What is a word morpheme what is the difference between a word and a morpheme - Word и Excel

The best way to understand word and morpheme, when they become rather confusing, is through understanding the difference between the two, the word and the morpheme. A language consists of various elements such as sentences, words, syllables, morphemes, etc. A morpheme is usually considered as the smallest element of a word or else a grammar element, whereas a word is a complete meaningful element of language. The difference between the two is that while a word always conveys a meaning, in the case of a morpheme, this is doubtful. It can sometimes convey a meaning and sometimes not. This article attempts to highlight this difference through a description of the two terms.

What is a Morpheme?

A morpheme refers to the smallest meaningful element of a word. A morpheme cannot be further broken into parts. For example, chair, dog, bird, table, computer are all morphemes. As you can see they express a direct meaning yet cannot be further separated into smaller parts. However, a morpheme is not similar to a syllable as it carries a meaning. For example, when we say giraffe, it consists of a number of syllables but a single morpheme. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes a single word can carry a number of morphemes. Let us try to understand this through an example. If we take the word ‘regained’, this word consists of 3 morphemes. They are, ‘re’ , ‘gain’ and ‘ed’.

Chair is a Morpheme

In linguistics, we speak of different varieties of morphemes. They are free morphemes and bound morphemes. Free morphemes refer to those that can stand as a single word. Nouns, adjectives can be considered as free morphemes (brush, chalk, pen, act, find). Bound morphemes cannot stand alone. They are usually attached to other forms. Prefixes and suffixes are examples for bound morphemes (re, ly, ness, pre, un, dis).

What is a Word?

A word can be defined as a meaningful element of a language. Unlike a morpheme, it can always stand alone. A word can consist of a single morpheme or a number of morphemes. For example, when we say ‘reconstruct,‘ it is a single word, but it is not a single morpheme but two morphemes together (‘re‘ and ‘construct‘). When forming phrases or sentences, we use a number of words. For example, when we say ‘Didn’t you hear, he has been reassigned to the head office,’ it is a combination of words that convey a meaning to the reader. But, let us take a single word from the sentence, ‘reassigned’; this once again conveys a complete meaning. But even though this is a single word, it consists of a number of morphemes. They are, ‘re’ , ‘assign’, ‘ed’. This is the main difference between a morpheme and a word.

Re (Morpheme) + Construct (Morpheme) = Reconstruct (Word)

What is the difference between Word and Morpheme?

• A morpheme is the smallest meaningful part of a word.

• A word is a separate meaningful unit, which can be used to form sentences.

• The main difference is that while a word can stand alone, a morpheme may or may not be able to stand alone.

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Chair via Wikicommons (Public Domain)

Источник

2. Synthetic means of form-building.

3. Analytical forms.

1. The main task of morphology
is the study of the structure of words. The sinallesl significant
(meaningful) units of grammar are called morghemes.

Morphemes are commonly
classified into free (those which can occur as separate words) and
bound. A word consisting of a single (free) morpheme is
monomorphemic, its opposite is polymorphemic.

According to their meaning
and, function morphemfes are subdivided into lexical (roots),
lexico-grammatical (word-building affixes ) and grammatical
(form-building affexes, or inflexions)

Morphemes
are abstract units, respresented in speech by morphs. Most morphemes
are realized by single morphs: un-self-ish.
Some morphemes may be manifested by more than one morph according to
their position. Such alternative morphs, or positional variants of a
morpheme are called allomorphs: cats, [s], dog’s [z], foxes [iz],
oxen.

Morphemic variants are
identified in the text on the basis of their co-occurence with other
morphs, or their environment. The total of environments constitutes
the distribution.

There may
be three types of morphemic distribution: contrastive,
non-contrastiye, conplementary Morphs are in coutrastive distribution
if their position is the same and their meanings are different:
charming
— charmed.
Morphs are in non-contrastive distribution if their position is the
same and their meanings are the same: learned
— learnt.
Such morphs constitute free variants of the same morpheme. Morphs are
in complementary distribution if their positions are different and
their meanings are the same: speaks.
-teaches.
Such morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme.

Grammatical
meanings may be expressed by the absence of the morpheme. Compare:
book
— books.
The meaning of plurality is expressed by the morpheme —s.
The meaning of singularity is expressed by the absence of the
morpheme. Such meaningful absence of the morpheme is called
zero-morpheme.

The
function of the morpheme may be performed by a separate word. In the
opposition work
— will work
the meaning of the future is expressed by the word will.
Will is a contradictory unit. Formally it is a word, functionally it
is a morpheme. As it has the features of a word and a morpheme, it is
called a word morpheme. Word-morphemes may be called semi-bound
morphemes.

