Morphemes in Linguistics

Morphemes:

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of words, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. According to the Yule(1985),

" A morpheme is a small or minimum unit of meaning or grammatical function."

Morphology deals with morphemes. Morpheme is a minimum unit so it never breaks.

For examples: 

      The word "Buyers" 

This word made three morphemes.

      {Buy}+{er} + {s}

 These are the minimum units.

There are two kinds of morphemes. These are:

1. Free morpheme

2. Bound morpheme

Free morpheme

A morpheme that can stand alone. It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. It can be a word by itself.

For examples:

"Dog" is a free morpheme.

Stopped={stop} + {ed}

    Here, {stop}= free morpheme

There are two kinds of free morphemes.

1. Lexical free morpheme.

2. Functional free morpheme.

1. Lexical free morpheme

Lexical words are known as open class. Such as Noun, Verb, Adverbs, Adjectives.

2. Functional free morpheme:

Functional word are used as open closed class. For examples, Preposition, conjunctions, Pronouns, Determiners.

Bound Morpheme:

A morpheme that cannot stand alone. It cannot be used a word by itself.

For examples: 

Stopped={stop} + {ed}

Here, {ed} = Bound morpheme.

Note: Bound morphemes are suffix/ Prefix. So, suffix/prefix are bound morpheme.

There are two kinds of bound morphemes. These are:

1. Derivational Bound Morpheme:

2. Inflectional Bound Morpheme:

Derivational Bound Morpheme:

It creates new words. It may change new words. Sometimes it maintains class. For Examples,

Read (v) + er = Reader (n)  [ class changing ]

Boy (n) + hood = Boyhood (n) [ class maintaining ]

Inflectional Bound Morpheme:

a. Don't create new words.

b. Don't change word class.

 There are 8 inflectional morphemes in English. These are-

1. s  [ Plural morpheme ]

2. 's  [ Possessive or Ownership ]

3. s [ 3rd person Present Singular ]

4. ed [ Past Tense ]

5. ing [ Present Participle]

6. en [ Past Tense ]

7. er [ Comparatives ]

8. est [ Superlatives ]