The affix types, demonstrated in Table 2, are classified based on where they attach to the stem: prefix, suffix, infix, and circumfix. There are four salient types of affixes found in the world’s languages. For the sake of brevity this blog only discusses the affix, but please contact us at LanGo if you are interested in advanced lessons on morphology (very useful for language learners and highly recommended for first-year graduate students of linguistics). Linguists often distinguish types of bound morphemes including particles, clitics, and affixes. We challenge the reader to start counting morphemes in words, as it is not always as clear as “racecar”! If we take “racecar” as our stem, we can attach the plural marker ‘-s’ to create “racecars.” Here, we can easily see that ‘racecars’ is composed of three morphemes: the two free morphemes “race” and “car,” and the bound morpheme ‘-s’ which adds the plural meaning. Recall that a morpheme that other morphemes attach to can be referred to as a stem. For example, in English we often combine free morphemes into compound words such as “racecar,” which combines the two free morphemes “race” and “car.” Another English example of a bound morpheme is the plural marker ‘-s.’ Words can be composed of a combination of free and bound morphemes. Morphemes which can stand on their own as words are called free morphemes, and those which must attach to something are called bound morphemes. There are two primary types of morphemes: those that can stand alone, such as “kind” in Table 1, and those which cannot stand alone but must attach to something else, such as ‘-ly’ and ‘un-’ in Table 1. In the word “unkind” an ‘un-’ has been added to the stem to derive a word with negative meaning. The next two examples each have two morphemes: something has been added to the stem “kind.” In the word “kindly” a suffix “-ly” has been added to derive an adverb (note, hyphens on a morpheme indicate which direction it attaches). A morpheme that other morphemes attach to can be referred to as a stem. The first example, “kind” is composed of a single morpheme. Looking at Table 1, we can start to get an idea what “smallest unit of meaning” looks like in language. Table 1 illustrates some English morphemes. Morphology is the linguistic study of morphemes, or, in plain terms, the study of forms. A word is made up of at least one morpheme and, in many cases, a word is composed of multiple morphemes. That is, it is the smallest unit which has meaning. The morpheme is the most fundamental unit of meaning in language. Learning about word building is useful for the language learner as it scaffolds understanding of how your target language works as whole. We look at a few different types of morphemes including stems and affixes. In this post, we examine the notion of the morpheme, a fundamental unit of meaning in language.
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