戴炜栋英语语言学概论Chapter 3.pptVIP

Chapter 3 Morphology What is morphology ? Morphology studies how the sounds are arranged and combined to form words. 1) the internal structure of words 2) rules for word formation Open class and closed class Open class words (content words): nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Closed class words (“grammatical” or “functional” words ): conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. Morpheme (词素) — the minimal units of meaning Morpheme: the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning or function. Every word in every language is composed of one or more morphemes.