A morphophonemic study of the agentive noun suffixes { er}, { or}, and { ist}

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A MORPHOPHONEMIC STUDY OF THE AGENTIVE NOUN
SUFFIXES {-ER}, {-OR}, AND {-IST}

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters

By
JANE ELISSE
Student Number: 094214017

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2013

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A MORPHOPHONEMIC STUDY OF THE AGENTIVE NOUN
SUFFIXES {-ER}, {-OR}, AND {-IST}

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By
JANE ELISSE
Student Number: 094214017

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2013

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I declare that the thesis I have written does not contain any works or parts of the
works of other people, except those cited in the quotations as any academic paper
should.

Yogyakarta, November 18, 2013

Jane Elisse

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH

UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama

: Jane Elisse

Nomor Mahasiswa

: 094214017

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan ke Perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma dengan karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
A MORPHOPHONEMIC STUDY OF THE AGENTIVE NOUN SUFFIXES
{-ER}, {-OR}, AND {-IST}
Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma
hak untuk menyimpan, hak mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya
dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan
mepublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa
perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap
mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal : 18 November 2013
Yang menyatakan,

(Jane Elisse)

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One World, One Family
-INLA-

If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten that we
belong to each other.
-Mother Teresa-

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
-Mahatma Gandhi-

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For My Beloved Parents,
being a spirit and an expectation

in hoping for my success in the future

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Doing this writing sometimes produced much tear I thought. I am really
concerned that my writing is not quite perfect as I needed but it was my best writing I
had done, indeed. I would like to say thank you from my deepest heart to God for His
great blessing and the chance given to me so that I managed to conduct this
undergraduate thesis without any difficult obstacle and finish it.
I also sincerely express my deepest gratitude to have my advisor, Dra. B. Ria
Lestari, M.S. for her guidance, patience, support, and correction of my messy

grammar so that I manage to finish it with well-improved grammar. My gratitude
goes to my co-advisor, Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. who has read my undergraduate
thesis with full patience and given me a lot of suggestions and correction to my
writing.
My deepest thanks especially are given to my lovely Daddy for allowing me
to study in Sanata Dharma University, Mommy, Brother, and Sister on their support
in finishing my undergraduate thesis. I never thought that I would ever finish it.
My special thanks were dedicated to Wang Dcs, Huang Dcs, and Xie Dcs for
their motivation and encouragement during in Yogyakarta. I would say thank you to
gewei Tanzu, gewei FoYuan, gewei gege, jie-jie, 09’s generation (Vihara Boddhicitta
Maitreya & Pusdiklat Sukhavati Maitreya), Janti’s group, and Beauty and the Beast
committee. Thank you all for the aid, support, great memories, love and care, spirit,
and togetherness.
Jane Elisse.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
APPROVAL PAGE
ACCEPTANCE PAGE
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI
MOTTO PAGE
DEDICATION PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF LISTS
TABLE OF FIGURES
ABSTRACT
ABSTRAK

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
B. Problem Formulation
C. Objectives of the Study
D. Benefits of the Study
E. Definition of Terms

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CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
1. Understanding Word-Formation Rules
2. Interaction between Morphology and Phonology
3. Agentive Nominalizer of the Suffixes {-er}, {-ist},and {-an}
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Morphology
1.1 Morpheme
1.2 Allomorph
1.3 Suffix
1.3.1 Derivational Suffix
1.3.2 Agentive Suffix
2. Word-Formation
2.1 Productivity in Word-Formation
3. Phonology
3.1 Phonetics
3.2 Phonetic Change
4. Morphophonemic Process
4.1 Morphophonemic Rule
C. Theoretical Framework

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
B. Approach of the Study
C. Method of the Study
1. Data Collection
2. Data Analysis

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CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS
A. The Classification of Stem in Part of Speech
1. Stem Receiving Suffix {-er}
1.1 Function and Meaning of Generated Verb
1.2 Function and Meaning of Generated Noun
1.3 Function and Meaning of Generated Adjective
2. Stem Receiving Suffix {-or}
2.1 Function and Meaning of Generated Verb
2.2 Function and Meaning of Generated Noun
3. Stem Receiving Suffix {-ist}
3.1 Function and Meaning of Generated Noun
3.2 Function and Meaning of Generated Adjective
3.3 Function and Meaning of Generated Verb
B. The Morphophonemic Rules of Word Seen in Agentive Suffixes
1. Allomorph of Agentive Suffixes
2. The Process of Word Receiving Agentive Suffix {-er}
2.1 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-er} for Verb Stems
2.2 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-er} for Noun Stems
2.3 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-er} for Adjective Stem
3. The Process of Word Receiving Agentive Suffix {-or}
3.1 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-or} for Verb Stems
3.2 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-or} for Noun Stem
4. The Process of Word Receiving Agentive Suffix {-ist}
4.1 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-ist} for Noun Stems
4.2 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-ist} for Adjective Stems
4.3 Phonological Rule of Suffix {-ist} for Verb Stem

