From those examples above, word housework consists of two free morphemes, house and work. And also, word aircraft consists of two free morphemes air and craft.
Each free morpheme has meaning.
2.2.2 Words
Linguists often have a problem with word in linguistics. The claim that words have structure might come as a surprise because normally speakers think of words as
indivisible units of meaning. This is probably due to the fact that many words are morphologically simple. For example, the, fierce, desk, eat, boot, at, fee, mosquito, etc,
cannot be divided up into smaller units that are themselves meaningful. It is impossible to say what the –quito part of mosquito or the –erce part of fierce means.
But very many English words are morphologically complex. They can be broken down into smaller units that are meaningful. This is true of words like desk-s and boot-s,
for instance, where desk refers to one piece of furniture and boot refers to one item of footwear, while in both cases the –s serves the grammatical function of indicating the
plurality. Words are used for different purposes. They, in other words, perform a variety of
functions. They, sometimes, name of persons, places and things an on certain occasions, they are used I place of nouns or they describe things, persons, or places. Words are also
used to describe actions, show relationships and to combine words or sentences. Words may also be used to modify a verb, and adjective or another adverb and to express some
sudden feeling. They are classified into eight kinds on account of their functions Murthy 1998:5. They are:
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Noun
Noun is a word used to name a person, place, thing, an idea or a quality of mind. Example:
- Muhammad Ali is a boxer of legendary. - Indonesia is archipelagic country.
- Newspaper is useful for society. In the first sentence, Muhammad Ali is the name of a person.
In the second, Indonesia is the name of a place or country. In the third, Newspaper is the name of thing.
Adjective
Adjective is a word used to describe or qualify nouns. Example: - I read a detective comic.
- Alex is a handsome boy. The word ‘detective’ tells about the comic and word ‘handsome’ tells us
something about boy.
Pronoun Pronoun is a word used in place of nouns. Example:
- Alex is my friend. He is very handsome. - I visited Jakarta. This is the capital of Indonesia.
The Italicized words ‘he’ and ‘this’ are pronouns because they stand for persons or things. ‘He’ stands for Alex and ‘this’ stands for Indonesia.
Verb
Verb is a word used to express the actions, condition or existence. Example:
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- I
wait for Harry. -
My sister
is sick. -
There are some books on the table.
The word ‘wait’ tells us what ‘I’ do in the first sentence. The word ‘is’ expresses the condition of subject ‘my sister’ and the word ‘are’ expresses existence.
Adverb
Adverb is a word used to modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb or a word used to explain how, where, when and why an action is performed. Example:
- They live happily. -
Harry is
very handsome. -
He speaks
English quite well.
In the first sentence, the word ‘happily’ modifies the verb ‘live’. In the second, the word ‘very’ modifies the adjective ‘handsome’. And in the third, the word
‘quite’ modifies another adverb ‘well’.
Preposition Preposition is a word used to explain the relation between two grammatical words
or a word used with a noun or pronoun to show their relation with some other words in the sentence. Example:
- I am fond of Michael. - They boasted about their wealth.
- He is angry with me. - I deposit my money in the bank.
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The word ‘of ’ shows the relation between the adjective ‘fond’ and the noun ‘Michael’ in the first sentence. The relation between the verb ‘boasted’ and the
noun ‘wealth’ is shown by the word ‘about’ in the second sentence. The word ‘with’ shows the relation between the adjective ‘angry’ and the pronoun
‘me’ in the third sentence. The word ‘in’ shows the relation between the noun ‘money’ and another noun ‘bank’.
Conjunction
Conjunction is a word used to combine two words or sentence. Example: - John visited Siantar and Parapat last year.
- Tom will come today or tomorrow. - He tried hard but he failed in his attempt.
The word ‘and’ joins two words ‘Siantar’ and ‘Parapat’ in the first sentence. In the second sentence, the word ‘or’ joins the two words ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’,
while in the third sentence, the word ‘but’ joins two sentences ‘he tried hard’ and ‘he failed in his attempt’.
Interjection
Interjection is word which expresses some sudden feeling. Example: -
Alas -
Excellent -
Well said
- Fantastic
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2.3 An Account on Morphological Process
