What is a morpheme?

What's a morpheme? A morpheme is the smallest indivisible grammatical unit of a language. If there a word to remember in this definition, it is 'indivisible'. In other words, for a morpheme to be said to a morpheme, it cannot be further divided. 

That said, there are basically two types of morpheme: free morpheme and bound morphemes. 

Free morphemes are morphemes that can stand on their own. A free morpheme can be said to be a word that no other morpheme has been added to. For example, boy is a free morpheme because no other morpheme has been added to it. However, boys is not a free morpheme because it consists of two morphemes: 'boy' and 's'. We therefore can say that all free morphemes are words but not all words are free morphemes. For example, 

boy/girl/go are examples of free morphemes and are at the same time words. 

However, in boys, girls, goes, going, some other morphemes have been added to form their plural forms. Hence, boys, girls, goes, going are words but they aren't free morphemes, because of the addition of the highlighted morphemes. 

Another definition of a free morpheme could be that it is the root or base to which other morphemes can be added. 

It is necessary to note that certain irregular nouns shouldn't be mistaken for free morphemes. For example, feet, men, teeth, etc. I shall explain that in details much later. We now move on to the other type of morphemes: bound morphemes. 

[For more on irregular nouns cf: 

http://olabanjititles.blogspot.com/2019/03/nouns-formation-of-plural-nouns.html?m=1]

While free morphemes can stand on their own, bound morphemes, as the name suggests, cannot. They can only be added to a base/root word. They are of two types: 

i. Derivational morphemes 

ii. Inflectional morphemes.

To be continued ...

Questions

1. With copious examples, explain the assertion that all free morphemes are words but not all words are free morphemes. 

2. Mention the types of morphemes. 

A quick word to readers. Once you cannot answer a question on a topic, you haven't adequately mastered what you read on the topic. Another deception is to stare at a question and deceptively provide an answer in your mind. You will be surprised at how much you don't know on that question you are staring at when you put pen to paper. You think you have read it enough, you try to put pen to paper and suddenly run out of idea. That's the evidence that you have to read on the topic again! 

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