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CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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APPENDICES
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4

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TABLE OF LISTS
Table 1. The Phonetic Symbols of English Consonants
Table 2. The Phonetic Symbols of English Vowels
Table 3. Suffixes in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
Table 4. Suffixes in Newspaper The Jakarta Post
Table 5. The Stems for Bound Morpheme {-er}
Table 6. Eight Meanings of Suffix {-er} in the Generated Verb
Table 7. Seven Meanings of Suffix {-er} in the Generated Noun
Table 8. A meaning of Suffix {-er} in the Generated Adjective
Table 9. The Stems for Bound Morpheme {-or}
Table 10. Examples of Derivational Suffix {-or}
Table 11. Three Meanings of Suffix {-or} in the Generated Verb
Table 12. A Meaning of Suffix {-or} in the Generated Noun
Table 13. The Stems for Bound Morpheme {-ist}
Table 14. Examples of suffix -ion in suffix {-ist}
Table 15. Examples of suffix -al in suffix {-ist}
Table 16. Examples of morpheme -logy in suffix {-ist}
Table 17. The Examples of Mono Syllabic Words
Table 18. Feature of Articulation’s Place in Consonants
Table 19. The Examples of Words Having no Change
Table 20. The Example of Complementary Distribution Words
Table 21. The Examples of Words Having no Change in Suffix {-or}

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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The Basic Classification of Morpheme(s)

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ABSTRACT
JANE ELISSE. A Morphophonemic Study of the Agentive Noun Suffixes {-er},
{-or}, and {-ist}. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters,
Sanata Dharma University, 2013.
Language is an essential part of human system communication whether it is
written or spoken. It is undeniable that language has words and sounds as the basic of
learning English. The writer considers a word can definitely be divided into some
morphemes. The addition of the suffixes can produce a new meaning. This research
focused on agentive suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}. It aimed to recognize either the
lexical categories of stems or meanings of the agentive suffixes and understand the
rules of word changes receiving the agentive suffixes.
In order to understand this study well, the writer formulated two problems as
following: (1)What are the lexical categories of stems for the agentive noun suffixes
{-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}, their percentages, and their meanings? (2)What are the
morphophonemic rules of words receiving suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}? The first
problem focused on the part of speech belonging to the word and meanings of the
suffixes. The second problem focused on the morphophonemic process.
This research used dictionaries and newspaper The Jakarta Post as primary
and secondary sources. The writer collected word forming suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and
{-ist} that have agentive meaning by taking five pages of each alphabet from Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, three articles each Saturday from April 6 to 27, 2013
from The Jakarta Post, and phonetic transcription from Longman Pronunciation
Dictionary. The data were categorized into three parts, namely stem, phonetic
transcription, and meaning to answer the problems. In data analysis, the data were
observed into some steps in order to answer the problems. The data were categorized
into three parts in relation to the lexical categories of stems with its percentage, the
meanings of the suffixes, and the morphophonemic rules occurring to the addition of
morphemes (suffixes).
As a result, the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} were included in derivational
suffix to form agentive noun. The suffixes {-er} and {-or} were commonly attached
to transitive verb and noun stem. Suffix {-er} was also attached to adjective stem that
suffix {-or} did not have ones. Thus, suffix {-ist} was attached to noun and adjective.
It is also derived from verb stem. There were two related meanings among agentive
suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}. It was “a person who X-s” and “a person whose job
is X”. The words also have the morphophonemic process as the result of the
additional suffixes. The morphophonemic rules that occur in those suffixes were
stress change, vowel and consonant shift, vowel and consonant deletion, and vowel
reduction.