2. Means of form-building and
grammatical forms are divided into synthetic and analytical.

Synthetic forms are built with
the help of bound morphemes, analytical forms are built with the help
of semi-bound morphemes (word-morphemes).

Synthetic means of
form-building are affixation, sound-interchange (inner-inflexion),
suppletivity.

Typical
features of English affixation are scarcity and homonymy of affixes.
Another characteristic feature is a great number of zero-morphemes.

Though .English grammatical
affixes are few in number, affixation is a productive means of
form-building.

Sound
interchange may be of two types: vowel- and consonant-interchange. It
is often accompanied by affixation: bring
— brought.

Sound interchange is not
productive in Modern English. It is used to build the forms of
irregular verbs.

Forms of
one word may be derived from different roots: go
— went, I— me, good — better.
This means of form-building is called suppletivity. Different roots
may be treated as suppletive forms if:

1) they have the same lexical
meaning;

2) there are no parallel
non-suppletive forms;

3) other words of the same
class build their forms without suppletivity.

Suppletivity, like
inner-inflexion, is not productive in Modern English, but it occurs
in words with a very high frequency.

3.
Analytical forms are combinations of the auxiliary element (a word
-morpheme) and the notional element; is
writing.

Analytical forms are
contradictory units: phrases in form and wordforms in function.

In the
analytical form is
writing
the auxiliary verb be
is lexically empty. It expresses the grammatical meaning. The
notional element expresses both the lexical and the grammatical
meaning. So the grammatical meaning is expressed by the two
components of the analytical form: the auxiliary verb be
and the affix —ing..
The word-morpheme be
and the inflexion —ing
constitute
a discontinuous morpheme.

Analytical forms are
correlated with synthetic forms. There must be at least one synthetic
form in the paradigm.

Analytical forms have
developed from free phrases and there are structures which take an
intermediary position between free phrases and analytical forms: will
go, more beautiful.

The abundant use of analytical
forms, especially in the system of the verb, is the characteristic
feature of Modern English.

TOPIC IV

Parts
of Speech

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morpheme | word |

Word is a holonym of morpheme.

As nouns the difference between morpheme and word

is that morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as «un-«, «break», and «-able» in the word «unbreakable» while word is the smallest unit of language which has a particular meaning and can be expressed by itself; the smallest discrete, meaningful unit of language. Contrast morpheme.

As a verb word is

to say or write (something) using particular words; to phrase (something).

As an interjection word is

truth, indeed, to tell or speak the truth; the shortened form of the statement, «My word is my bond,» an expression eventually shortened to «Word is bond,» before it finally got cut to just «Word,» which is its most commonly used form.

Other Comparisons: What’s the difference?

morpheme

Noun

(en noun)

(linguistic morphology) The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as «un-«, «break», and «-able» in the word «unbreakable».

The word pigs» consists of two morphemes : »pig» (a particular animal) and »s» (indication of the plural).

The word werewolves»’ consists of four morphemes: «»were»» (~ man), «»wolf»» (a particular animal), «»es » (plural), and » ‘ » (indicating possessive).

Hyponyms

* prefix
* suffix
* affix

word

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) word, from (etyl) verb.

Noun

(en noun)
{{examples-right,
The word inventory may be pronounced with four syllables (/??n.v?n.t?.?i/) or only three (/?n?v?n.t?i/).

The word island» is six letters long; the »s» has never been pronounced but was added under the influence of »isle .

The word me signed in American Sign Language.
}}

The smallest unit of language which has a particular meaning and can be expressed by itself; the smallest discrete, meaningful unit of language.

* 1986 , David Barrat, Media Sociology (ISBN 041505110X), page 112:

The word , whether written or spoken, does not look like or sound like its meaning — it does not resemble its signified. We only connect the two because we have learnt the code — language. Without such knowledge, ‘Maggie’ would just be a meaningless pattern of shapes or sounds.

* 2009 , Jack Fitzgerald, Viva La Evolucin (ISBN 055719833X), page 233:

Brian and Abby signed the word‘ »clothing», in which the thumbs brush down the chest as though something is hanging there. They both spoke the »’word»’ »clothing». Brian then signed the »’word for »change ,

# The smallest discrete unit of spoken language which has a particular meaning, composed of one or more phonemes and one or more morphemes.

#* 1894 , Alex. R. Mackwen, The Samaritan Passover», in »Littell’s Living Age , series 6, volume 1:

Then all was silent save the voice of the high priest, whose words grew louder and louder,

# The smallest discrete unit of written language which has a particular meaning, composed of one or more letters or symbols and one or more morphemes.

