Morphemes

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Morphemes

• LING101
• October 5, 2009

2
Quickwrite 8

• The word unlockable is ambiguous.
• What are the two meanings of the word?

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Morphemes

• Some words can be further decomposed into smaller
  meaningful units
• e.g. prepared -gt prepare -ed
• e.g. preparedness -gt (prepare -ed) ness
• Smallest meaningful units in a language are
  called morphemes
• e.g. prepare, -ed, ness

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Free vs. Bound Morphemes

• A free morpheme can be a word by itself
• e.g. prepare
• A bound morpheme cannot be a word by itself
• Affixes are bound morphemes
• e.g. ed, -ness

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Affixes

• Prefix and suffix
• e.g. undesirable
• Infix
• e.g. absofuckinglutely
• e.g. Bontoc (spoken in Philippines)

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Affixes contd

• Circumfix
• e.g. Chickasaw

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Roots and stems

• You are left with the root after you remove all
  the affixes
• e.g. undesirable -gt desire
• e.g. linguist -gt ling
• A root may or may not be a free morpheme
• e.g desire
• e.g. ling
• A stem combines with an affix to form a word
• e.g. desire able -gt desirable
• e.g. un desirable -gt undesirable

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Problematic examples

• Some words in English consist of stems whose
  meaning is not clear
• cranberry, huckleberry, boysenberry
• strawberry, gooseberry
• receive, conceive, perceive, deceive
• admit, remit, permit, commit, submit

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Hierarchical structure of words

• A word is not a mere sequence of morphemes
• For words consisting of three or more morphemes,
  there seems to be an order in which the morphemes
  are combined
• un (system atic) -gt unsystematic
• not (un system) atic -gt unsystematic

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Hierarchical structure contd

• Hierarchical structures are often represented as
  upside-down trees in linguistics