The Research of English Morpheme

李宛芯

一、Introduction

A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. In other words，it is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. The linguistics field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.A morpheme is not identical to a word，and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone，whereas a word，by definition，is freestanding. Wilkins（1972）states：“We can not accept the opinion that grammar is more important than vocabulary.The fact is that without grammar，we can only deliver limited information，but nothing can be conveyed without vocabulary.”Vocabulary is the basic material that composed the language.The deficiency of vocabulary directly affects the development of students’English competence.And this provides the necessity for us that why we should study morpheme.

二、the Classification of Morpheme

There are various kinds of morpheme.according to the distinctive classified standard，morpheme can be divided into Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes.

（一）Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

Free Morphemes have a complete lexical meaning，which can be a word itself.For instance：great，poor，table.Bound Morpheme，on the contrary，don’t have a complete lexical meaning， for the reason that they cannot exist themselves.For instance： “dis-”in dislike，“pre-” and “cede” in precede.

（二）Roots and Affixes

Like Zhang Zhenbang said in his book A New English Grammar Course Book，

a root is the basic unchallengeable part of a word，and it conveys the main lexical meaning of the word. Here we list an example，-mov- is the root of the similar group of a series of words “move，moveable，movement，moving and moved”.In addition， roots are divided into Free Roots and Bound Roots.And the feature of Free Roots is similar to Free Morpheme.As for Bound Roots，although they make up the basic meaning of the word， they require the combination of other morphemes to make up the complete word.For instance，“-nat-”is Bound Roots，following words can be formatted： antenatal，nation.

Affixes，which acting as the supporting role in the construction of the word，includes the lexical meaning and grammatical meaning.In the word“reminds”，“re-”is the lexical meaning while “-s” represents the Present Third Person Singular.According to the impact of the word construction，affixes are divided into Inflectional Affixes and Derivational Affixes.In modern English， Inflectional Affixes have no lexical meaning，but grammatical meaning，such as “-s，-es，-’s，-（e）d，-ing，-er，-est”.They don’t change neither meaning nor the formation of the word.Derivational Affixes，on the contrary，can express certain lexical and grammatical meaning.Prefix attaches before the root while Suffix lies after the root.For instance，in the word “progressive”，“pro-” is Prefix and “-ive” is Suffix.

（三）Morphology of Morphemes

1.Free Roots and Single Word

Free Roots themselves can make up a single word，such as may-may，chair-chair，thing-thing.

2.Two Free Roots and Compound Words

Examples as listed： under+ground=underground，mini+skirt=miniskirt，up+grade=upgrade.

三、the Changes of Morpheme in Word Formation

（一）Formation-Changing of Morphemes

For instance，“ad-”means the toward or to something，like the word absorb，which is made up by “ab-”and“sorb”，means the attraction to somebody.When meeting with“-celer-”，the “ab-” changes into “ac-” which is “accelerate”.When in the word “adverb”，“ab-” becomes “ad-”.In addition，“af-” in “afforest”， “ag-” in “aggrandize” and “ap-” in “approve”.

（二）Meaning-changing of Morphemes

In the formation of word，certain prefix and suffix can change the meaning of the morpheme. Such as

“un-” in “unhappy”， “unsatisfied”， “unknown”.

“-less” in “homeless”， “useless”， “meaningless”.

“ex-” in “ex-boyfriend”， “ex-girlfriend”， “ex-president”

What’s more， some can change the formation of the original word， for example：

“-y” in “rainy”， “windy”， “jealousy”

四、Conclusion

In conclusion，by using similar roots，prefixes，and suffixes， we can roughly determine the meaning of the word.Additionally，learning English morphemes helps to grasp the pronunciations of words because the same root pronunciation is basically the same，so learning English morphemes helps to understand the pronunciation rules of words.Finally，morpheme learning start from analyzing the composition way of words to understand the meaning of each morpheme，which is helpful to accurately grasp the meaning of the word.