Bound and
free morphemes
Free
morphemes:
o
constitute words by themselves – boy, car, desire,
gentle, man
o
can stand alone
Definition
A free morpheme is a morpheme (or word element) that can stand alone as a word. Also called an unbound morpheme or a free-standing morpheme. Contrast with bound morpheme.Many words in English consist of a single free morpheme. For example, each word in the following sentence is a distinct morpheme: "I need to go now, but you can stay." Put another way, none of the nine words in that sentence can be divided into smaller parts that are also meaningful.
There are two basic kinds of free morphemes: content words and function words.
See Examples and Observations below. Also see:
Examples and Observations
- "A simple word consists of a single morpheme, and so is a free morpheme, a morpheme with the potential for independent occurrence. In The farmer kills the duckling the free morphemes are the, farm, kill and duck.
It is important to notice here that (in this sentence) not all of these
free morphemes are words in the sense of minimal free forms--farm and duck are cases in point."
(William McGregor, Linguistics: An Introduction. Continuum, 2009)
- Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes
"A word like 'house' or 'dog' is called a free morpheme because it can occur in isolation and cannot be divided into smaller meaning units. . . . The word 'quickest' . . . is composed of two morphemes, one bound and one free. The word 'quick' is the free morpheme and carries the basic meaning of the word. The 'est' makes the word a superlative and is a bound morpheme because it cannot stand alone and be meaningful."
(Donald G. Ellis, From Language to Communication. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999)
- Two Basic Types of Free Morphemes
"Morphemes can be divided into two general classes. Free morphemes are those which can stand alone as words of a language, whereas bound morphemes must be attached to other morphemes. Most roots in English are free morphemes (for example, dog, syntax, and to), although there are a few cases of roots (like -gruntle as in disgruntle) that must be combined with another bound morpheme in order to surface as an acceptable lexical item. . . .
"Free morphemes can be further subdivided into content words and function words. Content words, as their name suggests, carry most of the content of a sentence. Function words generally perform some kind of grammatical role, carrying little meaning of their own. One circumstance in which the distinction between function words and content words is useful is when one is inclined to keep wordiness to a minimum; for example, when drafting a telegram, where every word costs money. In such a circumstance, one tends to leave out most of the function words (like to, that, and, there, some, and but), concentrating instead on content words to convey the gist of the message."
(Steven Weisler and Slavoljub P. Milekic, Theory of Language. MIT Press, 1999)
Bound
morphemes:
o
can’t stand alone – always parts of words - occur
attached to free morphemes
cats: cat à free morpheme
-s à bound morpheme
undesirable: desire à free
morpheme
-un,
-able à bound
morphemes
Bound Morpheme (words and word parts)
Definition
A bound morpheme is a morpheme (or word element) that cannot stand alone as a word. Contrast with free morpheme.In English, bound morphemes include prefixes and suffixes. Attaching a bound morpheme to a free morpheme (for example, adding the prefix re- to the verb start) creates a new word or at least a new form of a word (in this example, restart).
Morphemes are represented in sound and writing by morphs.
There are two main types of bound morphemes: derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes.
See Examples and Observations below. Also see:
Examples and Observations
- "There are two basic types of morphemes: unbound and bound.
Unbound or free-standing morphemes are individual elements that can
stand alone within a sentence, such as <cat>, <laugh>,
<look>, and <box>. They are essentially what most of us call
words. Bound morphemes are meaning-bearing units of language, such as prefixes and suffixes, that are attached to unbound morphemes. They cannot stand alone.
"Their attachment modifies the unbound morphemes in such things as number or syntactic category. Adding the bound morpheme <s> to the unbound morpheme <cat> changes the noun's number; the addition of the <ed> to <laugh> changes tense. Similarly, the addition of <er> to <run> changes the verb to a noun."
(Stephen Kucer and Cecilia Silva, Teaching the Dimensions of Literacy. Routledge, 2006)
- Inflectional Morphemes and Derivational Morphemes
"Linguistics recognizes two classes of bound morphemes. The first class is called inflectional morphemes and their influence on a base word is predictable. Inflectional morphemes modify the grammatical class of words by signaling a change in number, person, gender, tense, and so on, but they do not shift the base form into another word class. When 'house' becomes 'houses,' it is still a noun even though you have added the plural morpheme 's.' . . .
"Derivational morphemes constitute the second class of morphemes and they modify a word according to its lexical and grammatical class. They result in more profound changes on base words. The word 'style' is a noun, but if I make it 'stylish,' then it is an adjective. In English, derivational morphemes include suffixes (e.g., 'ish,' 'ous,' 'er,' 'y,' 'ate,' and 'able') and prefixes (e.g., 'un,' 'im,' 're,' and 'ex')."
(Donald G. Ellis, From Language to Communication. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999
o
affixes
o
prefixes – occur
before other morphemes
§ unhappy, discontinue,
rewrite, bicycle,
bipolar
o
suffixes – following
other morphemes
§ sleeping, excited, desirable
o
infixes –
inserted into other morphemes
§ Bontoc, a language in the Philipines –
fikas ‘strong’ fumicas ‘to be
strong’
kilad ‘red’ kumilad ‘to be red’
§ English
full
word obscenities into another word –
in+fuggin+credible
also+bloomin+lately
o
circumfixes –
attached to another morpheme both initially and finally
§ German
Past
participle of irregular verbs – ge+lieb+t
Roots and affixes
Many roots are free morphemes, e.g., ship- in "shipment", while others are bound. Roots normally carry lexical meaning. Words like chairman that contain two free morphemes (chair and man) are referred to as compound words.Affixes are always bound in English, although languages such as Arabic have forms which sometimes affix to words and sometimes can stand alone. English language affixes are almost exclusively prefixes or suffixes. E.g., pre- in "prefix" and -ment in "shipment". Affixes may be inflectional, indicating how a certain word relates to other words in a larger phrase, or derivational, changing either the part of speech or the actual meaning of a word.
Cranberry morphemes are a special form of bound morpheme that does not have an independent meaning or grammatical function, only serving to distinguish one word from another, as in cranberry, where the free morpheme berry is preceded by the bound morpheme cran-, which does not have independent meaning.
