2024/2 PBI Introduction to Linguistics

B. The Definition of Morphemes

 A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning we have – that is, the smallest piece of a word that contributes meaning to a word. Example The word trainings has 3 morphemes in it: train-ing-s. To break a word into morphemes, try starting at the beginning of the word and seeing how far into the word you need to go to find a sub-part of the word that has some meaning. For example, in the word unbreakable, the first two letters un- are independently meaningful in a way that just the first letter, u-, is not – un- means something like „not (whatever)‟, and changes the meaning of the word it attaches to in a predictable way; sub-parts of un-, like u- or –n-, don‟t have this property. This means that un- is a morpheme. Morphemes are segments of the grammatical word which represent choices from a set of options forming a grammatical category. As an example let us see the article “a” and “an”. We see that both “a” and “an” (and the other sets) are „the same thing‟. 

Then we will say that these various sets of morphs realise the same morpheme. A morpheme can be defined as a minimal unit having more or less constant meaning and more of less constant form. („More or less‟ because... see below.) For example, linguists say that the word buyers is made up of three morphemes {buy}+{er}+{s}. The evidence for this is that each can occur in other combinations of morphemes without changing its meaning. We can find {buy} in buying, buys, and {er} in seller, fisher, as well as buyer. And {s} can be found in boys, girls, and dogs. 

C. Kinds of Morphemes 

Traditionally, there are two types of Morphemes:

1) Free Morphemes These have a tendency of standing alone and they are of two categories. 

a) Lexical Morphemes 

These do carry most of the semantic content of the utterance. E.g. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. 

b) Functional Morphemes These do signal grammatical information in a sentence. They also perform a logical function. E.g. Articles, Conjunctions, Pronouns, Demonstratives, Prepositions etc.

2) Bound Morphemes 

Bound morphemes –in nature –cannot stand alone. They must be attached to root, stem or bases. In most cases bound morphemes are affixes (prefixes, infixes, and suffixes) There are affixes that can change the word class of a particular word together with its meaning. These are termed as Derivational Affixes/Morphemes Eg work+er = worker

Teach +er = teacher V=teach N=teacher There are affixes that do not change the word class, but they simply encode different grammatical functions like tense, number etc. These are called Inflectional Morphemes/Affixes Tall+er = Taller Adj= tall adj= taller

Katamba (1993, 2006) has come with a complementary view of categorizing morphemes. According to him Morphemes must be in 4 (four) categories. 

(a) Roots 

A root is a core part of a word, the word which must be lexical in nature. A root must exist independent of affixes. A root cannot be segmented further into smaller meaningful units. A root must always be a lexical category. In most cases the root must be a word. A root therefore is an irreducible core part of a word with absolutely nothing else attached to it. A traditional thinking is that all roots are free morphemes but currently all roots are not necessarily free morphemes, there are also bound roots.

Bound roots are foreign in origin and most of them are Latinate. These cannot stand alone unless they are attached to other elements. For example: 1) -mit = submit, transmit, commit 2) -ceive = receive, perceive, conceive 3) Pred- = predator, predatory, predation 4) Sed- = sedentary., sedent, sediment 

(b)Affixes 

An affix is a morpheme that only occurs when attached to some other morpheme or morphemes such as roots or stems or bases. Prefix-is an affix attached before the root, base or stem like re-, unin-, as in, re-write, un-kind, in-accurate. Suffix –is an affix attached after the a root (or stem or base) like –ly, -er, -ist, -ing, -s, etc. as in kind-ly, teach-er, typ-ist, etc. Infixes – infixes are not common in English language.

(c) Stems

A stem is a part of a word that exists before any inflectional affix. It is a right candidate with a possibility of receiving inflectional affixes. Stems can be best captured within the field of Inflectional Morphology. E.g. teacher-teachers, play-playing. 

(d) Bases A base is any unit to which all kinds of affixes can be added. i.e. Bases can accept derivational and inflectional Morphemes. That‟s why it is said that all roots are bases but all bases are not roots. The reasons for such a claim are: 1) A root by nature can accept either inflectional or derivational morphemes. 2) Some bases can be segmented further into smaller meaningful units (unlike roots) Examples: 1) Careful = -root, -stem, +base 2) Read = +root, +stem, +base 3) Worker = -root, +stem, +base 4) Dog = +root, +stem, +base 5) Faith= +root +/-stem, +base