UB 00902:

MEANING
IN COMMUNICATION
CONTEXT

LESSON 3:
Meaning and Morpheme
WHAT IS MORPHEME ?
Morphology, which deals with
morphemes (the minimal units of
linguistic form and meaning), and
how they make up words
Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit
in a language
It can be a phoneme, affix or word/lexeme
WHAT IS MORPHEME ?

What is the relationship between

words and morphemes?
It's a hierarchical one: a word is
made up of one or more morphemes.
Most commonly, these morphemes
are strung together, or concatenated,
in a line
BASE MORPHEME & AFFIX
base: a morpheme that gives a word its meaning.
The base morpheme cat gives the word cats its
meaning: a particular type of animal.
affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning
(prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme.
Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot
stand alone.
eg: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and
less.
prefix: an affix that comes before a base morpheme.
The in in the word inspect is a prefix.
suffix: an affix that comes after a base morpheme.

The s in cats is a suffix

BASE MORPHEME & AFFIX

Suffixes can also be used to tell the part of

speech of a word. The following examples
show the parts of speech indicated by the
suffixes in the chart.
Nouns: -ance, -ful, -ity, -ment, -ness, -tion
Verb: -ate
Adjectives: -able, -ful, -less, -ly
Adverb: -ly
TYPES OF MORPHEMES?

Bound Morphemes cannot occur on their

own,
e.g. de- in detoxify, -tion in creation, -s in
dogs, cran- in cranberry.
Free Morphemes can occur as separate
words,
e.g. car, yes.
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME
Inflectionalmorpheme can only be a suffix An
inflectional morpheme creates a change in the
function of the word.
eg: The s in cats plural;
the d in invited past tense.
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME
The seven inflectional morphemes in English and
their meanings:
-s (plural)

-s (possessive) noun inflections

-s ( 3rd-person singular)
-ed ( past tense)
-en (past participle) verb inflections
-ing ( present participle)
-er (comparative)
-est (superlative) adjective & adverb inflections
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEME
Derivationalmorpheme can be prefix or suffix.
Derivational morpheme changes the meaning of
the word or the part of speech or both. It creates
new words. eg. un- added to invited not;
-less added to useless without.
Here are more meaning of derivational
morphemes in English:
Prefix Meaning Eg of Words
ad- to, toward adjudge
circum- around, about circumscribe
com- with, together community
de- away from, off detach
dis- away, apart disagree
ex- from, out exchange
in- not inconsiderate
in- in, into intoxicant
inter- between Interracial, interface
mis- wrong misjudge
post- after postnatal
re- back, again rearrange
sub- beneath, under Subtitle
trans- across transport
un- not unfriend
Suffix Meaning eg of Words
-able (-ible) capable of being capable
-ance (-ence) the act of attendance
-ate making or applying
-ful full of helpful
-ity the state of being ethnicity
-less without useless
-ly in a certain way badly
-ment the result of being movement
-ness the state of being happiness

-tion (-ion, the act of or the state of

reaction
-sion) being
Allomorph, homonym & homophone
allomorphs: different phonetic forms or variations
of a morpheme.
eg:The final morphemes in the following words are
pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality:
dogs, cats, and horses.
homonyms: morphemes that are spelled the same
but have different meanings.
eg:bear (an animal) and bear (to carry), plain (simple)
and plain ( a level area of land).
homophones: morphemes that sound alike but
have different meanings and spellings.
eg: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite, sight, site.
Journal 3
a)Identify and label the parts of the following
words as: bound or free, derivational or
inflectional, and base or affix. Indicate the
number of morphemes in each word.
1. postgraduate
2. citizen
3. potatoes
4. inescapable
5. driven
6. largest
7. misfortune
8. unlikely
Journal 3
b)Identify and label the parts of the following
words as: bound or free, derivational or
inflectional, and base or affix. Indicate the
number of morphemes in each word.
1. datang
2. disukai
3. gangguan
4. memasuki
5. terlupa
6. mendahulukan
7. terbang
8. anaknya
9. bukuku
Journal 3

c)What is the meaning of the prefixes in Malay?

Berikan makna imbuhan awalan berikut:

Imbuhan Awalan Makna Contoh

perkataan
ke-
di-
se-
meN-
beR-
ter-
peR-
Journal 3

d)What is the meaning of the suffixes in Malay?

Berikan makna imbuhan akhiran berikut:

Imbuhan Makna Contoh Perkataan

Akhiran
-kan
-an
-i
-nya
Journal 3
e) Is there any homonyms and homophones in
Malay? Give 2 sets of example each.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fromkin, Victoria, and Robert Rodman. An

Introduction to Language. 5th ed. Fort Worth:
Harcourt Brace Joanovich College Publishers, 1993.
Kolln, Martha, and Robert Funk. Understanding

English Grammar. 5th ed.

Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998.
Hacker, Diana. The Bedford Handbook for Writers.

3rd ed. Boston: Bedford

Books of St. Martin's Press, 1991.
Bauer, Mary Beth, et al., Grammar and

Composition. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,

1982.