CLASSIFICATIO

N OF
MORPHEMES
 A morpheme is the smallest semantically
meaningful unit in a language, which is also
an association of a particular meaning with a
particular sound pattern.

Morphemes occur in
speech only as constituent
part of words, not
independently, although a
word may consist of a
single morpheme.
 The morpheme may be
characterized by its semantics
(semantically) and form (structurally).

According to their semantics,

morphemes can be classified into
lexical (roots), grammatical
(inflections), lexical-grammatical
(affixes).
 Lexical morphemes have a quite
concrete lexical meaning which is
directly connected with the thought.
To them belong root-words (book,
beauty, red etc.) which may be free
(write, book) and bound (in derived
words: boys, bookish, beautiful).
 To lexical-grammatical morphemes
belong modal verbs, link-verbs,
postpositives (off, out, up: bring up,
turn out) and suffixes and prefixes (they
are bound lexical-grammatical
morphemes).
 To grammatical morphemes belong
auxiliary verbs (free grammatical
morphemes) and inflexions (bound
grammatical morphemes).
Grammatical morphemes are deprived
of any lexical meaning, they only signal
some grammatical meaning (of tense,
aspect, number, case, degree of
comparison): boys, boy’s, looked, will
come.
 Prefixes in English have a purely lexical role, allowing
the construction « a large number of new words: un-, de-,
anti-, super-, etc.: unhelpful, defrost, antisocial,
superstructure.

Suffixes in English are of two kinds. Most are purely

lexical, their primary function being to change the meaning
of the root form: examples of these derivational suffixes
include -ness, -ship, - able: happiness, friendship,
workable. A few are purely grammatical, their role being to
show how the word must be used in a sentence: examples
here include plural -s, past tense -ed, and comparative -er.
Elements of this second type, which have no lexical
meaning, are the inflectional suffixes of the language.
According to the form, morphemes
can be classified into free, bound
and semi-bound.
 A free morpheme is defined as one that in the form
of one-morpheme word can function independently,
e.g. box, dark. The characteristic feature of the English
language is that in the majority of simple words, or
one-morpheme words, the form of the stem, root and
the word is one and the same (desk, work, pet, etc.).
A bound morpheme functions only as a constituent
part of the word. Prefixes and suffixes are bound
morphemes for they always make part of a word.'
Unlike the free morpheme, the bound morpheme has
no meaning in itself: it acquires its meaning only in
combination with the free morpheme.
 Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are
morphemes that can function in a
morphemic sequence both as an affix and
as a free morpheme. For example, the
morpheme well and half on the one hand
occur as free morphemes that coincide
with the stem and the word-form in
utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on
the other hand they occur as bound
morphemes in words like well-known, half-
eaten, half-done.
 The relationship between the two
classifications of morphemes
discussed above can be graphically
presented in the following diagram:
 In grammar there also exists the
notion of synthetic and analytical forms.
 Synthetic forms are such word-forms
in which the lexical and the
grammatical meaning are expressed
(synthesized) in one word: (he) writes,
boys looked.
 Analytical forms of a word are such
forms which consist of a root
morpheme and one or more
grammatical word-morphemes (i.e.
auxiliary verbs): we shall go there to-
morrow; he has come; we have been
sitting here for two hours.
 In the morphological system of
Modern English exists also the
supplative grammatical forms (forms
built from different roots and are
widely used among adjectives,
pronouns, and verbs): bad – worse-
the worst; good – better – the best;
go – went.