ENGLISH MORPHOSYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

1. Introduction

            Linguistics as the scientific study of language has several branches such us phonetics, phonology, semantics morphology and syntax.  The two branches which are mentioned later namely morphology and syntax are now often combined into one unity called morphosyntax.

 The word morphosyntactic is the adjective of morphosyntax. Morphosyntax is derived from morphology which is the study of word formation and  syntax which is the study of how words are combined into larger unit such as phrase and sentence. Morphosyntax is the combination of morphology and syntax. They are combined because they have very close relationship.  According to Crystal (1980: 234)  morphosyntactic is a term in linguistics used to refer to grammatical categories or properties for whose definition criteria of morphology and syntax both apply, as in describing the characteristics of words. Crystal (1980: 234) gives illustration  that the distinctions under the heading of number in nouns constitute a morphosyntactic category: on the one hand, number contrasts affect syntax (e.g. singular subject requiring a singular verb); on the other hand, they require morphological definition (e.g. add –s for plural).

Based on the explanation above, we know that  word formation which is the concern of morphology has relationship with  the syntactic structure. The word cooks for example is formed from the morpheme cook and the morpheme –s. This discussion occurs in the science called morphology. However, The word cooks is influenced by another word which, together with the word cooks itself, forms a bigger structure which is called syntactic structure. In English, cooks occurs in the syntactic structure called sentence whose  subject is the third person singular and whose tense is simple present  such as the following sentences: My mother cooks every morning. ; She cooks every morning.; and He cooks every morning.

This article tries to discuss the relationship between  English word formations which are studied in morphology and the syntactic structure which is the domain of syntax  entitled English Morphosyntactic Structure.

2. Morphological structure

            The domain of morphology is words. How words are formed is the concern of this field so morphological structure is the structure which consists of the elements to form words. The most common word formation in language including English is affixation. Affixation is the process of word formation by adding the affixes or bound morphemes in bases or roots (free morphemes). In other words morphological structure is the structure or forms of words primarily through the use of morpheme construct (Crystal, 1980: 232).

            Morpheme is defined as the smallest meaningful unit of language (Lim Kiat Boey, 1975 : 37). Morphemes can be divided into two namely free morphemes and bound morphemes. Morphemes are the components which build words.  The word singers, for example, consists of three meaningful units or morphemes, sing, –er,  and –s. The morpheme sing which forms the word singers has the lexical meaning; the morpheme –er means the doer of singing; the morpheme –s has plural meaning. We can identify the meaning of the morpheme sing although it stands alone but we cannot identify the meaning of morphemes –er and –s in isolation. We can identify the meaning of the morpheme –er and –s after they combine to the morpheme sing. Sing which can meaningfully stand alone is called free morpheme while the morphemes such as –er and –s, which cannot meaningfully stand alone are called bound morphemes. Bound morphemes must be attached to free morphemes. Bound morphemes are also called affixes which can be classified into prefix, infix, and suffix. English only has two kinds of bound morphemes namely prefixes and suffixes. No infixes exist in English. Bound morphemes are classified into two types namely derivational and inflectional morphemes. Both inflectional and derivational morphemes play an important role in the larger structure namely syntactic structure.

3. Syntactic structure

            The word syntactic is the adjective form of the word  syntax. Syntax is the rules of grammar which are used for ordering and connecting words to form phrases or sentences (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1987: 1072).  Crystal (1980: 146) defines syntax as the study of the inter-relationships between elements of sentence structure, and of the rules governing the arrangement of sentences in sequences. Based on the definition above, syntactic structure is the structure which contains the words which are arranged to form phrases or sentences. The main syntactic structure is sentence. Phrases are the syntactic structures which are part of sentences. In arranging the elements of syntactic structure, the morphological aspect often plays an important role. It is difficult to separate morphological aspect in syntactic structure. In English, when we talk about inflection, actually, we will enter to the syntactic structure although we are unconscious. The words cooks as stated above, for example, consists of the free morpheme cook and the inflectional bound morpheme –s. The word cooks occur in an English sentence whose subject is singular noun or uncountable noun and the tense is simple present. The relation between the English morphological structure and the English syntactic structure called English morphosyntactic structure will be explained in this article.

