Morphology and Morphemes

These flashcards cover key concepts and definitions in morphology, focusing on morphemes and their classifications.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit into which a word can be divided.

Monomorphemic

Describes a word containing only one morpheme, such as 'ran' or 'mice'.

Polymorphemic

Describes a word that contains multiple morphemes.

Differentiation of morphemes

Variations of the same morpheme, such as plural endings in 'books', 'mags', and 'bars'.

Free morphemes

Morphemes that can stand alone as separate words, like 'rack', 'wait', and 'pet'.

Bound morphemes

Morphemes like prefixes and many suffixes that cannot occur independently as separate words.

Base morpheme

The basic form of a word that remains when all affixes have been removed.

Affixation

The process of adding morphemes to word-form, such as prefixes and suffixes.