Word And Morphemes

Word And Morphemes

Explanation and Examples

You all know what a word is , at least in your own language. You can list as many word as possible in English. Can you explain the concept of word? The concept of word is extremely complex. Even linguists and dictionary makers have also shared the problem.

One common definition of word is the following:

A word is any unit of language that in writing , appears between spaces or between a space and hyphen. Now consider the following:

1.      Matchbox

2.      Match box

3.      Match-box
Each way of writing this form is generally considered to be correct. Yet it would certaintly be awkward to call matchbox is single word but to call match box  or match-box two words.
When you try to investigate actual speech to see if the pronunciation of a sentence contains any information that migt lead to a more satisfactory description of ‘word’, again confusion will occur. Now consider the following:

1.      Estosombresondecuador

2.      Ineeda cupof coffee.

How many words are there in each sentence above? You don’t need to answer this question; a Spanish speaker will easily tell you that there are five word in the first sentence (Estos-hombre-son-de-Ecuador). Likewise , an English speaker will tell you instantly that there are six words in the second sentence ( I need a cup of coffee)
One of the important functions of language is to trv as tool for person to convey his or  her concepts or meanings to other person or people. It is obvious that one very important property of a word is the meaning it represents. But it is precisely this meaning- bearing function of words that causes problem in attempts to arrive t an explicit, complete description of the concept ‘word’. Word are very dissimilar in the ways in which they represent meanings. Look at the following pairs below.

Text     - textbook

Cat      -cats

Quick  -quickly

Word such as text, cat, and quick each convey a single , qiute specific meaning. A word like textbook. However contains two units of meaning, both of which may occur independently (text and book). As with textbook, word such as cats and quickly each contains two units of meaning. Cats means both “cat” and more than one( prural  maker). Quickly means both “quick” an in a......way (manner maker). Unlike textbook, only one of the two units of meaning in cats, and quickly, can be used independently. Cat and quick are free morpheme but / –s/ and /ly/ are not.

It is clear then the words don’t always constitute the smallest meaningful unit in language. Instead, words are sometimes constructed of smaller parts. These smaller parts called morphemes. Morphemes which may occur independently such as cat, txt and quick are called free morpheme. Morphemes which may not occur independently such as /–s/, /-ly/, /im-/, /un- / are called bound morphemes.  

Root and Affixes

There are a number of different among bound morpheme concerning the role in the formation of English words. Free morphemes provide the basic element. In words, but various bound morphemes can be attached to free morphemeses to create other words.

Free morphemes Word Root/Bases	Bound morpheme		New Words
	Prefixes	Suffixes
Happy		-ness	Happiness
Quick		-en	Quicken
Allot		-ment	Allotment
Continent		-al	Continental
Tidy	un-		Untidy
Possible	im-		Impossible
Relevant	ir-		Irrelevant
Print	re-		Reprint
Literate	il-		Illateral

Morphemes that serve as the basic for words are sometimes called root or bases. Thus morphemes such as happy, quick, tidy, print, are roots. On the others hand, morphemes such as –ly, -ness,-un, ir- , are roots.