Handout 6 Morphemes Morphemes A morpheme is a minimal unit of grammar i e the smallest bit of speech that has a meaning or grammatical function A morpheme includes a phonological representation that tells you how it is pronounced and a semantic representation that tells you what it refers to It is minimal in that it can t be broken down further into meaningful units Morphemes In the word rewriting there are three morphemes re writ and ing Writ e is a free morpheme It can stand It is a root Every word must include at alone as a word least one root Re and ing are bound morphemes which cannot stand alone as words Morphological analysis To nd the morphemes in a set of words you look for correlations between the sounds and the meanings If the words aren t English the meanings are re ected in the glosses A string of sounds has a particular meaning if presence of those sounds correlates with presence of that meaning Turkish Bissantz and Johnson 1985 131 deniz denize denizin eve evden evdZikden an ocean to an ocean of an ocean to a house from a house from a little house Turkish denizdZikde in a little ocean elde elim eller diSler eldZike in a hand my hand hands teeth to a little hand Morphological analysis Compare the rst word deniz to the second denize They are identical in form except that the second has e at the end They are also identical in meaning except that the second has the added meaning to Therefore deniz means an ocean and e means to There s no reason yet to break them down further Morphological analysis Now consider the third word denizin It differs from the previous words in form in that it has the sounds in at the end It differs in meaning from the previous words in that it has the meaning of So in must mean of Morphological analysis Now consider the fourth word eve It is like the second word denize in that it ends with e and has to in the gloss It differs from that word in form in that it begins with ev rather than deniz It differs in meaning in that it has house in the gloss instead of ocean So ev must mean house Turkish morphemes oceanfromhousepluralhandmytoothofinlittleto Swahili Kenya Tanzania Bissantz and Johnson 1985 135 atanipenda atakupenda atampenda atatupenda atawapenda nitakupenda nitampenda nitawapenda he will like me he will like you he will like him he will like us he will like them I will like you I will like him I will like them Swahili Kenya Tanzania you will like me utanipenda you will like him utampenda we will like him tutampenda they will like him watampenda atakusumbua he will annoy you unamsumbua atanipiga atatupiga atampiga you are annoying him he will beat me he will beat us he will beat him Swahili Kenya Tanzania ananipiga anakupiga anampiga amekupiga amenipiga amempiga alinipiga alikupiga alimpiga he is beating me he is beating you he is beating him he has beaten you he has beaten me he has beaten him he beat me he beat you he beat him Swahili morphemes Swahili morphemes Swahili What order do the morphemes occur in Translate the following walikupenda nitawasumbua I have beaten him I am annoying him Luise o California Bissantz and Johnson 1985 132 my son noka maj his son poka maj your singular son oka maj their son pomka maj noka majum my sons oki poki your singular house his house Luise o California their house your singular pipe his pipe our pipe his wife pomki ohu kapi pohu kapi tSamhu kapi pope w pompe wum their wives tSampe wum our wives Reference Bissantz Annette and Keith Johnson 1985 Language Files 3rd ed Advocate Publishing Group Reynoldsburg Ohio