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ABSTRAK
JANE ELISSE. A Morphophonemic Study of the Agentive Noun Suffixes {-er}, {or}, and {-ist}. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas
Sanata Dharma, 2013.
Bahasa merupakan salah satu bagian penting dalam sistem hubungan
komunikasi baik tertulis maupun lisan. Hal ini tidak dapat dipungkiri bahwa bahasa
memiliki kata dan bunyi sebagai dasar awal dalam mempelajari bahasa Inggris.
Penulis mempertimbangkan sebuah kata dapat terbagi menjadi beberapa kata.
Penambahan pada imbuhan akhir dapat menghasilkan sebuah arti baru. Penelitian ini
berfokus pada akhiran pelaku {-er}, {-or}, dan {-ist}. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk
mengenalkan kategori kata pada kata dasar dan arti pada imbuhan akhir serta
memahami aturan perubahan kata yang menerima kata pelaku imbuhan.
Untuk memahami penelitian ini, penulis merumuskan dua masalah sebagai
berikut: (1) Kategori kata dasar apa sajakah untuk akhiran pelaku kata benda {-er},
{-or}, dan {-ist}, presentase, dan artinya? (2) Aturan-aturan kata dan bunyi apa
sajakah yang dimiliki oleh kata yang berimbuhan akhiran {-er}, {-or}, dan {-ist}?
Masalah pertama berfokus pada kelas kata dan arti dari imbuhan akhir. Masalah
kedua berfokus pada proses perubahan bunyi .
Penelitian ini menggunakan beberapa kamus dan media koran The Jakarta
Post sebagai sumber utama dan pendukung. Penulis mengoleksi kata yang
berimbuhan akhiran {-er}, {-or}, dan {-ist} yang memiliki arti pelaku dengan
mengambil lima halaman pertama setiap huruf abjad dari Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary, tiga artikel pada hari Sabtu setiap minggunya tanggal 6-27 April 2013
dari The Jakarta Post, dan simbol bunyi pada kata dari Longman Pronunciation
Dictionary. Data tersebut dikategorikan menjadi tiga bagian seperti kata dasar, simbol
bunyi, dan arti untuk menjawab dua masalah yang diformulasikan. Pada analisa data,
data tersebut diteliti dengan beberapa cara dalam menjawab masalah. Data nantinya
dikategorikan menjadi tiga bagian yang diklasifikasikan pada kategori kata dari dasar
kata dengan persentase, arti dari imbuhan akhir, dan aturan perubahan bunyi yang
terjadi pada penambahan kata (imbuhan akhir).
Alhasil, imbuhan akhiran {-er}, {-or}, dan {-ist} termasuk dalam derivatif
akhiran yang membentuk kata benda pelaku. Akhiran {-er} dan {-or} diperoleh dari
kata kerja transitif, kata benda, dan kata sifat. Hanya imbuhan akhiran {-or} tidak
memperoleh kata sifat. Demikian pula dengan akhiran {-ist} diperoleh dari kata
benda dan kata sifat. Imbuhan akhir {-ist} juga didapat dari kata kerja. Terdapatnya
dua relasi arti antara akhiran pelaku {-er}, {-or}, dan {-ist} yakni “a person who X-s”
dan “a person whose job is X”. Kata-kata juga memiliki proses perubahan kata dan
bunyi sebagai hasil penambahan imbuhan akhir. Peraturan kata dan bunyi yang
terjadi pada kata pelaku akhiran, yakni perubahan penekanan, pergantian vokal dan
konsonan, penghapusan vokal dan konsonan, dan pengurangan vokal.

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study
Language is a necessary part in communication especially in Indonesia.
English is one kind of world languages that has developed rapidly until now. The
developing era can influence the people to study English as their foreign language
because it will help them to settle the problem in communication when many
foreigners speak or adapt in Indonesia. The communication is not only about making
conversation with foreigners (making relation) but it also about occupation to
increase economy.
The basic of learning English is related to the words and sounds. Talking
about both factors in English, it is quite easy to understand when we do in daily life.
We may not realize that every word we speak and the sound we pronounce have a
process of how the words come from and how the sounds should be pronounced. For
example, the sentence “John drove to my school” can also be said as “My driver
picked me up at school”. Since this research talks about suffixation with agentive
meaning, the word driver is more applicable stating the agentive suffix especially in
suffix {-er}.
The suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} have significant meaning which is related
to agentive nouns. An agentive noun is a word deriving bound morphemes denoting
person who does the action as the agent such as sailor, dancer, and guitarist. To

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understand how the agentive noun is derived from, this research will use the process
of word-formation in order to minimize the error of using the agentive noun.
The presence of suffix can create a new meaning of the word. The meaning
talks about agent so all the words containing the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} will
be noun not adjective nor verb nor adverb. For example, we take a word drive as a
verb which means operating or controlling the vehicle then it added {-er} becomes
driver as a noun which means a person who drives a vehicle. When a word has not
added any suffix, it will be a free morpheme (the word can stand alone). Moreover,
when the free morpheme contains a suffix, it will give a new meaning.
We can have sounds to pronounce the words. The speech sounds have own
English symbols through IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). O’Grady et al.,
(2010) in Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (sixth edition) said that the best
system to transcribe the sounds of speech is IPA because it can help to read and
transcribe between sound and symbol of any language and be able to reproduce the
words correctly and consistently (O’Grady et al., 2010:16). The word actually has
some rules before it creates a new meaning. The rules help to see how the words get
the changes of phonetic variation from the stems to the words added by suffixes.
The researcher will focus on the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} to form
agentive noun for this research. It is because the researcher surely considers the
frequency and productivity of the suffixes in a particular of speech. Bauer (2003)
argued the common way of building new words in the languages of the world is by
using affixes. The majority of affixes used in languages over the world are suffixes.

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B. Problem Formulation
To develop understanding about this topic, the present researcher formulates
two main problems as follows:
1. What are the lexical categories of stems for the agentive noun suffixes
{-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}, their percentages, and their meanings?
2. What are the morphophonemic rules of words receiving suffixes {-er},
{-or}, and {-ist}?

