morpheem

Morpheem is a term used in linguistics to refer to the smallest meaningful unit of language. It is a fundamental concept in the study of morphology, which is the branch of grammar that deals with the structure of words. Morphemes can be words themselves, like "cat" or "run," or they can be parts of words that add meaning or grammatical function, such as prefixes or suffixes.

There are two main types of morphemes: free morphemes and bound morphemes. Free morphemes can stand alone as words, carrying their own meaning. Examples include "happy," "book," and "play." Bound morphemes, on the other hand, cannot stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme to form a word. These include prefixes like "un-" in "unhappy" and suffixes like "-ing" in "running."

Bound morphemes can further be divided into derivational and inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes change the meaning or part of speech of a word. For example, adding "-ness" to "happy" creates "happiness," changing it from an adjective to a noun. Inflectional morphemes, on the other hand, indicate grammatical information such as tense, number, or case, without changing the core meaning of the word. Examples include the "-s" in "cats" to indicate plurality or the "-ed" in "walked" to indicate past tense. Understanding morphemes is crucial for analyzing word formation and comprehending the structure and meaning of language.