#* , act 2, scene 2:

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet: Words‘, »’words»’, ‘ words .

#* 2003 , Jan Furman, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon: A Casebook (ISBN 0195146352), page 194:

The name was a confused gift of love from her father, who could not read the word but picked it out of the Bible for its visual shape,

#* 2009 , Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read (ISBN 1101152400):

Well-meaning academics even introduced spelling absurdities such as the “s” in the word “island,” a misguided Renaissance attempt to restore the etymology of the [unrelated] Latin word insula .

# A discrete, meaningful unit of language which is approved by some authority.

#* 1896 , (Israel Zangwill), Without Prejudice , page 21:

“Ain’t! How often am I to tell you ain’t ain’t a word ?”

#* 1999 , Linda Greenlaw, The Hungry Ocean , Hyperion, page 11:

Fisherwoman isn’t even a word . It’s not in the dictionary.

# A sequence of letters or characters, or sounds, which (does not necessarily belong to a language or have a meaning, but which) is considered as a discrete entity.

#* 1974 , Thinking Goes to School: Piaget’s Theory in Practice (ISBN 0199839077), page 183:

In still another variation, the nonsense word is presented and the teacher asks, «What sound was in the beginning of the word?» «In the middle?» and so on. The child should always respond with the phoneme; he should not use letter labels.

#* 2003 , How To Do Everything with Your Tablet PC (ISBN 0072227710), page 278:

I wrote a nonsense word , «umbalooie,» in the Input Panel’s Writing Pad. Input Panel converted it to «cembalos» and displayed it in the Text Preview pane.

#* 2006 , Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse (ISBN 3161491122), page 141:

Here the scribe has dropped the ?? from ?????????, thereby creating the nonsense word ???????.

#* 2013 , The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Language (ISBN 1317859979), page 91:

If M. V. has sustained impairment to a phonological output process common to reading and repetition, we might anticipate that her mispronunciations will partially reflect the underlying phonemic form of the nonsense word .

Something which is like such a unit of language:

# (telegraphy) A unit of text equivalent to five characters and one space.

# (computing) A fixed-size group of bits handled as a unit by a machine (on many machines, 16 bits or two bytes).

# (computer science) A finite string which is not a command or operator.

# (group theory) A group element, expressed as a product of group elements.

The fact or act of speaking, as opposed to taking action.

* 1811 , (Jane Austen), (Sense and Sensibility) :

she believed them still so very much attached to each other, that they could not be too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion.

* 2004 , Richard Williams, The Guardian , 8 Sep 2004:

As they fell apart against Austria, England badly needed someone capable of leading by word and example.

* 1611 , Bible , Authorized Version, (w) XXVI.75:

And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

* (1809-1892)

She said; but at the happy word «he lives», / My father stooped, re-fathered, o’er my wound.

* (Charles Dickens) (1812-1870)

There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark.

* 1945 April 1, Sebastian Haffner, in The Observer :

«The Kaiser laid down his arms at a quarter to twelve. In me, however, they have an opponent who ceases fighting only at five minutes past twelve,» said Hitler some time ago. He has never spoken a truer word .

* 2011 , (David Bellos), Is That a Fish in Your Ear? , Penguin 2012, page 126:

Despite appearances to the contrary […] dragomans stuck rigidly to their brief, which was not to translate the Sultan’s words, but his word .

A watchword or rallying cry, a verbal signal (even when consisting of multiple words).

* 1592 , William Shakespeare, :

Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!

* 1647 (published), John Fletcher and William Rowley, (The Maid in the Mill) (published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio), scene 3:

I have the word : sentinel, do thou stand;

mum’s the word

(lb) A proverb or motto.

* 1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Court :

Among all other was wrytten in her trone / In golde letters, this worde , whiche I dyde rede: / Garder le fortune que est mauelz]] et [[bon, bone .

* 1599 , Ben Jonson, (Every Man out of His Humour) :

Let the word be ‘Not without mustard’. Your crest is very rare, sir.

* 1646 , , The Balm of Gilead :

The old word is, ‘What the eye views not, the heart rues not.’

Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals.

An order; a request or instruction; an expression of will.

Don’t fire till I give the word

Their mother’s word was law.

A promise; an oath or guarantee.

A brief discussion or conversation.

(in the plural) Angry debate or conversation; argument.

* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , :

And that worde‘ was made flesshe, and dwelt amonge vs, and we sawe the glory off yt, as the glory off the only begotten sonne off the father, which ‘ worde was full of grace, and verite.

