Morphological structure of complex words

If two or more morphemes combine to form a word, a morphological structure is created.

The structure reflects the way morphemes are related to each other (the order in which they have been combined). It can be represented by bracketing or by tree diagrams.

Examples:

untouchable destabilize

[ un [ [ touch ] able ] ] [ de [ [ stabil ] ize ] ] d ]

touch – root,base (V) stabil - root,base (Adj)

[touch + able] - base (Adj) stabil+ize - base (V)

[ de [stabil + ize]] - base,stem (V)

root – a free morpheme (or free morpheme combination in compounds), the “core” of the word

base – that part of a word to which an affix is added (derivational or inflectional)

stem - that part of a word to which inflectional affix is added

inter+ nation +al+ism+s

[ [ [ inter + [ nation + al ] ] + ism ] + s ]

N

1. nation – root, base (N)

2. [nation+al.] - base (Adj)

3. [inter+ [nation+al]] - base (Adj)

4. [[inter+ [nation+al]] + ism] - stem, base

The structure given above is the correct structure. The structure is correct only if

each internal structure contained within a pair of brackets is a word in English.

Consider the alternative, incorrect analyses:

[[[[ inter+nation ]+al]+ism]+s] -- * internation is not an English word

[ [ de+stabil ]+ize] -- * destabil is not an English word

[[ un + touch ] able] -- *untouch is not an English word

The way complex words are analyzed may change in time. The word hamburger when it was introduced into English was understood as:

hamburg (root) + er (derivational affix) (from the German city of Hamburg)

It was later reanalyzed as:

ham + burger (compound root)

This gave rise to new wordssuch as cheese+burger, fish+burger etc