CHAPTER 1: MORPHEMES
1. Definitions of Morphemes
- ‘A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language.’
[Richard, Platt & Weber, 1987: 183]
- ‘A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:
1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its
meaning or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in different environments with a relatively stable meaning.’
[Stageberg, 1965:85]
Ex: The English word “unkind” consists of two morphemes: the base kind the lexical meaning of which is
‘friendly and thoughtful to others’ and the prefix un- the lexical meaning of which is ‘not’; the English word
talks consists of two morphemes: the base talk the lexical meaning of which is ‘say something’ and the suffix -
s, which has no lexical meaning and which is used to show that the verb talks is in the third person singular
present tense form.
In other words, we can recognize a morpheme by either its lexical or its grammatical meaning.
2. Characteristics of Morphemes
- Meaningful:
+ A morpheme may have both lexical and grammatical meaning, but some morphemes may have only
one grammatical meaning.
+ Grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of the relationship between words based
on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur.
+ Lexical meaning denotes a physical object, the meaning of a word considered in isolation from the
sentence containing it, and regardless of its grammatical context.
Ex: I teach English. – ‘teach’ has its lexical meaning denoting an action, and its grammatical meaning
denoting the simple present tense.
- Recurrent:
+ The grammatical function of a morpheme, which may include its meaning, but must be constant.
+ A morpheme must recur in various words with approximately the same meaning.
Ex: ‘re-‘ means “again; back” as in “rebuild; redo; regain;..”
- Inseparable: A morpheme cannot be broken into smaller elements without changing its meaning.
Ex: ‘display’: arrange something so that it can be seen by the public ‘dis-’ an affix with negative meaning +
‘play’ a verb denoting an action the meaning will be changed.
3. Types of Morphemes:
Morphemes can be grouped into certain classes: (2 WAYS)
3.1. Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes:
a. Free Morphemes:
- Can stand alone as independent words.
- Carry meaning by themselves.
Ex: love → can appear alone, but also in lovable, unloved.
b. Bound Morphemes:
- Cannot stand alone; must be attached to another morpheme.
Ex: ‘-ing’ as in ‘playing’ cannot stand on its own, but must be attached to other elements such as “kick, drink,
go..”
3.2. Bases (or roots) and Affixes
a. A base (a root)
- The core morpheme of a word that carries the main meaning.
- There are two kinds of bases:
+ A free base: A base that can also be a word on its own.
Ex: deal → dealings; nation → national
+ A bound base: A base that cannot occur on its own, only with other morphemes.
Ex: aud- (audience, audible); ora- (oration, orator)
b. An affix:
- An affix is a morpheme attached to a base.
- Can be classified according to positions: prefixes (occur before a base) and suffixes (occur after a base).
- Can be classified according to function:
+ Inflectional affixes (grammatical morphemes): purely grammatical, do not change word class.
The only eight inflectional suffixes in English are:
1. The plural morpheme {- s1} : books, boxes...
2. The possessive morpheme {- s2}: girl's, students’.
3. The third person singular present tense morpheme {- s3}: learns, walks, mixes...
4. The verb present participle morpheme: {-ing1}: learning, walking, mixing....
5. The verb past simple morpheme {-ed1}: learned, walked, mixed, ...
6. The verb past participle morpheme {-ed2}: learned, walked, mixed,...
7. The adjective or adverb comparative morphemes {-er1}: smaller, safer, thinner...
8. The adjective or adverb superlative morpheme {-est}: smallest, safest, thinnest...
+ Derivational affixes: create new words, may change word class
Ex: beauty (n) → beautiful (adj); happy (adj) → unhappy (adj)