Usage notes

* (distinct unit of language) In English and other space-delimited languages, it is customary to treat «word» as referring to any sequence of characters delimited by spaces. However, this is not applicable to languages such as Chinese and Japanese, which are normally written without spaces, or to languages such as Vietnamese, which are written with a space between each syllable.
* (computing) The size (length) of a word, while being fixed in a particular machine or processor family design, can be different in different designs, for many reasons. See for a full explanation.

Quotations

* 1897 , Ouida, The New Woman», in »An Altruist and Four Essays , page 239:
*: But every word‘, whether written or spoken, which urges the woman to antagonism against the man, every ‘ word which is written or spoken to try and make of her a hybrid, self-contained opponent of men, makes a rift in the lute to which the world looks for its sweetest music.
* 2011 , John Lehew (senior), The Encouragement of Peter (ISBN 1615074708), page 108:
*: In what sense is God’s Word living? No other word , whether written or spoken, has the power that the Bible has to change lives.
*

Synonyms

* (distinct unit of language) vocable
* (something promised) promise
* (God) God, Logos
* (Bible) word of God, Bible
* See also

Verb

(en verb)

(lb) To say or write (something) using particular words; to phrase (something).

I’m not sure how to word this letter to the council.

To flatter with words, to cajole.

* 1607 , William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra , act 5, scene 2:

He words‘ me, girls, he ‘ words me, that I should not / be noble to myself.

(lb) To ply or overpower with words.

* 1621 November 30, James Howell, letter to Francis Bacon, from Turin:

if one were to be worded to death, Italian is the fittest Language [for that task]

* 1829 April, Webster’s Dictionary», in »The North American Review , volume 28, page 438:

if a man were to be worded to death, or stoned to death by words, the High-Dutch were the fittest [language for that task].

To conjure with a word.

* (Robert South), Sermon on Psalm XXXIX. 9 :

Against him who could word‘ heaven and earth out of nothing, and can when he pleases ‘ word them into nothing again.

* 1994 , Liminal Postmodernisms»/»Postmodern Studies , volume 8, page 162:

«Postcolonialism» might well be another linguistic construct, desperately begging for a referent that will never show up, simply because it never existed on its own and was literally worded into existence by the very term that pretends to be born from it.

* 2013 , Carla Mae Streeter, Foundations of Spirituality: The Human and the Holy (ISBN 0814680712), page 92:

The being of each person is worded into existence in the Word,

To speak, to use words; to converse, to discourse.

* 1818 , John Keats, Hyperion :

Thus wording timidly among the fierce: / ‘O Father, I am here the simplest voice, […]’

Synonyms

* (say or write using particular words) express, phrase, put into words, state

Interjection

(en interjection)

(slang, AAVE) truth, indeed, to tell or speak the truth; the shortened form of the statement, «My word is my bond,» an expression eventually shortened to «Word is bond,» before it finally got cut to just «Word,» which is its most commonly used form.

* «Yo, that movie was epic!» / «Word‘?» («You speak the truth?») / «‘ Word .» («I speak the truth.»)

(slang, emphatic, stereotypically, AAVE) An abbreviated form of word up; a statement of the acknowledgment of fact with a hint of nonchalant approval.

* 2004 , Shannon Holmes, Never Go Home Again: A Novel , page 218

» Know what I’m sayin’?» / «Word !» the other man strongly agreed. «Let’s do this — «

* 2007 , Gabe Rotter, Duck Duck Wally: A Novel , page 105

«»

* 2007 , Relentless Aaron The Last Kingpin , page 34

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Subjects>Jobs & Education>Education

Wiki User

∙ 8y ago

Best Answer

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The primary difference between a word and a morpheme is that a
word is freestanding, where a morpheme may or may not be. For
example, the morpheme «star» can stand by itself, but the morpheme
«-s» cannot.

Wiki User

∙ 8y ago

This answer is:

Nessan Jane Catacte ∙

Lvl 1

∙ 1y ago

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful part of a word. While the word is a separate meaningful unit, which can be used to form sentences.
he main difference is t

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What is the meaning of morpheme allomorph?

In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. … The different allomorphs that a morpheme can become are governed by morphophonemic rules.

What is the difference between morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful lexical item in a language. A morpheme is not necessarily the same as a word. The main difference between a morpheme and a word is that a morpheme sometimes does not stand alone, but a word, by definition, always stands alone.

What are Morphemes different from?

