Introduction to Morphology

A MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX NOUNS IN THE MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY ENGLISH TEST (MUET) READING COMPREHENSION TEXTS

​Farel Gerald

2211420025

In English, word class is an important part that must be mastered, because its presence determines the meaning of the sentence that is formed. We have always been familiar with nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and so on. Nouns themselves also have their classification. There are compound nouns, words for people, animals, places, things, or ideas, made up of two or more words. There are also what are called complex nouns. a compound noun that is formed when a noun is put together with another part of speech. With a focus on complex nouns, morphological analysis is carried out in order to find the right structure and further examine the use of complex nouns.

Introduction

Morphological analysis is present as one of the ways that students usually use to identify problems by finding their roots. This method usually uses tree diagrams, but often also performs data comparisons with one another. Morphological analysis (MA) is a method for identifying, structuring and investigating the total set of possible relationships contained in a given multidimensional problem complex. Morphological analysis is well suited for textures since as a nonlinear shape-based image filtering framework, it excels at the exploitation of spatial relationships among pixels, and possesses a large number of tools capable of extracting size and shape information.

​Have you ever read an English book and felt as though you didn't comprehend what was being said? Okay, comprehending a book is inextricably linked to comprehending words. Word morphology is one method of deciphering words in order to obtain knowledge of the text. One of the most recommended ways to understand is to look at the morphology of a word. Morphological analysis not only helps us comprehend English better, but it also helps us expand our vocabulary.

People who read are more imaginative and logical, and they can sympathize better. However, according to Ekwall and Shanker the number of unfamiliar words, sentence length and syntax poses problems for readers. They suggest 2 approaches to help students with reading difficulties. Namely with a language-experience approach and effective oral reading. Let' start with the language experience approach first. In the technique there are 6 ways: the first is A Shared Experience. The LEA process can start with something done in class together, such as a field trip, experiment, or other hands-on activity. The second step is to create text. Indirectly, when we create text, we recreate the experience. The third step is to read and revise. After creating the text, we can read it, discuss it, and make corrections or additions to the story. The fourth step is to re-read. And finally, literacy. Texts can be used for various literacy activities such as illustrations or making comprehension questions.

​Reading Comprehension

​The second approach is oral reading. There are 6 steps in making our oral reading technique successful. The first is to look at the sample content. When we read a story orally and have a rhythm, the story becomes more alive. The second is by looking at the author's purpose. This is will clarify the purpose of your reading and create a direct connection between reader and listener. The third is mind the language. Oral readers will reflect a good relationship of meaning. In their minds, readers and listeners see images as they hear the words. The fourth step is to experiment with your technique. Readers usually give pause so that listeners can understand the contents of the reading. The fifth step is practice. Do the exercises repeatedly for perfect results, especially during presentations. And the last step is to prepare the audience. A good audience definitely listens carefully and guys, you need to prepare for that because they're bound to ask.

Keller (1978) ascertains three approaches to vocabulary teaching and learning:

We can also this approach like using a keyword to understand a word if we don't know what it means in the sentence. We know "bio" mean a life or must hace something to do with life, so we already know a little bit what "biodiversity" means.

2. The Etymological/Mnemonic Approach

One useful method for building vocabulary through root words is to first look at the base word and then look for familiar prefixes and suffixes that go with that base. For example, any English word you hear that contain suffix -struct will relate to building, developing, or creating something. By itself, "struct" is not just a word,  but it is the basis of more than 30 words.

1. The Root Approach

3. The Topical Vocabulary Checklist

This approach considered more difficult than the another since it's require us to memorizing words and it's used in English. This approch is specifically for people whose their learning method is suitable for this bwcause it is related to making checklist for the words that have already been mastered. For instance, if we make a checklist for "English in Business World" topic, we must produce a list that contain in Business field such as economy, work, money, etc and check our understanding about that word before we move into another topic.

Open Ended

Mention three approaches to vocabulary teaching and learning!

STRATEGIES FOR VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

The awareness of frequently used word parts and the ability to identify them in word as well as the representation of the complete meaning of a word through the word parts will enable a learner to develop a vocabulary efficiently. The use of word parts in understanding unfamiliar word is an effective way of developing vocabulary. Word parts involve root words, prefixes, and suffixes. The knowledge of root words and affixes not only enable learners to unlock the meaning of unknown words, but also serve to cross-check meaning guessed from context.

