morpheme

Morphemes

? Morpheme (词素): morph (=form) + -eme

? the smallest meaningful unit of a language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms ? What is considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more

morphemes

? Stockwell (2001: 58-61): Properties of morphemes

? (1) A morpheme is the smallest unit associated with a meaning.

Compare care in the two groups of words: ? care, caress, scare

? care, careless, careful, caring, uncaring, caregiver

? (2) Morphemes are recyclable units. ? One of the most important properties of the morpheme is that it can be used again and again to form many words.

? care, careless, careful, caring, uncaring, caregiver

? (3) Morphemes must not be confused with syllables. ? A morpheme may be represented by any number of syllables, though typically

only one or two, sometimes three or four.

Disagreeable: five syllables & three morphemes ? Syllables have nothing to do with meaning.

? (4) One and the same morpheme may take phonetically different shapes. ? -(e)s: three phonological forms:

? books, pigs, horses /s/ /z/ /iz/

? The three forms are variants of the same morpheme -s. They are

called allomorphs.

? An allomorph（词素变体）is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as

conditioned by position or adjoining sounds. ? (5) Two different morphemes may have the same shape ? -s

? Marking plural meaning: cats, dogs, workers, students ? Marking present tense: works, sings, runs, jumps…

Classification of Morphemes

? Two main types of classification ? A: free v.s. bound

? Free morphemes（自由词素）: morphemes which occur independently

as words

? Bound morphemes（粘着词素）: morphemes which occur only as part

of a word which could not stand on its own

? B: roots v.s. affixes (non-root)

? Roots or root morphemes（词根）

? A root is the basic unchangeable part of a word and it conveys

the main lexical meaning of the word

? Every word has at least one root. Roots are at the centre of

word-derivational processes.

Roots : free roots & bound roots

? Free roots (自由词根)

? Free roots: In English, many roots are free morphemes: man, sun, run,

milk, black

? A word consisting of one free root is a simple word

? Free roots provide the English language with a basis for the formation

of new words

? Bound roots (粘着词根)

? Most bound roots found in English today are of classical origin, i.e.

they were borrowed into English from Latin and Greek during the Renaissance, or through French.

? tain from Latin: to hold – contain, detain, retain

? To be completed, bound roots require that another morpheme

be attached to them.

Affixes: inflectional & derivational

? Affixes (词缀)

? Affix is a collective term for the type of formative that can be used

only when added to another morpheme. So affixes are bound morphemes. ? Affixes have two quite different functions and can be divided into two

more types:

? a: derivational (派生) affixes: affixes that have the function of

deriving new words

? b: inflectional (屈折) affixes: affixes that do not participate in

word formation at all

a. Inflectional affixes (inflectional morphemes)

? to express meanings as plurality, tense, and the comparative or superlative degree

? Plural marker

? The present particle

? The past tense and past participle ? The comparative/superlative

? not to form a new word with new lexical meaning

? not to change the word-class of the word b. Derivational affixes (derivational morphemes)

? They are added to another morpheme and derive a new word. ? rewrite, minicar, supermarket, worker, modernize, meanness

? Many have a specific lexical meaning ? -ism: doctrine or point of view ? pro-: on the side of

? Some have more than one meaning Affixes

Affixes are subdivided into prefixes and suffixes

They can be grouped according to Linguistic origin and Productivity

Morphology

Morphology: the study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed.

Fields of morphology: the study of inflections (inflectional morphology) and the study of word formation (lexical or derivational morphology).

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