Morfemas

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Morphemes are parts of words, i.e. stems, prefixes and suffixes. For example, un + friend + ly contains three morphemes: a prefix –un, a stem friend and a suffix –ly.

Morphemes are minimal units of meaning or grammatical function. They can be divided between free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes: morphemes which can stand by themselves as single words (roots)

They can be divided in open-class (or content, or lexical) words and closed-class (or function, or grammatical) words:

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Bound morphemes: morphemes which cannot stand alone, typically attached to others (prefix + stem + suffix).The bound morphemes are attached to free or bound bases (stem or root).

 Examples of stems

- Free stem/root/free morpheme: house, student

- Bound stem: -ceive (as in receive), -duce (reduce)

 There are two kinds of bound morphemes: the derivational and the inflectional ones.

Derivational bound morphemes:The clearest examples of derivational bound morphemes are the affixes (prefixes and suffixes). Free stem/root/free morpheme with affixes: undress (prefix), careless (suffix).

Inflectional bound morphemes The inflectional morphemes are just suffixes and they can be attached to:

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Free morphemes: Lexical (nouns, verbs, adjectives – open class) or Functional (prepositions, conjunctions, etc. – closed class)

Stem: part of the word that is common to all its inflected variants

- Free stem: dress (dressing, dresses), care, car

- Bound stem: -ceive (as in receive), -duce (reduce)

Root: primary lexical unit of a word that cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.

- running, chatters, mice (mouse), interrupt(*rupt?)

The difference between the two classes is about creation. We can create new words in the open- class, but create new words in the closed-class is very difficult (they can take centuries to appear). It’s easy to create a new noun, but can you imagine someone creating a new personal pronoun?

There’s a big difference about the usage of open- and closed-classes. The majority of a dictionary is composed by open-class words. But when we analyze texts, we realize that the majority of words are from the closed-class ones.