C. Objectives of the Study
In relation to the problem, the goals of this research were formulated into two
objectives of this study: The first objective of this study was to know the categories
of the lexical in stems, percentages, and meanings of the agentive noun suffixes {-er},
{-or}, and {-ist}. The second objective of this study was to indicate the
morphophonemic rules applied in the words. In this study, the stems are used to
determine the part of speech of the agentive suffixes and phonological rules were
used to find the rules occurred to the word. It also used the percentages produced by
the lexical categories of stems to expose how many percentages occurred to the words
and the meanings that occur to the suffixes.

D. Benefits of the Study
English is a necessary language in Indonesia. We can use it for
communicating and create new skill to develop our linguistic competence. Since this
thesis focus on suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} showing the agentive meaning, it will

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contribute to the morphology, the word productivity, and the change of sound.
Therefore, the writer hopes the readers or other researchers can understand the lexical
category of stems produced by the word using the suffixes and the morphophonemic
process occurring to the words.
Theoretically, the suffix has a high number to give a new meaning and often
used in English language. It is briefly proven the people usually use the suffix rather
than prefix until now. Through this thesis, the readers can add the idea of suffix
through morphophonemic theory as well as the way of the word-formation process. It
will also give a proof that the relation between morphology and phonology is quite
close to develop the suffix in expanding the English vocabulary.
Furthermore, practically it will be interesting to open our mind to know the
lexical categories of the stems for the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}, their meanings
and the function that morphophonemic rule undergone in it. Hopefully, the readers
will get an easier way to understand and analyze their research that is related to suffix
in English word. Also, it will give an alternative to rebuild our linguistic competence
in giving the explanation to the students or the children who want to study the suffix
in depth.

E. Definition of Terms
The following terms need to be explained further in order to avoid
misunderstanding. The definitions will be based on the books about language and
linguistics. They are agentive noun and morphophonemic process.

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a. Agentive Noun
Agent is someone who does the action of something. According to Richard
Nordquist in his article about.com(http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/agenterm.htm)
“agent is the person or thing that performs an action in a sentence”. Reader, guitarist,
and navigator are the examples of agent. Agentive noun coming from Latin namely
Nomen Agentis is “a word derived from another word that denotes an action and it
identifies an entity doing the action”. It can be said that agentive noun tends to be a
noun resulting from the person who does the action. For example, people say teach as
a verb becomes teacher as a noun. A word teach is an action of giving knowledge and
teacher is a person who does an action.

b. Morphophonemic Process
Morphophonemics is also called as morphophonology. Morphophonemic
process is a study of word’s internal structure which contains the phonetic context
and the forming of words (O’Grady et al., 2010:143). Fromkin (1990) also stated that
“morphophonemic process is related to affixation processes” (Fromkin 1990:141). It
means that sounds change takes place in morpheme when they combine into the form
words such as credit /’kredit/ becomes creditor /’kreditə/.

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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW

This chapter consists of three parts namely review of related studies, review of
related theories, and theoretical framework. In the review of related studies, the
present researcher uses other studies that have been conducted by the researcher or
writer previously which has similar topic. In the review of related theories, the
researcher presents some relevant theories that will be applied to analyze the data.
The theoretical framework contains some explanation of what theories will be needed
to answer the questions and how they are applied to this study.

A. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES
1. Review of Understanding Word-Formation Rules
The present researcher considers that understanding word-formation rule will
build the vocabulary quality in English language. Drajadlaksana (1997) in his
undergraduate thesis which is entitled Expanding Vocabulary Mastery Through
Understanding Word Formation Rules concluded that word formation gives the
solution to recognize the words and the morphemes. The importance of understanding
word formation rules seen in learning process can expand the vocabulary mastery
without memorizing many vocabularies unit by unit. Drajadlaksana stated as follows:
With a good understanding of word formation, hopefully, they can use it
to expand the vocabulary mastery; to produce words in utterances and to
recognize new words they read or hear (Drajadlaksana, 1997:63).

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This study conducted by Drajadlaksana focused on learning vocabularies and
the word study but it is not separated from understanding of the word formation rules.
It means that vocabularies are important in English because it is a target language for
communication.
2. Review of Interaction between Morphology and Phonology
The second review was conducted by Sahoo Kalyanamalini. In her book
Handbook of Word-Formation (2005), she wrote the collection of seventeen articles
by different authors using the topic of word-formation as well. She revealed that
Ellen M. Kaisse pointed out the morphology interferes with the phonological
processes and considered some of the major processes of English in which
morphological effects are seen in phonological rules and vice versa (Kalyanamalini,
2005). In Review, Kaisse said phonology can interfere with word formation in
derivational case that there is no suitable compromise between the goals of
morphology and pronunciation. So, Kaisse had proven the relation of word formation
with the levels of linguistics. They are morphology and phonology.
3. Review of Agentive Nominalizer of the Suffixes {-er}, {-ist}, and {-an}
This review talking about the distribution of agentive nominalizer was
conducted by Karlina Denistia (2009). She talked about the characteristic of the
suffixes {-er}, {-ist}, and {-an}, the meaning of those suffixes, and the distribution of
allomorph that happened to those suffixes. She also assumed that suffixes had
important role in linguistic competence because she thought the people could create a
new word using the pattern to communicate with other. She gave an example of

