An analysis on the hierarchical structure of words in the headlines news of Jakarta Post

ABSTRACT

This research analyze about the hierarchical structure of word in the Headlines news of Jakarta Post. The hierarchical structure of word is the internal structure of word from lowest unit of word (minimal free form) to the highest unit of word. The hierarchical structure of word is the way to know that words affixes are not just strong together all at once, but they are put together step by step. There is a process in the internal structure of word. By this research, we understand how to identify the words which consist of more than two morphemes and know how the internal structure of words which have two meanings (ambiguous meaning).

To conduct this study the researcher uses descriptive qualitative research method. The data of this research is the words that consist of more than two morphemes and the words have more than one meaning (ambiguous meaning) which written in the headlines news of Jakarta Post published on 15th April 2009 until 28th April 2009, then the researcher takes the data for this research from the words written in the headlines news of Jakarta Post. To make this analysis more deeply, the researcher take the word which consist of prefix re-, un-, de-, dis-, in-, ir-, en-. To analyze the data, the researcher uses tree diagram to make easier during identify the stem, the researcher identifies the affixes in order to know the meaning of the word and the researcher uses the theory of word formation by Ingo Plag and the theory of words and their structure based on Andrew Carstairs and McCarthy.

The result of this research is it found that the meaning of each word is depending on the hierarchical structure of the word itself. By this research, we know the meaning of the word from the structure of morphemes, prefix and suffix, and the grammatical function. In short, we have to say that each word has different structure of word; therefore each of word has different meaning. More morphemes in the word more complicated the meaning of the word. Finally, from this research, the researcher have learned that to create new words we have to add some affixes into the stem and it is based on the function of the affixes. It shows us that everything cannot run accidentally. It need some process to create new word. And to know the meaning of the word we have to know the internal structure of the word, from the lowest to the highest level of the word.

Words never end and always go on. As the result of the study, it is suggested to students of English to learn more about the hierarchical structure of the word in order to understand how to identify the words which consist of more than two morphemes and they know how the internal structure of words which have two meanings (ambiguous meaning). It is also hoped that this research gives empirical data to English lecturers about hierarchical structure of word and encourage them to conduct the research of different objects of study. Furthermore, it is also suggested to future researchers to continue in conducting the research about morphological analysis, because there are areas which is possible to be investigated. In this study, the hierarchical structure of the word is the mainly type of morphological point of view. Therefore, it is suggested for further researcher to investigate an object which might contains mostly another type of the hierarchical structure of word. For example: word formation, word classes and morphological point of view.