A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of language, which a

word can contain two or more morpheme. In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest

component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning.

There are some sentence below from Choapan Zapotec (Otomanguean, Mexico)

must be identified the morpheme by using the approximate English translation (or

glosses) provided as follows:

rao žua yëta John eats tortillas

rao lipi za Philemon eats beans

rao maka bela Macaria eats fish

re’en žua za John wants beans

re’en lipi bela Philemon wants fish

re’en maka yëta Macaria wants tortillas

From sentence above we can see that “rao” recurs several times and compatibles

with the English word “eats”, so “rao” apparently means “eats” and “re’en” also recurs

several times and compatibles with the English word “wants”, so “re’en” apparently

means “wants”.

By comparing each sentence we hypothesized that r- are used for present tense

like “ao” means “eat” and “e’en” means “want”, so we must be added r- became “rao”

means “eats” or “re’en” means “wants”. Now, we can see that it contains two

morphemes; r- (present tense) and ao means eat or e’en means want.

Lexicon for each sentence can be seen as follows:

Verb Noun
rao žua yëta

rao lipi za
 rao maka bela

re’en žua za

lipi bela

re’en maka yëta

re’en

We can list the hypothesis about all the morphemes in the data:

eo means eat lipi means Philemon

e’en means want bela means fish

žua means John maka means Macaria

za means beans yëta means tortillas

r- (present tense)

Now, we identified word from Ilocano Philippines by using the same way of

sentence above, I arranged the word into three parts as follows:

(1) tugawko ‘my chair’

tugawmo ‘your chair’

bagasko ‘my rice’

bagasmo ‘your rice’

(2) sabak ‘my banana’

sabam ‘your banana’

sidak ‘my foot’

sidam ‘your foot’

(3) tugawna ‘his chair’

bagasna ‘his rice’

 sabana ‘his banana’

sidana ‘his foot’

In the first part (1), we can see that tugawko means ‘my chair’, -ko apparently

means ‘my’, tugawmo means ‘your chair’, -mo apparently means ‘your’, etc.

In the second part (2), we also see that sabak means ‘my banana’, /k/ apparently

means ‘my’, sabam means ‘your banana’, /m/ apparently means ‘your’, etc.

In the third part (3), we see that tugawna means ‘his chair’, -na apparently means

‘his’, bagasna means ‘his rice’, -na apparently means ‘his’, etc.

By comparing each part, we can conclude that when noun ended by consonant

like tugaw must be followed by –ko became tugawko (1) means ‘my chair’, but when

noun ended by vocal like saba must be followed by –k became sabak (2) without /o/ etc.

Whereas, third person singular always be followed by –na (see the third part) even

though noun ended by vocal and consonant. From explanation above we hypothesized

that each word contains two morphemes; tugaw means “chair” and ko means “my”

became tugawko means ‘my chai’r, saba means “banana” and na means “his” became

sabana means ‘his banana’, etc.

We can list the hypothesis about all morphemes in the data:

tugaw means chair saba means banana

ko means my -k (noun ended by vocal and 1st or 2nd person singular)

mo means your -ko (noun ended by consonant and 1st or 2nd person singular)

na means his -na (noun endes by vocal or consonant and 3rd person

singular)

English Morphology
 IDENTIFYING MORPHEMES

Arranged By:

DEBI HARTATI

A1D206018

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

HALUOLEO UNIVERSITY

KENDARI

2010

Problem 25. Sierra Popoluca

 There are some sentence below from Sieraa Popoluca must be identified the

morpheme by using the approximate English translation (or glosses), I arranged into two

parts as follows:

(1) miñpa he comes

se’tpa he returns

miñpanam he still comes

se’tpanam he still returns

se’tpaty im he also returns

miñyahpa they come

se’tyahpa they return

se’tyahpanam they still return

miñyapat y im they also come

(2) miñum he came

miñunty im he also came

se’tum he returned

miñyahum they came

miñyahumty im they also came

se’tyahumty im they returned

se’tyahum they returned

From sentence above we can see that miñ means ‘come’ and se’t means ‘returns’

recurs several times. There is not something different between second person singular

and third person singular, always be miñ and se’t

Verb Noun Adverb

miñ pa
 miñ pa ham

se’t pa

se’t pa nam

se’t pa ty im

miñ yahpa

miñ

From sentence above we can see that “rao” recurs several times and compatibles with the

English word “eats”, so “rao” apparently means “eats” and “re’en” also recurs several

times and compatibles with the English word “wants”, so “re’en” apparently means

“wants”.

In the first part (1) we can see that miñ means “come” and se’t means “return”

In the first part (1), we can see that tugawko means ‘my chair’, -ko apparently means

‘my’, tugawmo means ‘your chair’, -mo apparently means ‘your’, etc.

In the second part (2), we also see that sabak means ‘my banana’, /k/ apparently

means ‘my’, sabam means ‘your banana’, /m/ apparently means ‘your’, etc.

In the third part (3), we see that tugawna means ‘his chair’, -na apparently means

‘his’, bagasna means ‘his rice’, -na apparently means ‘his’, etc.