Morphemes - Definition and Types

Morpheme is the smallest meaningful units in any language. A word in a language is made up of constituent morphemes. In English, some of the example morphemes are as follows; words, plural morphemes (‘-s’ and ‘-es’), grammatical morphemes (‘-ing’, and ‘-ed’) etc.

Morphemes can be broadly categorized into two classes;

Free morpheme – The morpheme that can appear in isolation and be meaningful is called free morpheme. Stem (root) of a word is called free morpheme. Because a root form of a word can give the meaning.

Example: dog, carry, good etc.

Bound morpheme – The morpheme that usually attached to any other free morphemes to give additional meaning of various kinds including plural and grammatical variations is called bound morpheme. Bound morphemes are sometimes referred as Affixes. There are four types of affixes. They are;

Prefixes – morphemes attached at the front of a stem

Example: undo, disagree, uncommon etc.

Suffixes – morphemes attached at the end of a stem

Example: hiding, attached, dogs etc.

Infixes – morphemes attached in between the stem

Example: infix morphemes are rare and not present in English

Circumfixes – morphemes attached at the front and back of stem.

In inflectional morphology, we call the morphemes that attached to the stem to form new word as inflectional morphemes. Some inflectional morphemes are ‘-s’, ‘-es’, ‘-ed’, and ‘-ing’.

In derivational morphology, we call the morphemes that attached to the stem to form new words as derivational morphemes. Some derivational morphemes are ‘-er’, ‘-ation’, ‘-less’, ‘un-‘, and ‘re-‘.

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