The Morphological Maze: English vs. Chinese Word Forms

 

The Morphological Maze: English vs. Chinese Word Forms

Last week, I identified some difficulties for Chinese speakers learning English, and I believe this topic is worth elaborating on. I will develop more thoughts on this issue into content.

English utilizes complex morphology, meaning words change form (e.g., through suffixes or prefixes) to indicate grammatical function (e.g., plurals, verb conjugations, comparative adjectives). Chinese, however, is largely an isolating language, where words typically remain invariant regardless of their grammatical role. This absence of morphological inflection in Chinese makes English word forms particularly challenging for Chinese learners.

English Morphology Example:

• Verb: walk, walks, walked, walking
• Noun: cat, cats
• Adjective: big, bigger, biggest

Chinese Invariance Example:

• 走 (zǒu) - walk / walks / walked / walking (context determines)
• 猫 (māo) - cat / cats (use measure words or context for plural)
• 大 (dà) - big / bigger / biggest (use particles for comparison)