Everything is Possible: Makalah Morphology : Roots, Basses, and Affixes

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Morphology is the study of word structure and word formation. A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language that carries meaning.[1]

Then, Morphology is a field of linguistics study that focused on the formation of words in a language. Morphology, the study of the structure and form of words in language or a language, include: inflection, derivation, and the formation of compounds. At the basic level, words are made of “morphemes”. These are the smallest units of meaning: roots and affixes (prefixes and suffixes).

A base is the any structure to which an affix may be added. A base can be a plain root. For example, switch, bottle, vanilla. A base can also consist of a root plus one or more affixes (corny, ex-husband). That we knew, not all affixes are lexical- some are grammatical. [2]

B. Problem Formulation

Related to the background explanation, the writer formulated the question as following:

1. What is the meaning of roots?

2. What is the meaning basses?

3. What is the meaning of affixes?

C. Purpose of Study

1. To get a lot information about roots.

2. To get a lot information about basses.

3. To get a lot information about affixes.

4. To complete the task of studying process in Morphology subject.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Roots, Basses, and Affixes

1. Roots

According to Francis Katamba A root is the irreducible core of a word, with absolutely nothing else attached to it. It is the part that is always present, possibly with some modification, in the various manifestations of a lexeme. For example, walk is a root and it appears in the set of word-forms that instantiate the lexeme WALK such as walk, walks, walking and walked. The only situation where this is not true is when suppletion takes place. In that case, word-forms that represent the same morpheme do not share a common root morpheme.[3]

Complex words consist of a root and one or more affixes. A root is a content morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts. Seen another way, the root is what's left when all prefixes and suffixes have been removed. Some examples are paint in painter, read in reread, and ling in linguistic. A root may or may not be a standalone word (ling isn't). Root words can be combined with prefixes and suffixes to create new words. In this basic course, the words "root" and "stem" are used interchangeably because, while not identical, they are linguistically similar in meaning. [4]

Roots	Stem
Non-affix lexical content morphemes that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts (ex.) cran (as in cranberry), act, beauty, system, etc. · Free Root Morpheme: run bottle, phone, etc. Bound Root Morpheme: receive, remit, uncouth, nonchalant, etc.	When a root morpheme is combined with affix morphemes, it forms a stem. Other affixes can be added to a stem to form a more complex stem.

2. Basses

A base is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any kind can be added. The affixes attached to a base may be inflectional affixes selected for syntactic reasons or derivational affixes which alter the meaning or grammatical category of the base. An unadorned root like boy can be a base since it can have attached to it inflectional affixes like -s to form the plural boys or derivational affixes like -ish to tum the noun boy into the adjective boyish. In other words, all roots are bases. Bases are called stems only in the context of inflectional morphology. Example: faith, faithful, booksho.[5]

3. Affixes (Prefixes, Suffixes, Infixes, And Circumfixes)

Affixes are bound morphemes (meaning they cannot stand alone like words can) that we add to free morphemes to create new words. This is the four kinds of affixes with examples from languages of the world.

Prefixes	Suffixes	infixes	Circumfixes
Bound morphemes which occur only before other morphemes. Examples: un- (uncover, undo) dis-(displeased, disconnect), pre- (predetermine, prejudge)	Bound morphemes which occur following other morphemes. Examples: -er (singer, performer) -ist (typist, pianist) -ly (manly, friendly)	Bound morphemes which are inserted into other morphemes.	Bound morphemes that are attached to a root or stem morpheme both initially and finally.

a. Prefixes

Morphemes are the minimal units of meaning in all languages, and many languages have prefixes and suffixes. But languages may differ in how they deploy their morphemes. A morpheme that is a prefix in one language may be a suffix in another language.

Prefix is a letter or group of letters attached to the beginning of word that party indicates its meaning. For example, the word prefix itself begins with a prefix-pre, with generally means before. Understanding of the common prefixes can help deduce the meaning of new words that we encounter. However, some of prefixes (such as in-) have more than one meaning. Agusmortoyo et al (2012: 3-4)

Prefix	Meaning	Example
a, an	Without	Amoral
Ante	Before	Antecedent
Anti	Against	Anticlimax
Auto	Self	Autopilot
Circum	Around	Circumvent
Co	with	Copilot
Com Con	with	Companion, contact
Contra	Against	Contradict
De	Off, away from	Devalue
Dis	Not	Disappear

b. Sufixes

Suffix is a letter or a group of letters attached to the end of a word to form a new word or to alter the grammatical function of the original word. For example, the verb read can be made into the noun reader by adding the suffix –er; read can be made into the adjective by adding the suffix – able.

Suffix	Meaning	Example
-acy	State or quality	Privacy
-al	Act or process of	Refusal
-ance, ence	State or quality of	Maintenance, eminence
-dom	Place or state of being	Freedom, kingdom
-er, -or	One who	Trainer, protector
-ism	Doctrine, belief	Communism
-ist	One who	Chemist
Ity,-ty	Quality of	Veracity
-ment	Condition of	Argument
-ness	State of being	Heaviness
-ship	Position held	Fellowship
-sion, -tion	State of being	Concession, transition

c. Infixes

Some languages also have infixes, morphemes that are inserted into other morphemes. An infix is an affix inserted into the root itself. Infixes are very common in Semitic language like Arabic and Hebrew. But infixing is somewhere rare in English. Slat and Taylor (1978) suggest that the only infix that occurs in English morphology is /-n-/ which is inserted before the last consonant of the root in a few words of Latin origin, on what appears to be an arbitrary basis.

In fact, in fixation of sorts still happens in contemporary English. Example:

Kalamazu (places name) → Kalama-goddam-zoo

Instantiate (verb) → in-fuckin-stantiate

Kangaroo → kanga-bloody-roo

Impossible → in-fuckin-possible

Guarantee → guaran-friggin-tee

As you can see, in present-day English in fixation, not of an affix morpheme but of an entire word (which may have more than one morpheme, blood-y, fuck-ing) is actively used to form words. Curiously, this infixation is virtually restricted to inserting expletives into words in expressive language that one would probably not use in polite company.

BontocIgorot, spoken in the Philippines, uses infixes, as illustrated by the following:

Noun/Adjective		Verb
Fikas	"strong"	Fumikas	"to be strong"
Kilad	"red"	Kumilad	"to be red"
Ngitad	"dark"	Ngumitad	"to be dark"

We have infixes in English, too, but they tend to be infixed full-word obscenities into another word, usually into adjectives or adverbs. The most common infix in America is the word firkin' and all the euphemisms for it, such as friggin', freakin', flippin', and bloody (and its euphemism, bloomin', British), as in un + fuckin' + believable and fan + funckin' + tastic, I'm not o + fuckin' + kay(in the song, "I'm not Okay" by the group My Chemical Romance.)

d. Circumfuses

Some languages have circumfuses, morphemes that are attached to a base morpheme both initially and finally. In Chickasaw, a Muskogean language spoken in Oklahoma, the negative is formed with both a prefix ik- and the suffix -o. The final vowel of the affirmative is dropped before the negative suffix is added. [6]

Examples of this circumfixing are:

Affirmative		Negative
Chokma	"his is good"	ik + chokm + o	"he isn't good"
Lakna	"it is yellow"	ik + lakn + o	"it isn't yellow"

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion

A root is a content morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts. Seen another way, the root is what's left when all prefixes and suffixes have been removed.

A base is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any kind can be added. Bases are called stems only in the context of inflectional morphology.

Affixes are bound morphemes (meaning they cannot stand alone like words can) that we add to free morphemes to create new words. Affixes are Prefixes, Suffixes, Infixes, And Circum.