The Importance of Morphemic Analysis in English Learning
Morpheme
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In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of a word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morphology (linguistics). A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.
The concept of word and morpheme are different: a morpheme may or may not stand alone. One or several morphemes compose a word. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone (ex: "lie", "cake"), or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme (ex: "im" in impossible). Its actual phonetic representation is the morph, with the different morphs ("in-", "im-") representing the same morpheme being grouped as its allomorphs.
English example:
The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-", a bound morpheme; "break", a free morpheme; and "-able", a bound morpheme. "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both "un-" and "-able" are affixes.
The morpheme plural-s has the morph "-s", /s/, in cats (/kæts/), but "-es", /ɨz/, in dishes (/dɪʃɨz/), and even the voiced "-s", /z/, in dogs (/dɒɡz/). "-s". These are allomorphs.
Whether or not a word is divided on all available morphemes is debatable. Some morphologists decompose the words completely as it was formed etymologically while others only decompose what there is evidence to decompose in the modern use of the word.
The word "governmental" has either three morphemes: "govern," a free morpheme: "ment", a bound morpheme; and "-al", a bound morpheme. Or, depending on the syntactic framework, it has two morphemes: "government" and "-al."
The word "predict" has either two morphemes: "pre-" a bound morpheme", and "dict" a bound morpheme, or one morpheme: "predict" a free morpheme.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of a word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morphology (linguistics). A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.
The concept of word and morpheme are different: a morpheme may or may not stand alone. One or several morphemes compose a word. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone (ex: "lie", "cake"), or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme (ex: "im" in impossible). Its actual phonetic representation is the morph, with the different morphs ("in-", "im-") representing the same morpheme being grouped as its allomorphs.
English example:
The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-", a bound morpheme; "break", a free morpheme; and "-able", a bound morpheme. "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both "un-" and "-able" are affixes.
The morpheme plural-s has the morph "-s", /s/, in cats (/kæts/), but "-es", /ɨz/, in dishes (/dɪʃɨz/), and even the voiced "-s", /z/, in dogs (/dɒɡz/). "-s". These are allomorphs.
Whether or not a word is divided on all available morphemes is debatable. Some morphologists decompose the words completely as it was formed etymologically while others only decompose what there is evidence to decompose in the modern use of the word.
The word "governmental" has either three morphemes: "govern," a free morpheme: "ment", a bound morpheme; and "-al", a bound morpheme. Or, depending on the syntactic framework, it has two morphemes: "government" and "-al."
The word "predict" has either two morphemes: "pre-" a bound morpheme", and "dict" a bound morpheme, or one morpheme: "predict" a free morpheme.
|Contents
References: • Spencer, Andrew (1992). Morphological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. External links