Morphemes
Morphemes are the basic units of meaning in the formation of words. Several morphemes combine to form a single word. Some morphemes stand on their own while others need inflection to be meaningful. The utterances in the text below have both free and bound morphemes.
“Some gentlemen dined at an economical restaurant. They found the service to be unacceptable and wished to express their unhappiness to the management. The manager was unavailable, so they brought the leftovers home to their dog who resided in a doghouse in the backyard.”
The following are morphemes that make up words in the utterances above. The slashes separate individual morphemes from each other.
/Some/ gentle/men/ dine/d/ /at/ /an/ /economi/cal/ /restaurant/. /They/ /found/ /the/ /service/ /to/ /be/ /un/accept/able/ /and/ /wish/ed/ /to/ /express/ /their/ /un/happi/ness/ /to/ /the/ /manage/ment/. /The/ /manage/r/ /was/ /un/avail/able/, /so/ /they/ /brought/ /the/ /left/over/s/ /home/ /to/ /their/ /dog/ /who/ /reside/d/ /in/ /a/ /dog/house/ /in/ /the/ /back/yard/.
These morphemes consist of morphemes that are individual words and others that are fragments of words. The individual words help other dependent morphemes in bringing out their meaning. Morphemes that can express meaning on their own are free morphemes. On the other hand, morphemes that need inflection to be meaningful are bound morphemes. This work analyzes these two categories of morphemes individually.
Free morphemes
Free morphemes are morphemes that do not need other morphemes to be meaningful. They are individual words with their own meanings. These words can be nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, or pronouns. Sometimes free morphemes combine with other morphemes, both free and bound morphemes. This alters the meaning of the morphemes. The following are the free morphemes in the text.
/Some/, /gentle/, /men/, /dine/, /at/, /an/, /economi/, /restaurant/, /They/, /found/, /the/, /service/, /to/, /be/, /accept/, /and/, /wish/, /to/, /express/, /their/, /happi/, /to/, /the/, /manage/, /the/, /manage/, /was/, /avail/, /so/, /they/, /brought/, /the/, /left/, /over/, /home/, /to/, /their/, /dog/, /who/, /reside/, /in/, /a/, /dog/, /house/, /in/, /the/ /back/, /yard/.
Bound morphemes
Bound morphemes are morphemes which need inflection to be meaningful. They cannot stand on their own. They are mostly suffixes and prefixes that need other morphemes to be meaningful.
These suffixes and prefixes have meanings, but these meanings are not clear when these morphemes stand alone. These meanings include number, tense, mood, negation, ability, opposite, feminine, and masculinity. The following are bound morphemes from the text we are discussing.
/-d/,/-cal/,/un-/,/-ed/,/un-/,/-meant/,/-r/,/un-/,/-d/,/-able/, /-ness/,/-s/,/-able/
The dashes before the words show that they always need inflection.
Phonemes
Phonemes are the most basic units of meaning in the study of sounds. They are individual sounds in a language. These sounds fall into two categories; consonants and vowels. Every sound has a symbol that represents it. The IPA is a chart that summarizes these sounds.
The following are the phonemes of all the words in the text. The transcription of the utterances is according to American pronunciation. The British pronunciation of these words slightly differs with the American pronunciation.
“There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she will die.”
Transcription of the text
The following is a phonemic representation of the words in the text.
/ðer/ /wəz/ /ə/ /wʊmən/ /hu:/ /swɑ:loʊd/ /ə/ /flaɪ/. /aɪ/ /dəʊnt/ /noʊ/ /waɪ/ /ʃɪ/ /swɑ:loʊd/ /ə/ /flaɪ/. /pərhæps/ /ʃɪ/ /wɪl/ /daɪ/.