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suffix –ly in artistically rather than artly. People would understand that suffix –ly was
attached to certain adjective to create adverb.
Denistia, K used suffixes {-er}, {-ist}, and {-an} as her topic because she
believed that those suffixes were essential to be understood as an agentive
nominalizer. Her topic has almost the same with my topic because it relates to
agentive suffix. The difference is located on the suffix and the agent. The present
researcher uses suffix {-or} and it forms as agentive noun suffix while she used suffix
{-an} and it formed as agentive nominalizer.

B.

Review of Related Theories
In this chapter, the present researcher will discuss the theories to do the

analysis. They are theories of morphology, morpheme, allomorph, suffix, derivational
suffix, agentive suffix, word-formation, productivity in word-formation, phonology,
phonetics, phonetic change, morphophonemic process, and morphophonemic rules.

1.

Theory of Morphology
In linguistic term, morphology has an important role to identify the words.

According to Matthews (1991), morphology is “the branch of grammar that deals
with the internal structure of words” (Matthews, 1991:9). Meaning to say,
morphology is the basic study to learn words’ structure.

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1.1 Theory of Morpheme
The smallest meaningful unit of language is called a morpheme. Akmajian et
al., (1988) stated that “morphemes are the minimal units of word building in a
language”. The term morpheme cannot be analyzed further into meaningful parts
such as {-ceive} in the word receive or conceive (re-ceive and con-ceive). It is not
always words because some words are formed by combining number of morphemes.
The examples are act which is one morpheme, actor which has two morphemes, or
and deflationary which has three morphemes.
There are two categories of word. They are simple words and complex words.
A simple word is the same with a minimal unit but there is no way to analyze into
meaningful part such as create and drum. It is because create and drum are classified
as the independent words. A complex word is a word added an affix and it can be
analyzed further into meaningful word such as creator and drummer. The ending of
suffixes {-or} and {-er} is included in agentive meaning. But, it has limited words
which contain the agentive suffix such in calculator, this example is a thing, not an
agent.
The characteristic of morpheme category has two classes. They are free
morpheme and bound morpheme. A free morpheme can stand alone as an
independent word such as read, train, and create. On the other hand, a bound
morpheme is not able to stand alone but must be attached to other morphemes such as
reader, trainer, and creator. The bound morpheme is usually known as affixes (can
be prefix or suffix).

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The morphemes can be classified:
MORPHEMES
FREE
Independent Word

BOUND
Prefixes

Suffixes

Figure 1. The Basic Classification of Morpheme(s) (Akmajian et al., 1988:58)

1.2 Theory of Allomorph
The present researcher reveals that allomorph is a variant morpheme that has
different form of morph and sounds. Katamba (1993) stated that “If different morphs
represent the same morpheme, they are grouped together and they are called
allomorphs of that morpheme” (Katamba, 1993:26).
Katamba also gives example of past tense morpheme in English [id], [d], and
[t]. They are grouped together as allomorphs of the same morpheme which is based
on the complementary distribution. Meaning to say, allomorphs will not occur in the
same environment because different environment will need different morpheme.

1.3 Theory of Suffix
A suffix is a morpheme which is added at the end of the root. Katamba (1993)
also stated that “A suffix is an affix attached after a root like -er, -or, -ist, and -s”
(Katamba, 1993:44). For example, a driver has the root drive + suffix {-er}. The
word drive is a verb and it is added a suffix {-er} so it will be driver as a noun. In
other cases, the word taller does not have the same meaning with driver. It is because
when we add suffix –er to the verb drive, the suffix creates a noun such in “My driver

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wears a red jacket” while suffix –er added to the adjective tall, the suffix creates an
adjective such in “Sam is taller than me”. From two examples of words driver and
taller, the suffix {-er} is combined to the verb stem and the adjective stem. Hence,
the suffix has some classes to identify the meaning. They are verb and adjective.

1.3.1 Theory of Derivational Suffix
A derivational suffix is a suffix which creates a word. It can be said that
derivational is a process to determine the category of one lexeme from another such
in selector. Donna Jo Napoli in her book Linguistics stated that “derivational affixes
typically determine the category of stem or word they derive” (Napoli, 1996: 175).

1.3.2 Theory of Agentive Suffix
An agentive suffix is a suffix determining the words to indicate an agent or a
person taking an action. For example in reader, when we say read, it functions as a
verb which means doing an action of reading something. When we add suffix -er, it
represents a meaning of agent that does read something when we combine into reader.
The suffix -er is an example of agentive suffix.

