Create and maintain a word wall. When introducing new content and process (e.g., explain or analyze) words to the class, spend time explaining the morphology of the word and its meaning to the class. Then put the word on a wall that is visible to all students. This wall will help remind, as well as reinforce, ELL understanding and vocabulary.
- Create and use morphology trees to analyze complex words. Make it clear that words are constructed hierarchically and that each piece connects together at different times. For example, two affixes are not going to attach to a root at the same time. Instead, one is going to attache first, then the other.
- Know the most challenging parts of English morphology and be prepared to address them in class. For example, irregular morphology needs to be directly memorized (e.g., swim/swam/swum), comparatives and superlatives are difficult (e.g., nice, nicer, nicest), tenses can be difficult for students with certain native languages.
- It is important to teach the meaning of morphemes within the context of a sentence. It is important to teach morphemes across the content-area classes with attention given to the word's internal structure and meaning within the context of a sentence. Instruction should include not only the spelling, but also the role the morpheme has in changing the meaning of the word.
- Compare prefixes and suffixes in the students native language to those in English. Some prefixes and suffixes in other languages are similar to those in English (e.g., -tion in English, and -cion in Spanish). By bringing attention to these similarities, teachers can help their students with word comprehension.
- Have students explore making words using the methods stated earlier. This activity will provide students opportunities to practice working with and identifying different English morphemes.
Activities That Can Be Used In The Classroom To Promote English Morphological Knowledge.
- Flipbook (TPT, 2014)- This is a great resource that students can create in a journal which will help them learn and remember their prefixes and suffixes.
- Compound Words Foldable (TC, 2012)- helps with recognizing and writing compound words.
- Identify Base and Affix- This activity uses a list of words, of which some are simple root words while others have prefixes, suffixes, or both. Students follow guiding instructions that tell them to circle the root words, underline the prefixes and double underline the suffixes.
- Find The Affix- The students will look for prefixes or suffixes as they read a passage from a text. Teachers can decide which affix the students should be looking for.
- Add The Affix- The teacher will give the students a list of root words and the students will be allowed to either choose from a word bank of affixes, or from memory in order to make new words.