Difference between revisions of "Morpheme"
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===Other languages=== | ===Other languages=== | ||
| − | German [[Morphem]] Spanish [[morfema]] | + | German [[Morphem]] Spanish [[morfema]] Chinese [[语素]] |
{{dc}} | {{dc}} | ||
[[Category:Morphology]] | [[Category:Morphology]] | ||
Revision as of 18:07, 15 June 2008
A morpheme is the smallest meaning -bearing unit of language.
Examples
Kangaroo is one morpheme. Kangaroos is two morphemes, kangaroo and plural -s. The -s expresses the meaning 'many' or 'more than one' in this example.
Polysemy
Morpheme may also be used for 'grammatical morpheme', see morpheme (i.e. grammatical morpheme).
Synonym
- moneme (Martinet)
Origin
The term morpheme was coined by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay in c. 1880. It is based on Greek morph- 'form' and the suffix -eme, on the analogy of the term phoneme. See Mugdan (1986) for detailed discussion.
Reference
Mugdan, Joachim. 1986. Was ist eigentlich ein Morphem?