​Word Mophemic/Structural Analysis Strategy

STRATEGIES FOR VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

In prefixes, we have verb prefixes and noun prefixes. For the suffixes, we have verb, adjective, and noun suffixes. A beneficial list of commonly used prefixes and suffixes should be produced to facilitate the teaching process. Affixes are used as a method to figure out meanings of unfamiliar words. By being aware of these affixes, we as English learners become more confident in understanding the vocabulary we applied to context, also can form a good sentences to use.

Make a List of Most Commonly Used Affixes

Studies and Methodology

One of the factors that affect a person's knowledge in terms of morphology is age. In research conducted by Anglin in 1993, it was proven that the more humans grow, the knowledge about morphology also develops that will also affect the vocabulary knowledge. “Morphological problem solving contributes substantially to the growth of vocabulary knowledge”, In other words, age growth, especially in children, is balanced with increasing knowledge of words which they can then analyze morphologically. However, in contrast to the previous theory, this theory from B states that learners will more easily understand the vocabulary of a language if they already understand morphology. "Instruction on morphemic analysis have the increase of vocabulary knowledge and size.” So the theories suggest that we must be able to analyze words, one of which is with a lot of vocabulary knowledge, because in essence knowledge of the parts of words will make us have a better comprehensive. The knowledge of word parts will promote better comprehension (Mi-Chelle, 2017). 

1,609 word parts were gathered from the MUET reading comprehension texts. Table 2 shows that more than half of the word parts are suffixes with the highest percentage of 52.8%. This is followed by roots with (45.2%) and the smallest frequency of word parts is prefix with (2.0%).

PROCEDURE & RESULTS

There are a total of 727 roots in the complex nouns from the Table 3 data, the roots of the complex nouns can be divided according to their lexical category. There are three lexical categories, which are Noun, Verb and Adjective. From the Table 3, some of the roots of the complex nouns are derived from Nouns (e.g. area as in areas, industry as in industrialization). The results also show that Verb (e.g. rob as in robbery, write as in writings) occurred only about half of the percentage of Noun, with approximately 30%. The Adjective (e.g. moist as in moisture, real as in reality) with approximately a third of the percentage of Verb, which is 10.7%.

Table 4 shows that most of complex nouns are build from one root and one suffix with the frequency of 563 words, which is approximately 77% of the total of all the formation of complex nouns. The number of nouns that are made up of one root and two suffixes is lower with approximately 15%, this is followed by nouns made up of one root with one prefix and one suffix (2.06%), one root and one prefix (1.51%), and a spelling changed root and one suffix (1.38%).

Poll

Strategies for vocabulary development you prefer?

• ​Word Mophemic/Structural Analysis Strategy

• Make a List of Most Commonly Used Affixes

Multiple Choice

1. How can reading can improve the intelligence?

• Reading can make our vocabulary limited so we can expand more for learning another field

• It helps our digestive system and improve health ability

• The more we read, the more our brains get tuned to operate

• The intelligence we have is based what we read so be careful for reading without knowing the context

Multiple Choice

2. What does LEA (Language-experience approach) mean?

• A device for learning language

• A program to increase our knowledge of word parts

• A literacy development method for early reading development

• A journal that help many researcher for studying literature phenomenon

Fill in the Blank

3. What does Neurological Impress Method (NIM) mean?

Multiple Choice

4. What are the benefits of understanding word morphology?

• Make it easier to determine the meaning of words

• We can form a great sentence to use

• It helps our ability to communicate with native speakers

• So we know the affix and the word class from a word we found

Multiple Choice

5. Based on the picture, what approach used for the vocabulary teaching and learning program?

• The root approach

• The etymological/mnemonic approach

• The topical vocabulary checklist

• The morphological/mnemonic approach

Multiple Choice

6. What are the ways to analyze a complex noun?

• Tree structure and word formation

• Composites and shorthening

• Creations and blends

• Loans and shifts

Multiple Choice

7. Guesstimate is a blend. It is formed from two words guess + estimate. What are the two types of shifts?

• Shift of meaning and functional shift

• Shift of meaning and shift of content

• Functional shift and structural shift

• Shift of content and structural shift

Multiple Choice

8. How researcher identified the noun?

• By looking at the whole text and find the noun.

• By looking at the context of the noun phrases with the help of dictionaries

• By looking at the text and figure out the noun phrases with the help of journals

• By looking at the context of the text

Multiple Choice

9. Based on an adaptation of O’Grady and Guzman’s model of tree structure, the word parts are categorized into three groups, they are?

• Root, base, or stem

• Root, prefix, or stem

• Root, suffix, or base

• Root, prefix, or suffix

Multiple Choice

10. Which are the example of suffixes?

• -ness, pre-, and rest

• -ion, -ing, and re-

• -s, -ous, and -al

• -able, rest, and self-