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful part of a word. A word is a separate meaningful unit, which can be used to form sentences. The main difference is that while a word can stand alone, a morpheme may or may not be able to stand alone.

What is a morpheme example?

A morpheme is the smallest linguistic part of a word that can have a meaning. In other words, it is the smallest meaningful part of a word. Examples of morphemes would be the parts «un-«, «break», and «-able» in the word «unbreakable».

27 related questions found

What are the 3 types of morphemes?

There are three ways of classifying morphemes:

free vs. bound.
root vs. affixation.
lexical vs. grammatical.

What is morpheme and its types?

There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. «Free morphemes» can stand alone with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak. «Bound morphemes» cannot stand alone with meaning. Morphemes are comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases (or roots) and (b) affixes.

What is morph in English?

: to change the form or character of : transform. intransitive verb. : to undergo transformation especially : to undergo transformation from an image of one object into that of another especially by means of computer-generated animation. morph.

What are lexical morphemes?

Words that have meaning by themselves—boy, food, door—are called lexical morphemes. Those words that function to specify the relationship between one lexical morpheme and another—words like at, in, on, -ed, -s—are called grammatical morphemes.

Is it possible for a morpheme to be a word?

Morphemes can be either single words (free morphemes) or parts of words (bound morphemes). If two free morphemes are joined together they create a compound word. These words are a great way to introduce morphology (the study of word parts) into the classroom.

What is a zero morph example?

Definition: A zero morph is a morph, consisting of no phonetic form, that is proposed in some analyses as an allomorph of a morpheme that is ordinarily realized by a morph having some phonetic form. Examples: The plural form that is realized in two sheep is Ø, in contrast with the plural -s in two goats.

Are all morphemes syllables?

A Simple Word has only one morpheme, or only one division that has meaning. Syllables are divisions that are based on pronunciation, not on meaning. Morphemes are divisions that are based on meaning.

What are the characteristics of morphemes?

The characteristics of morphemes are meaningfulness—morphemes convey lexical or grammatical meaning; repeatability—morphemes retain the same (or similar) meaning and the same (or similar) form when they appear in different contexts; and nonreducibility— morphemes cannot be further divided into parts having the same …

What are Derivational morphemes?

In grammar, a derivational morpheme is an affix—a group of letters added before the beginning (prefix) or after the end (suffix)—of a root or base word to create a new word or a new form of an existing word.

What is allomorph and example?

An allomorph is a morph that has a unique set of grammatical or lexical features. … Each morpheme may have a different set of allomorphs. For example, «-en» is a second allomorph that marks plural in nouns (irregular, in only three known nouns: ox/ox+en, child/childr+en, brother/brether+en).

What are the 8 Inflectional Morphemes?

Terms in this set (8)

-s or -es. Nouns; plural.
‘s. Nouns; Possessive.
-d ; -ed. Verbs; past tense.
-s. Verbs; 3rd person singular present.
-ing. verbs; present participle.
-en ; -ed (not consistent) verbs; past participle.
-er. adjectives; comparative.
-est. adjectives; superlative.

What are the examples of inflectional morphemes?

Examples of Inflectional Morphemes

Plural: Bikes, Cars, Trucks, Lions, Monkeys, Buses, Matches, Classes.
Possessive: Boy’s, Girl’s, Man’s, Mark’s, Robert’s, Samantha’s, Teacher’s, Officer’s.
Tense: cooked, played, marked, waited, watched, roasted, grilled; sang, drank, drove.

What is a Derivational affix?

Definition: A derivational affix is an affix by means of which one word is formed (derived) from another. The derived word is often of a different word class from the original.

What is the Greek word for morph?

-morph- comes from Greek, where it has the meaning «form; shape. » This meaning is found in such words as: amorphous, anthropomorphism, metamorphosis, morpheme, morphine.

What is a morph animal?

Morph (zoology), a visual or behavioral difference between organisms of distinct populations in a species.

Is I’m one or two morphemes?

Is I’m one or two Morphemes? I’m is a contraction of two words, I am. When written as I’m is is one word, called a contraction.

What is a full morpheme?

What is a full morpheme? The free morpheme is the core part which usually sit anywhere within a word. On its own, it can function as an independent word, that is, a word that can stand on its own because it carries meaning. Some linguists also refer to the free morpheme as a full morpheme.

How do you count morphemes?

Taking each utterance in turn, we count the number of morphemes in the utterances. So, we would analyse the utterances as follows. example, in the word dis-interest-ed, dis- is a prefix, -interest- is a root, and -ed is a suffix: these are all morphemes. There is, therefore, a total of 17 morphemes.

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