An Introduction to English Morphology

The experience of having taught English language and morphology - syntax in particular - for more than seven years convinced the author that students of linguistics and translation mostly need a solid grounding in the course of morphology and syntax. Once they have a basic understanding of these two important areas, they have little trouble mastering English language as a whole. Hence, both morphology and syntax are important parts of linguistic knowledge and constitute a component of student's mental grammar.
Of Course, the more courses are required of students within their discipline, the more they can benefit from the fields inside their major. Such factors often help students develop a positive attitude towards linguistics to be sensitized to the morphological and syntactic system of the language while being exposed to both morphology and syntax, and especially in an unfamiliar area.
Obviously, an introductory book such as this has several limitations. First, there are entire subbranches of morphology and syntax that are not included. In terms of content, this book delimits both its scope and audience by shedding new light on a subject the problems and obscurities of which look inexhaustible.
A book of this kind is therefore an attempt to, on the one hand, to make morphology and syntax - which usually appear to be incredible complicated at first glance - easier and, on the other hand, keep the standard high so that even postgraduate students can benefit from it; because the author strongly believes that students learn best by "doing" exercises, and, to this end,he has added dozens of practice exercises. In general, these require more research or analysis beyond what can be accomplished within a single classroom period. These exploratory exercises can also form the basis for short papers. Therefore, the book can be of immense help not only to students of linguistics and translation, but also to professors of linguistics and translation and research supervisors as well as advisors around the globe and in the Arab world in particular.

Autorentext
Ali Albashir Mohammed Al-Haj was born in Sudan/ Berber in June 1966. He graduated from Yemen University (1995) (Sanaa), and University of Khartoum (2000) and obtained a Bachelor of Arts (English), Postgraduate diploma (English), and M.A. in English from University of Khartoum (2000) in English literature and a PhD in English literature (2003), PhD in translation, Omdurman Islamic University 2014. Nowadays, Ali is working as associate professor at Jazan University/ Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The author has published 20 books and 15 Articles in national and international journals. He is a member of the Editing Board of Marco Institute Journals, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online), scholarlink journals and he is also a supervisor of four PhD theses in English language.

Klappentext

The experience of having taught English language and morphology syntax in particular for more than seven years convinced the author that students of linguistics and translation mostly need a solid grounding in the course of morphology and syntax. Once they have a basic understanding of these two important areas, they have little trouble mastering English language as a whole. Hence, both morphology and syntax are important parts of linguistic knowledge and constitute a component of student's mental grammar. Of Course, the more courses are required of students within their discipline, the more they can benefit from the fields inside their major. Such factors often help students develop a positive attitude towards linguistics to be sensitized to the morphological and syntactic system of the language while being exposed to both morphology and syntax, and especially in an unfamiliar area. Obviously, an introductory book such as this has several limitations. First, there are entire subbranches of morphology and syntax that are not included. In terms of content, this book delimits both its scope and audience by shedding new light on a subject the problems and obscurities of which look inexhaustible. Therefore, a book of this kind is an attempt to, on the one hand, to make morphology and syntax which usually appear to be incredible complicated at first glance easier and, on the other hand, keep the standard high so that even postgraduate students can benefit from it; because the author strongly believes that students learn best by doing exercises, and, to this end,he has added dozens of practice exercises. In general, these require more research or analysis beyond what can be accomplished within a single classroom period. These exploratory exercises can also form the basis for short papers. Therefore, the book can be of immense help not only to students of linguistics and translation, but also to professors of linguistics and translation and research supervisors as well as advisors around the globe and in the Arab world in particular.

Leseprobe
'Text sample:
CHAPTER TWO: INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES & DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES:"He that understands morphology in one language understands it in the other as far as the essential properties of morphology are concerned." - Roger Bacon (1991:23).
2.1 Defining Inflection and Derivation:
Inflectional morphology is concerned with syntactically driven word-formation. Fittingly, it deals with syntactically determined affixation processes while derivational morphology is used to create lexical items.
Obviously, by definition, both derivational and inflectional morphemes are bound forms and are called affixes. When they are attached to other morphemes they change the meaning or the grammatical function of the word in some way, just seen; when added to the beginning of a word or morpheme they called prefixes, and when added to the end of a word or morpheme they are called suffixes. For example, unpremeditatedly has two prefixes (one added to the front of the other and two suffixes (one added to the end of the other) , all attached to the word meditate. (Language Files: 50).
2.2 Inflectional and Derivational Affixes: Historical & Critical Background:
All inflectional affixes are native to English (i.e., they have been part of English since Old English was spoken - around A.D 500-1000). On the other hand, many (but not all) derivational affixes are borrowings from other languages, particularly Latin and Greek. For example, {ize} is borrowed from ;{ dis},{de},and{re} are borrowed from Greek through Latin . .................
2.3 Characteristics of Derivational Morphemes:
S.H.Lou(1990:103) listed the following four characteristics of derivational morphemes :

1. Change of meaning or of speech, e.g.{-ment} forms noun, such as judgment, from verbs, such as judge.
2. Typically indicate semantic relations within the word, e.g., the morpheme {- ful] in painful with no particular connection with any other morpheme beyond the word painful.
3. Typically occur with only some members of a class of morpheme, e.g., the suffix {-hood} occurs with just a few nouns such as brother, neighbor, and knight, but not with most others, e.g., friend, daughter, candle, etc.
4. Typically occur before inflectional suffixes, e.g., in chillier, the derivational suffix {-Y} comes before the inflectional.
   2.4 Characteristics of Inflectional Morphemes:
   S.H.Lou (1990:102) listed the following four characteristics of Inflectional morphemes :-
5. Do not change meaning or part of speech, e.g., big and bigger are both adjectives.
6. Typically indicate syntactic or semantic relations between different words in a sentence, e.g., the present tense morpheme [-s} in waits shows agreement with the subject of the verb (both are third person singular).
7. Typically occur with all members of some large class of morphemes, e.g., the plural morpheme {-s} occurs with most nouns…