MORPHEMES
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression.
Morphemes are short segments of language. They are part of a word which has
meaning. You can’t divide them into smaller segments with meaning; without
changing their meaning. A morpheme is distinct from a phoneme because although
a phoneme is the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language, by itself a /p/ or
/m/ does not have grammatical or semantic meaning. It must be combined with
other phonemes into a morpheme to have such meaning.
There are two types of morphemes;
Free morphemes
Bound morphemes.
FREE MORPHEMES
This is a morpheme that can occur on its own or with other morphemes. Free
morpheme entail a lexical meaning. Examples include: laugh, walk, book, person,
spoon etc.
They are morphemes that have complete meaning on their own. They `are
classified into two:
Lexical morphemes e.g. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.
Functional morphemes e.g. conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, articles,
interjections.
BOUND MORPHEMES
These are those morphemes that cannot occur on their own but are always attached
to a free morpheme. Although they have a distinct meaning, the meaning is
grammatical. However, a bound morpheme when not attached to a free morpheme,
its meaning becomes difficult to discern.
We can analyze words into constituent morphemes and further group the
morphemes as free or bound, for example;
unrealistic
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression.
Morphemes are short segments of language. They are part of a word which has
meaning. You can’t divide them into smaller segments with meaning; without
changing their meaning. A morpheme is distinct from a phoneme because although
a phoneme is the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language, by itself a /p/ or
/m/ does not have grammatical or semantic meaning. It must be combined with
other phonemes into a morpheme to have such meaning.
There are two types of morphemes;
Free morphemes
Bound morphemes.
FREE MORPHEMES
This is a morpheme that can occur on its own or with other morphemes. Free
morpheme entail a lexical meaning. Examples include: laugh, walk, book, person,
spoon etc.
They are morphemes that have complete meaning on their own. They `are
classified into two:
Lexical morphemes e.g. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.
Functional morphemes e.g. conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, articles,
interjections.
BOUND MORPHEMES
These are those morphemes that cannot occur on their own but are always attached
to a free morpheme. Although they have a distinct meaning, the meaning is
grammatical. However, a bound morpheme when not attached to a free morpheme,
its meaning becomes difficult to discern.
We can analyze words into constituent morphemes and further group the
morphemes as free or bound, for example;
unrealistic
