What are morphemes in English?

Morphology, a branch of linguistics, is dedicated to the study of the morphemes of a language. More precisely, it is responsible for the analysis of the interior of words. For example, the number of morphemes it contains, their characteristics and their meanings.

A morpheme can also be defined as a shape or sequence of sounds that has a recognizable meaning. At the same time, a morpheme can have more than one pronunciation and even more than one spelling. A common example is the plural formation of regular nouns in English, whose ending can be -s or -es : toe /toes , book/books , class/classes . The plural can also be pronounced in different ways: the sound “s” as in the word see , or as “z” in the word bags , or “ts” as in the word lots .

Another characteristic of morphemes is that they function as grammatical labels, allowing the rapid identification of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and other linguistic structures.

Types and examples of morphemes

In English, morphemes , “morphemes”, can be divided into free and bound morphemes.

free morphemes

The free morphemes , “free morphemes”, are independent words, whose meaning does not depend on others. They can be simple, like apple , that is, they can be separated, or they can be compound, that is, they can be accompanied by other free words: red apple . Free morphemes can also be classified into:

• Lexical morphemes, «lexical morphemes»: they are the words that have a semantic meaning in themselves. Generally, they are nouns, adjectives or verbs: boy, water, house, shirt, shy, tall, short, eat, smell, see, run .
• Functional morphemes, «functional morphemes»: these words accompany others. This category includes prepositions, conjunctions, articles and pronouns: the, an, a, this, that, these, those, some, many, few, by, on, under, over, or, but, for, and, will, is, must, be.

bound morphemes

The bound morphemes , “linked morphemes” are also known as affixes , “affixes”, and are morphemes that cannot be alone or exist independently, but are necessarily linked to others. These are usually suffixes like –less , –ed , ‘ s . In turn, linked morphemes can be classified into:

• Inflectional morphemes: they are suffixes that give a specific grammatical property to the word, but do not change its meaning.
  • Nominals, which are the morphemes that determine gender, feminine and masculine; and the number, singular and plural. For example: prince/princess , sales man /sales woman , eye s , flower s .
  • Verbal, which provide characteristics related to the verb: lov es , he is working right now, she lik ed that cheescake, they have written in those papers.
• Derivative morphemes: they can be prefixes or suffixes and modify the meaning of words.
  • Prefixes: they are located before the lexeme or root, such as im-, un-, a-, an-, self-, mid-, pre-, non-, anti-.
  • Suffixes: These are placed after the stem, such as -ly, -less, -lly, -ful, -er, -est, -ize, -ary, -ion, -ine, -ate.

Other examples of morphemes

In addition to the morphemes mentioned, in the English language there are other examples of morphemes. Some of them, within sentences, are the following:

• He wears the jacket daily . / “He wears his jacket every day.”
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away. / “Eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
  This is my home. / “This is my home”.
• Those are his cats. / “Those are his cats.”
• That was a crazy week. / “This was a crazy week.”
• These are the last options. / “These are the last options.”
• It is a must. / “It is mandatory.”
• She does her homework every day. / “She does her homework every day.”
• Many of them visited him last year. / “Many of them visited last year.”
• There are some left overs in the fridge. / “There are some leftovers in the fridge.”
• Please put the phone over the table. / “Please put the phone on the table.”
• She passed by that building. / “She passed by that building.”
  The test was easy but it was also very long. / “The exam was easy but also very long.”
• These flowers are for you. / “This flowers are for you”.
• Cathy and Matt are getting married. / “Cathy and Matt are getting married.”

Bibliography

• dk. English For Everyone English Grammar: Complete Visual Reference Guide. (2017). Spanish. dk.
• Hernández Zenteno, D. (2015, December 9). The morphology of the English language. prices Available at https://prezi.com/zptdplm73p-f/la-morofologia-del-idioma-ingles/
• Graña López, B. Generative morphology. English verb compounds. (1997). Spain. Oviedo University.