2.

Theory of Word Formation
Mark Aronoff in his book Word Formation in Generative Grammar defined

that Word-Formation Rules (WFR) is a rule that specifies a set of words on which it
can operate (Aronoff, 1985:22, 46-50). Every WFR specifies both a unique

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phonological operation which is performed on the base and syntactic label and sub
categorization for the resulting word. Using WFR can aid in producing all new words.

2.1 Theory of Productivity in Word-Formation
Word productivity can be used to analyze derivational suffixes because the
occurrence of the words in English can be seen through their stem and their suffix
attaching to. Meaning to say, it is not separated with using word formation which
discusses about the forming of words. Katamba also stated that “A process is said to
be productive if it is very general and affects a vast number of forms and also creates
very many words” (Katamba, 1993: 69). The words gaining suffix {-er} has
numerous forms and meaning. The suffix {-er} is mostly derived from verb stem such
in work+-erworker, write+-erwriter and drive+-erdriver.

3. Theory of Phonology
Phonology is a study of the system of the human’s sound. According to
O’Grady, W, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie R. M. in their book
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (fifth edition), phonology is defined:
“The component of grammar that determines the selection of speech
sound and that governs both the sound patterns and the systematic
phonetic variation found in language is known as phonology.”
(O’Grady et al., 2005: 57).
3.1 Theory of Phonetics
Phonetics is a study of sound in a particular language. It will concern with the
ways in which speech sounds are produced, discussing the articulation of English

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speech sounds in particular. Akmajian in his book A Linguistics stated that a term
phonetics usually refers to the study of the articulator and acoustic properties of
sounds (2001:66).
The system of phonetics that can transcribe the sound of speech is IPA
(International Phonetic Alphabet). It indicates the phonetic transcription in symbols
such as in teeth [ti:θ]. The IPA usually uses brackets [ ] to show the phonetic
transcription rather than spelling. The phonetic symbols of consonants can be seen as
follows:
Places of Articulation

Symbols

Bilabial

[p] [b] [m]

Labiodental

[f] [v]

Interdental

[θ] [ð]

Alveolar

[t] [d] [n] [s] [z] [l] [r]

Palatal

[ʃ] [ʒ] [tʃ] [dʒ]

Velar

[k] [g] [ŋ]

Glottal

[h]

Table 1. The Phonetic Symbols of English Consonants
(Fromkin, Victoria 2003)
The consonant sounds produce the quality of the tongue, the lips, and the
velum to be articulated in vocal tract. Different from vowel sounds, they depend on
the configuration of the vocal tract during its production. For example, piano, when
we say consonant [p], we can feel the lips touching together but when we say vowel
[i], we cannot feel anything because the articulators do not touch. The classification
of English vowel can be seen as follows:

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FRONT
HIGH

[i] [I]

MID

[e] [ε]

L OW

[æ]

CENTRAL

14

BACK
[u] [ʊ]

[ə] [Λ]

[o] [ɔ]
[a]

Table 2. The Phonetic Symbols of English Vowels
(Fromkin, Victoria 2003)
3.2 Theory of Phonetic Change
Phonetic change is a process to change the pronunciation of the individual’s
sound (segment). A phonetic segment occurs to the articulatory process. It means the
sound was produced in the articulation affecting to other sound. O’Grady et al. (2010)
stated that “speech production often results in the articulation of one sound affecting
that of another sound”. Meaning to say, the process of articulation is a complex thing
because the effect of the sound we speak often results in easier articulating.
There are five processes of phonetic changes. They are assimilation,
dissimilation, deletion, epenthesis, and metathesis. Assimilation is a process that
results from the influence of one segment on another such in impossible.
Dissimilation is a process that results in two sounds becoming less alike in
articulatory terms such in fifths. Deletion is a process that removes a segment from
phonetic context such in fifths to fis (deleting θ). Epenthesis is a process that inserts a
vowel or a consonant sound within an existing string of segments such in prince
[prins] inserting [t] between n and s. Moreover, metathesis is a process that reorders a
sequence of segments such in spaghetti as pesghetti. The sequence [spə] is difficult to
pronounce so that it is changed to [pəs].

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4. Theory of Morphophonemic Process
A morphophonemic process is a combining pattern between morphology and
phonology. Meaning to say, they cannot be separated from word’s structure and their
sound such in derivational suffix word reader. A stem read leads a morpheme
attaching to the suffix {-er} and it is the system of morphology. Matthews stated that
morphophonemic processes are transitional between morphology and phonology
(1991:157).

