Morphemes and Their Functions

Study Notes

Morphemes

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function
Morphology studies morphemes
Free morphemes can stand alone
- Examples include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and determiners
Bound morphemes cannot stand alone
- Examples include prefixes and suffixes
When a free morpheme is used with a bound morpheme, it's called a stem.

Functional Morphemes

Functional morphemes include articles, conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns
These are treated as a closed class of words
They describe functions, not objects or actions

Allomorphs

These are different forms of the same morpheme.
They're used to indicate different grammatical functions
Example forms:
- Cats - s
- Dogs - z
- Horses - z

Bound Morphemes (Continued)

Inflectional morphemes change the function of the word but do not change the core meaning.
- Example: -ed and -s
Derivational morphemes change the meaning of the word and can change the part of speech
- Example: Add -less to care, creates careless.

Stems

A stem is a word with a free morpheme
When a bound morpheme is added to a stem, it creates a new word.

Example:

re-ceive (re- is a prefix)
re-peat (re- is a prefix)
- In this case the prefixes change the basic meaning slightly.

Description

This quiz explores the concepts of morphemes, including their definitions, types, and functions within the structure of language. You will encounter questions on free and bound morphemes, functional morphemes, and allomorphs, providing a comprehensive overview of morphological studies.