4. Inflectional morphemes in syntactic

    Structure

4.1 Plural Morpheme

            In English, to form the plural noun from the singular one is by adding the plural marker to the noun.  The common plural marker or the plural morpheme is the suffix –s, although in reality this morpheme can be realized by the phonetic representations [s], [z], or [iz]. These phonetic representations or allomorphs are conditioned by the phones of the base to which the plural morpheme is added. Some countable nouns are not added with  the suffix –s to make them plural but the number of these types are not as many as those added with the suffix –s. Therefore, this plural morpheme is usually called the morpheme –s because this suffix frequently occurs in the plural noun formation.   The following are the examples of the words containing the plural morpheme or the morpheme {-s} which is pronounced /s/, /z/, or /iz/

Singular         {-s}      Plural      Phobetic representation

baby                -s         babies       [beibiz]

bag                  -s         bags          [bægz]

book                -s         books        [buks]

box                  -s         boxes        [boksiz]

cat                   -s         cats           [kæts]

dog                  -s         dogs         [dogz]

            As mentioned above, the plural morpheme or the morpheme {-s} is not always  realized by the suffix –s. The following are the examples:

Singular         {-s}      Plural

man                 -s         men

woman                        -s         women

child                -s         children

ox                    -s         oxen

tooth                -s         teeth

foot                 -s         feet

sheep               -s         sheep

deer                 -s         deer

            These morphological forms will determine the arrangement of syntactic structure. In sentence level, the subject must agree with the verb.  Look at the examples below:

(1) The book    is     on the table.

(2) The books   are  on the table.

(3) The student    is   in the class.

(4) The students  are in the class.

(5) The man    is  in my room.

(6) The men    are  in my room.

(7) The student   walks  to school.

(8) The students walk to school.

(9)   The woman goes to the market.

(10) The women go    to the market.

The examples above show that in present tense, to be which is suitable with the plural morphemes added to the noun is are like in sentence (2), (4), and (6).  In sentence (8) and (10), the plural morpheme {-s} need the verb form without inflectional morpheme. Inflectional morpheme {-s} to show present tense is needed in the sentence whose subject is singular or uncountable noun.

            In Phrase level some determiners must agree with the plural morpheme. Look at the following examples.

(11)  this student

        that student

        a  student      

      

(12)  these students

        those students

        several students

        many students   

        a lot of students

        a few students             

(13)  *this students

        *that students

        *these student

        *those student  

In example (11) the determiners this and that need singular noun. The morpheme {-s} is needed in the noun when it comes after the determiners these, those, several, many, a lot of, ad a few like in example (12). The phrases in (13) are not grammatically correct.

4.2 Present Tense Morpheme

            Inflectional morpheme plays an important role in English present tense. In English, inflectional morpheme is needed as present tense marker with particular subject. The singular noun, the third singular personal pronoun and uncountable noun as subject need the verbs with present tense morpheme. The form of present tense morpheme in this case is the suffix –s. Look at the examples below:

(14) My mother sweeps the floor.

       My father works in a bank.

       My teacher comes on time. 

       She/he speaks English fluently.

(15) My teachers never come late.

       My friends watch TV every night.

       The girls study in a university.

(16) *My mother sweep the floor.

       *My father work in a bank.

       *My teacher come on time. 

       *She/he speak English fluently.

       *My teachers never comes late.

       *My friends watches TV every night.

       *The girls studies in a university.

All the verbs in sentences (14) namely sweeps, works, comes and speaks contain inflectional morpheme –s added in the final position (suffix) because the subjects are singular noun or the third person singular. Inflectional morpheme –s (the suffix –s) is not needed for the plural noun subjects. This is shown in examples (15). The sentences in example (16) are not  grammatically correct  because of the omission  of  inflectional morpheme –s and  the misplacement  of the inflectional morpheme –s.

