My personal book collection is now visible online! Click on the page ‘My books’ at the top, or click here.

Share on Facebook

What is a:

• Word: a word is a form that has meaning on its own, and can occur in isolation. e.g. Cats.
• Morpheme: a morpheme is the smallest part of a word which still has meaning. e.g. hunter (hunt-er) hunt meaning to pursue and kill, and -er, meaning a person, animal, thing denoting an action.
• Derivation: a derivation morpheme is a morpheme which is added to another to make a new word. e.g. happiest (happy-est) happy being the free morpheme, -est added to happy makes a new word with different properties.
• Flexion: a flexion morpheme is a morpheme which is added to another to add a bit more information. e.g. houses (house-s) house being the free morpheme, and -s is added to give a bit more information i.e. more than one house.
• Free Morpheme: a free morpheme is a morpheme which can be used on its own. e.g. act.
• Bound Morpheme: a bound morpheme is a morpheme which cannot be used on its own. e.g. ‘-s’.
• Allomorph: an allomorph is a morpheme which can change depending on its surroundings. e.g. ‘a’ & ‘an’ changes depending on the word behind them, whether it starts with a vowel or consonant.
• Root: the root is the main morpheme in a word, with others added on. The whole word created will still be loosely connected in at least meaning with its root. e.g. modernize (modern-ize) modern being the main morpheme i.e. the root.
• Affix: this is the morpheme added to the root. It can be added to the beginning of the root (prefix) or to the end (suffix). e.g. unkind (un-kind) kind being the root and  ’un-’ being added to the root.
• Compound: a compound is two words, not morphemes, added together to make a completely new word. e.g. football (foot-ball).

Reference: http://fany.savina.net/2010/01/morphology/,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound,

http://www.pearson.ch/HigherEducation/Longman/1471/9780582246911/Contemporary-Linguistics-An-Introduction.aspx

Share on Facebook