Morpheme
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In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of a word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morphology (linguistics). A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.
The concept of word and morpheme are different: a morpheme may or may not stand alone. One or several morphemes compose a word. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone (ex: "lie", "cake"), or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme (ex: "im" in
This can also be thought of as lexical insertion into the syntactics
See also
|[pic] |Look up morpheme in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |

Linguistics • International Phonetic Alphabet • Hybrid word • Alternation (linguistics) • Theoretical linguistics • Marker (linguistics) • Morphological parsing
Lexicology
• Greek morphemes • Lexeme • Morphophonology • Chereme • Grapheme • Phoneme • Sememe • Floating tone
References
• Spencer, Andrew (1992). Morphological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
External links • Glossary of Reading Terms • Comprehensive and searchable morpheme reference • Linguistics 001 — Lecture 7 — Morphology by Prof. Mark Lieberman • Morphemes — A New Threat to Society: A humorous look at morphemes. Accurate, but purposely confuses morphemes with narcotics (i.e., "morphine"). • Morpheme Study Aid • Pronunciation of the word morpheme
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme"
Categories: Units of linguistic morphology | Greek loanwords
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