  

4.3 Past Tense Morpheme

            In English, The most popular past tense  morpheme is indicated by the suffix –ed added to regular verbs. That is   why this past tense morpheme is often called morpheme –ed. In reality, this past tense morpheme has three phonetically conditioned variants or allomorphs [t], [d], and [id]. It means that the morpheme {-ed} can be pronounced [t], [d] or [id] depending on the final phone of the base attached by this morpheme. The following are the examples of the irregular verbs which contain the suffix –ed.

Verb     {-ed}       Inflection       Phone

                              Result                         

Cook        -ed        cooked             [ t ]

Stop         -ed         stopped           [ t ]

Wash        -ed        washed            [ d ]

Watch      -ed         watched          [ d ]

Wait         -ed         waited            [ id ]

Want        -ed         wanted           [ id ]

Divide      -ed         divided           [id ] 

            The past tense morpheme            ( morpheme –ed) also occurs irregularly. It means that this past tense morpheme (morpheme –ed) is not represented by the suffix –ed.  This morpheme occurs with the particular verbs called irregular verbs. These variants of past tense morpheme are said to be lexically conditioned. The examples of  irregular verbs which contain the past tense morpheme are as follows:

Verb               {-ed}                Inflection

                                                Result

am, is               -ed                   was

are                   -ed                   were

break               -ed                   broke

bring                -ed                   brought

buy                  -ed                   bought

catch                -ed                   caught

do                    -ed                   did

go                    -ed                   went

put                   -ed                  put

teach                -ed                   taught

In English sentence the past tense morpheme is used to show the past event or condition. Therefore the adverbs of time showing past time such as yesterday, last week, two years ago,  and in 1999 are related to the past tense morpheme. Look at the examples :

(17)  My mother cooked yesterday.

(18)  She came here two days ago.

(19)  She worked in Jakarta last year.

4.4 Progressive Morpheme

            Progressive morpheme in English is indicated by the suffix –ing added to the verbs. This progressive morpheme is used in the progressive tense sentences. The progressive tense gives the idea that an action is in progress during particular time. The tense says that an action begins before, is in progress during, and continues after another time or action (Azar,1993 : 3).

The  progressive  tense is also called the continuous tense. The progressive morpheme can be used in present and past tense. This morpheme is placed after be. The following examples are taken from Azar (1993: 3).

(20) He is sleeping right now.

(21) He was sleeping when I arrived.

(22) He will be sleeping when we arrive.

4.5 Past Participle Morpheme

            Past participle morpheme is used to show the perfect event and the passive sentence. Past participle morpheme can be in the form of prefix –ed added to the verbs or it can be in irregular forms of verbs. This morpheme is usually called the morpheme {-en} to differentiate it from the past tense morpheme whose symbol is {-ed}. The verbs containing past participle morphemes are usually called  verb three (V 3). This is because in the list, this verb is placed in column three (3). The use of the English verbs containing past participle in morphosyntactic structure are described as follows: 

4.5.1 Past Participle Morphemes in

         Perfect Tense Sentence

Past participle morphemes are used in perfect tense sentences.  Past participle morphemes (morpheme {–en}) are added to the verbs after the auxiliary verb has, have, or had.  Look at the examples below:

(23) She has cooked.

(24) I have lived here for three years.

(25) They have gone.

(26) Sally has given me money.

(27) John has been here for one our.

4.5.2 Past participle Morphemes in  

         passive Sentences

Past participle morpheme is also used in English passive sentences.

(28) I was invited to the meeting.

(29) She is waited by his grandmother.

(30) He was stopped by the police.

(30) This homework must be done here.

(31) This floor is swept everyday.

4.6 Comparative and Superlative

      Morpheme

4.7 Possessive Morpheme

5. Derivational Morpheme in Syntactic Structure

5.1 Morpheme -ness

REFERENCES

Azar, Betty Schrampfer. 1993.

    Understanding and Using English

    Grammar. Washington: Prantice-Hall,

    Inc.

Crystal, Davis. 1980. A First Dictionary

    of linguistics and Phonetics.  

    Colorado: Westview Press Boulder

           

Lim Kiat Boey. 1975.  An  Introduction 

    to  Linguistics  for  the  Language 

   Teacher. Singapore: Singapore

    University Press.