Introduction to Morphemes

• Morphology is study unit 1.1.3.
• Completion of this study section teaches you to:
• Identify word roots
• Identify bound and free morphemes
• Identify affixes (prefixes and suffixes).
• Indicate whether affixes are derivational or inflectional
• Indicate conversion caused by adding an affix
• Indicate whether an affix is neutral or non-neutral

Morphemes

• Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in a language
• A whole word or sections of words can be a morpheme
• "Small" is a word and a single morpheme as it has one meaning.
• "Smallest" comprises "small" + "-est," where "-est" (the superlative morpheme) means "the most".
• A word's syllable count does not impact its morpheme count
• "Cats" has two morphemes: "Cat" and the plural morpheme "-s", despite being one syllable

Morpheme Questions

• Consider these terms:
• Dog
• Dogs
• Elephant
• Establish
• Establishment
• Child
• Children
• Childish
• Childishness
• How many morphemes are there in each of these words?

Types of Morphemes

• Free
• Bound
• Inflectional
• Derivational

Root/Base/Stem

• This is the meaningful core of a word
• All affixes attach to a base
• Every word has at least one base
• Bound bases occur, and aren't always free morphemes, e.g., dis+sent = dissent

Free vs. Bound Morphemes

• Free morphemes can stand alone as words
• inactive contains the free morpheme "act"
• Bound morphemes cannot stand alone
• They can be either inflectional or derivational
• inactive contains the bound morphemes "in-" and "-ive"
• Hyphens indicate attachment points to other words

"In", "In-", and "In-"

• 'In' can function as a preposition
• It could also be a derivational prefix meaning 'not' or 'really'
• Example: "I live in Mahikeng" (preposition)
• Example: "It was an insincere apology" (derivational prefix meaning 'not')
• Example: "This gas is inflammable" (derivational prefix, meaning 'really' - intensifier)

Bound Morphemes

• Bound morphemes are either inflectional or derivational

Inflectional Morphemes

• Formed through affixation and vowel change.
• Mouse becomes Mice
• Grammatical relationships, like verb tense and number (plurals) are indicated
• Word class of the root word isn't changed
• baker's contains {-'s}

Derivational Morphemes

• Adding affixes (prefix/suffix) can create new words
• Vowel change is not included
• The word class is changed
• baker contains {-er}

Differentiating Morphemes

• Check a dictionary to differentiate derivational and inflectional morphemes
• "king", "kingdom", and "kingly" can all be found, but "kings" and "king's" cannot

Inflectional Morphemes Details

• There are eight in English
• All eight are suffixes
• Two are for nouns, four are for verbs, and two are for adjectives/adverbs

Derivational Morphemes

• Affixes are morphemes added to the beginning or end of a word
• Prefixes are added to the beginning; for instance, "unable" and "republish."
• Suffixes are added to the end; for instance, "baker" and "actively".

Neutral vs. Non-Neutral Affixes

• Neutral affixes do not affect base word pronunciation
• Non-neutral affixes affect the vowel/consonant or syllable stress in the base word

Allomorphs

• Allomorphs are morpheme variants
• Consider {in-}tolerable, {im-}possible, {ir-}regular, and {il-}legible
• All bracketed morphemes share a meaning of "not"

Zero Allomorph

• This involves an inflection on nouns/verbs that is invisible but presumed present
• Example: "three sheep" or "He hit a home run"
• {sheep} + {∅} and {hit} + {∅} express plurality and past tense through zero allomorphs

Analyzing a Word

• The steps are as follows:
• Identify morphemes and the root.
• Determine if morphemes are free or bound.
• Identify affixes.
• Determine if affixes are inflectional or derivational.
• Indicate root word conversion if derivational affixes are included
• Determine if affixes are neutral or non-neutral.