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Types
In linguistics, we would further classify morphemes as either
asphonemes(the smallest units of grammar recognizable by
sound) orgraphemes(the smallest units of written language). For
our purposes, we will focus on graphemes.
Let's examine the wordnonperishable, analyze it, and then discuss
terms associated with it.
Nonperishablehas:
3 morphemes -non-,perish,and-able.
five syllables /nn-per...bl/
This a good example of why morphemes and syllables are not
synonymous.
Non-is an example of aprefix, or a morpheme that precedes abase
morpheme.Perishis an example of a base morpheme, as it gives
the word its essential meaning.-Ableis an example of asuffix, or a
morpheme that follows a base morpheme. Bothnon-and-ableare
examples of anaffix, a morpheme attached prior to or following a
base that cannot function independently as a word.
A Morpheme as a Word
When we can take a morpheme independently and use it as a standalone word in a sentence, it is known as a base. As the chart indicates
above, these can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions,
prepositions, or determiners. We also classify a morpheme that can
function as a stand-alone word asfree.
In the sentence, 'The bird-like man hardly touched his food at dinner,'
How many morphemes are there?
There are a total of 11 morphemes, and 9 of the 11
are free:
1. The
(part of speech: article)
2. bird
(part of speech: noun)
3. man
(part of speech: noun)
4. hard
(part of speech: adjective, but with the -ly:
5.
adverb)
(part of speech: verb)
touched
(part of speech: determiner)
6. his
(part of speech: noun)
7. food
8. at
(part of speech: preposition)
9.
(part of speech: noun)
The
other two morphemes, '-like' and '-ly', are types of affixes, which
dinner
brings us to our next topic.
A Morpheme as an Affix
An affix is aboundmorpheme, which means that it is exclusively attached to
a free morpheme for meaning. Prefixes and suffixes are the most common
examples:
Common prefixes: re-, sub-, trans-, in-, en-, ad-, dis-, con-, comCommon suffixes: -s, -es, -able, -ance, -ity, -less, -ly, -tion
Affixes
Derivational Affixes
Inflectional Affixes
There are a large number of derivational affixes in English. In
contrast, there are only eight "inflectional affixes" in English, and
these are allsuffixes. English has the following inflectional suffixes,
which serve a variety of grammatical functions when added to
specific types of words. These grammatical functions are shown to
the right of each suffix.
1. -s noun plural
2. -'s noun possessive
3. -s verb present tense third person singular
4. -ing verb present participle/gerund
5. -ed verb simple past tense
6. -en verb past perfect participle
7. -er adjective comparative
8. -est adjective superlative