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A morpheme’s a morpheme,
no matter how small…as long
as it still has meaning
What is Morphology?
Morphology is the study of the structure
and form of words (Shedd, 2008)
Morpheme: “the smallest unit of meaning in a
language” (Gleason, 2005 p. 21)
Free Morpheme: Morphemes that can stand alone
(cat, danger, etc.) (Gleason, 2005)
Bound Morphemes: Morphemes that cannot stand
alone and are always attached to free morphemes
(Gleason, 2005)
What is Morphology? Cont’d
Bound Morphemes Cont’d: Bound morphemes are found
affixed to free morphemes as prefixes (un in unclear) or
suffixes (ing in singing)
Bound Morphemes can be used to change one word into
another that may be a different part of speech
These morphemes are called derivational morphemes because
they can be used to derive new words (ness turning the
adjective happy into the noun happiness for instance)
Morphemes can also provide grammatical information
These morphemes are inflectional and include things like tense,
plurality, etc.
The following is an example of how morphemes can change a
word in this way: “He dogs my steps” (verb), “It’s the dog’s dish”
(possessive), or “I have ten dogs” (plural)
The information above is from Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development
of Language (6th edition). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Why Morphology is Important
Using morphemic analysis, we can analyze a word’s
structure to predict meaning
When a child can break a word into its morphemes and can then
define what each morpheme means, he/she can then figure out
what the word means
Using free morphemes and bound morphemes, children
can build their vocabulary by using a root word like
happy and learning variations of the word (unhappy,
hapless, happiness, etc.)
Some words have ten variations, some have 90
It takes a teacher to point out the harder ones and how they
relate back to the root word