4.1 Theory of Morphophonemic Rule
A morphophonemic rule is a rule accounting for the change of phonetic
variations as the results of the adjustment of morpheme. According to O’Grady et al.
said that “rules that account for alternation among allomorphs are called
morphophonemic rules” (O’Grady et al., 1989:116).
C. Theoretical Framework
Present researcher uses thirteen theories as the foundation of this research.
The theories involve theories of morphology, morpheme, allomorph, suffix,
derivational suffix, agentive suffix, word-formation, productivity of word-formation,
phonology,

phonetics,

phonetic

change,

morphophonemic

process,

and

morphophonemic rule. Each theory is taken to prove that they connect each other and
answer the problems that are questioned.
Theories of morphology, morphemes, allomorphs, word-formation, suffixes,
and derivational suffixes are used to answer the problem number one. These theories

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are helpful in analyzing the distribution of suffix because they talk about the minimal
unit of English word. Also, the morphemes can determine their word classes that
create the content word. Focusing on the agentive suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}, the
support theories that are used to answer first problem are agentive noun, and
productivity of word-formation process. Those theories help the researcher to
understand the meaning that contains the agent. They also will show the quality of the
frequency its suffixes in order to see how productive the words using suffixes {-er},
{-or}, and {-ist}.
The rest of the theories such as in phonology, phonetics, phonetic change,
morphophonemic process, and morphophonemic rule are used to answer the problem
number two. These theories will help in analyzing the sound with the symbols to
understand how the words are pronounced as human language. Those theories will
also give the understanding in depth about the rules occurred to the addition
morpheme (the suffixes) and see the change of phonetic variation from one segment
to another segment.

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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the researcher presents a description on the methodology used
in conducting the study. It will aid the researcher to get a guidance of doing the
research. There are three parts of this chapter namely the object of the study, the
approach, and the research method. In the object of the study, the researcher describes
the object of this study. In the approach, the researcher tells what approach is used
and why it is used to analyze the study. In the research method, the researcher
describes the method this study is conducted. In this part, the researcher also makes
the steps of collecting and analyzing the data primary and secondary to answer the
problems.

A. Object of the Study
The study focuses on suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} to form agentive
meaning. The suffixes cannot stand alone if there is no word (free morpheme) being
stems. The stems are also called as bases. Meaning to say, base is a word which can
be added to derivational or inflectional affix. The stem or base is different from a root;
the root is a primary lexical unit of word. It means that the root does not have any
prefix or suffix and it cannot be constructed into some parts. For instance, a word
nationalist is derived from adjective national as stem while national is also derived
from noun nation as base and nation itself is the root. When the stems are combined
with the suffixes, the words will create a new meaning. Fortunately, the suffixes {-er},
17

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{-or}, and {-ist} are included in the suffixes which create the agentive meaning such
in drive + {-er}  driver.
The study has the lexical categories to determine the stems of the bound
morphemes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}. They are noun, adjective, and verb. The suffixes
{-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} are assumed as agentive noun. This means that those suffixes
contain words to be an agentive noun as a result. The suffixes {-er} and {-or} are
mostly considered to use verb as their stem such in teacher, driver, and investor
whereas the suffix {-ist} is attached to the noun and the adjective stem such as
journalist and activist. The researcher also finds a verb stem attaching to suffix {-ist}
such as pacifist.
The researcher believes the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} are related to the
sound. To know how the words are pronounced, the present researcher uses Longman
Pronunciation Dictionary (2008) to find the phonetic transcription by creating the
symbols. Giving the transcription, the researcher observes the changes of phonetic
variation occurring from the stem to the word added by the suffixes. For example, the
word absolute /'æbsəlu:t/ becomes absolutist /æbsə'lu:t ɪ st/. The collected primary
data were also taken from some books considered to give idea of morphophonemic
change. The researcher believes the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} gain the
morphophonemic process. The morphophonemic process is a process of words
through morphology and phonology. Through the morphophonemic process, the rules
occurred to the words as a result of the addition of the suffixes. One process of
morphophonemic is phonetic change. There are some types of phonetic changes to

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show how the process occurs in certain language. Also, phonological rules are used to
show the rules happened to the morpheme. Moreover, the researcher analyzed the
differences of change of the sound happening in those suffixes.

B. Approach of the Study
The study uses morphology, phonology, and semantics as the approach. The
researcher uses those approaches because they are related to each other. Morphology
is a study of the word-structure while the morpheme is the smallest unit of the
language. So, morphological approach is suitable for this study because it learns how
to establish the word from the morpheme. In Morphology, the study presents word
formation process to aid the step of analyzing this research. Phonology is a study of
sound pattern. Besides, phonological approach is identified to help how the sounds
produced and what types of sound will be considered to change the feature location.
In addition, semantics is a study of meaning in language. This study explains about
agentive suffixes containing noun forms. It also analyzed the meaning resulting of the
words that have attached to the suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}.

