Bound morpheme
Encyclopedia
In morphology
, a bound morpheme is a morpheme
that only appears as part of a larger word; a free morpheme is one that can stand alone.
Affix
es are always bound. English language
affix
es are either prefix
es or suffix
es. E.g., -ment in "shipment" and pre- in "prefix". Affixes normally carry only grammatical meaning.
Many root
s are free morphemes, e.g., ship- in "shipment", while others are bound. Roots normally carry lexical meaning.
Words like chairman that contain two free morphemes (chair and man) are referred to as compound
words.
The morpheme ten- in "tenant" may seem free, since there is an English word "ten". However, its lexical meaning is derived from the Latin word tenere, "to hold", and this or related meaning is not among the meanings of the English word "ten", hence ten- is a bound morpheme in the word "tenant".
There are some distinguishable types of bound morphemes.
or unique morpheme is one with extremely limited distribution so that it occurs in only one word. A popular example is cran- in cranberry
" (hence the term "cranberry morpheme").
Unique morphemes are examples of the linguistic notion of fossilization
: loss of productivity or usage of grammar units: words, phrases, parts of words. Besides fossilized root morphemes, there are also fossilized affixes (suffixes and prefixes).
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, a bound morpheme is a morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The 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,...
that only appears as part of a larger word; a free morpheme is one that can stand alone.
Affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es are always bound. English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es are either prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es or suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es. E.g., -ment in "shipment" and pre- in "prefix". Affixes normally carry only grammatical meaning.
Many root
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
s are free morphemes, e.g., ship- in "shipment", while others are bound. Roots normally carry lexical meaning.
Words like chairman that contain two free morphemes (chair and man) are referred to as compound
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
words.
The morpheme ten- in "tenant" may seem free, since there is an English word "ten". However, its lexical meaning is derived from the Latin word tenere, "to hold", and this or related meaning is not among the meanings of the English word "ten", hence ten- is a bound morpheme in the word "tenant".
There are some distinguishable types of bound morphemes.
Cranberry morphemes
A cranberry morphemeCranberry morpheme
In linguistic morphology, a cranberry morpheme is a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned a meaning or a grammatical function but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word from the other.-Etymology:...
or unique morpheme is one with extremely limited distribution so that it occurs in only one word. A popular example is cran- in cranberry
Cranberry
Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...
" (hence the term "cranberry morpheme").
Unique morphemes are examples of the linguistic notion of fossilization
Fossilization (linguistics)
In linguistic morphology, fossilization refers to two close notions. One is preserving of ancient linguistic features which have lost their grammatical functions in language. Another is loss of productivity of a grammatical paradigm , which still remains in use in some words. Examples of...
: loss of productivity or usage of grammar units: words, phrases, parts of words. Besides fossilized root morphemes, there are also fossilized affixes (suffixes and prefixes).