C. Method of the Study
This method uses library research in which the data are taken from the media
in library. The researcher uses primary sources such as dictionary in this study and
secondary sources such as newspaper to support the data. There are two parts in
making the clear data. They are data collection and the data analysis. In the data
collection, the present researcher described the steps of how the data were found and

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gave some samples of the data by table in appendix. In the data analysis, the
researcher analyzed the data which has been gathered.

1. Data Collection
The suffixes were extremely used. The suffixes which were studied in this
research were the agentive suffixes {-er},{-or}, and {-ist}. The researcher used
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Year 1995) as first data of words to select
the words ending in -er, -or, and -ist. Then, the words were taken five pages per each
alphabet in order to show the frequency of each suffix. Sutrisno Hadi (1978) stated
that frequency determined the quantity. The words may have alphabets which were
not found any agentive suffixes such as alphabets M, V, X, and Y. Besides, the other
alphabets were looked for the stems, its lexical categories, and the meanings of
suffixes affecting to the words.
The researcher used newspaper The Jakarta Post as second data of words to
present how many percents the researcher used the agentive words. The newspapers
were taken in April 6 to 27, 2013 three subtitles every Saturday. The topic that was
limited would be chosen randomly. The topics chosen in different column were
headline, opinion, world, management, entertainment, archipelago, Asian business,
and supplement. The articles were randomly taken because we can see that the writer
used the words added by the suffixes in which have a meaning of agent and the data
were shown as the supporting data in adding the data of words.
The researcher considered to find the phonetic transcription to understand
how the words pronounced. The researcher used Longman Pronunciation Dictionary

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(Year 2008) to write down the phonetic transcription. From the previously data taken
from the dictionary and the newspaper, all words were transcribed.

2. Data Analysis
After collecting the data above, there were four steps to analyze them further
in order to answer two problems in this study.
The data were classified into three categories based on their stem, meaning,
and phonetic transcription. The first and second parts were used to analyze problem
number one. First, the researcher combined the data collection which was from
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and newspaper The Jakarta Post from 6 to 27
April 2013 to see the occurrence of the word attaching to the suffixes. The words
were classified into stem in each part. The researcher used Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (Year 1995) to see the part of speech that happened to the stems.
There was an exception if the word had more than one morpheme but the researcher
still took the first stem of suffix word. The whole part of speech was counted based
on the stem occurring in the suffixes. This step was used to answer the first problem
which was about the lexical category of stems and the percentages of the suffixes
{-er}, {-or}, and {-ist}. In this step, the researcher used some theories to prove how
those suffixes distribute in the words. They were morphology, morpheme, allomorph,
word-formation, suffix, and derivational suffix.
Second, the researcher observed every meaning of the word. Then, the
meaning that had been analyzed was divided into some parts according to their suffix
and part of speech. The data were also combined into some categories that had same

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meaning in each suffix. For example, a noun dancer and facilitator had same
meaning to “a person who X-s”. Daughter was no considered to this analysis because
it was already free morpheme. In this step, the researcher used theories of
productivity of word-formation process, agentive suffixes, and agentive nouns to
support in answering the first problem.
The researcher analyzed the sounds of the words using a phonetic
transcription in order to understand how the words were pronounced and the process
of word changing in the phonetic variation in order to recognize the rules occurring to
the words as the result of the additional suffixes. It was the third part that talked about
the phonetic transcription. The phonetic transcription was written into two columns in
which the first column would be the complex words and the second column would be
stems. This step was used to answer the second problem in giving the accurate sounds
of the words within suffixes {-er}, {-or}, and {-ist} and to see the changes of the
word happening to phonetic variation as a result of the additional suffixes. In this step,
the

researcher

used

theories

of

phonology,

morphophonemic process, and morphophonemic rule.

phonetics,

phonetic

change,

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CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
The data have approximately fifty six words collected from Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (1995). The words were taken from five pages in the beginning
each alphabet. It had supposed to find the words using the suffixes in every single
alphabet but the researcher did not still find the words using the suffixes {-er}, {-or},
and {-ist} in some alphabets such in alphabets M, V, X, and Y.
The data also have approximately sixty one words collected from newspaper
The Jakarta Post taken in April 6 to 27, 2013 twelve articles in total. It will be
normally forty six words from the articles because it was counted without any double
words. The articles chosen with the agentive suffixes inside were randomly taken.
One topic of the article was talked about pros and cons of naming Soeharto as a
national hero. The article was updated in the column of opinion April 13, 2013
written by Adam, A. W, a historian at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). The
other articles were taken in the columns of headlines, managements, archipelago,
entertainment, world, Asian business, and supplement. At the end, the data can be
shown in the table below:
SUFFIX
-er

-or

S TEM

OCCURENCE

PERCENTAGE

Verb

28

50%

Noun

6

11%

Adjective

0

0%

Verb

5

9%

Noun

1

2%

23

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-ist

Adjective

0

0%

Verb

1

2%

Noun

11

19%

Adjective

4

7%

56

100%

TOTAL

24

Table 3. Suffix