What is a morpheme? (2 hours)

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What you should have figured out from the previous section is that it's very difficult to clearly determine what is a word and what isn't (see also this comic). Words are still important in linguistics (e.g., there are some phonological alternation patterns [see the "Phonology" module for details] which only take place within words, and don't take place across different words). But they're not easy to identify. Furthermore, for many aspects of linguistic analysis, there is another concept that's more important than word and also easier to define and identify: the morpheme.

A morpheme is a piece of language that has meaning on its own and can't be broken down into further pieces that have meaning on their own; i.e., it's the smallest independent unit of meaning in a language. For example:

Things that are made up of smaller meaningful parts are not morphemes:

Things that can't be broken down, but don't have meaning on their own, are also not morphemes. For example, English has things called phonaesthemes, which are sounds which appear in a lot of related words. For example, gl- appears in words like glow, gleam, glint, glitter, glimmer, glance, glimpse, which are all related to light or seeing... but gl- doesn't mean anything on its own (and in fact it also appears in completely unrelated words, like globe). -sh appears in words related to breaking and destruction, like crush, crash, smash, bash, dash, mash... but it doesn't mean anything on its own, and it also appears in unrelated words like cash. Thus, these examples are not morphemes.

To have evidence that something is a morpheme in a word, it should be contributing to the meaning of the word. For example, the -s in dogs is a morpheme, because the meaning of dogs is made of the meaning of dog plus the meaning of -s. On the other hand, the -s in bus is not a morpheme, because the meaning of bus is not made of "the meaning of bu plus the meaning of -s".

Do the following activities to practice your understanding of morphemes.

Just now we discussed what is and is not a morpheme. But there's one case I didn't raise: Chinese radicals (部首), such as the 人 in 休, the 手 in 打, the 口 in 問, the 月 in 腰, etc.

(For example, 人 means person and 木 means wood, and 休, which means "rest", sort of looks like a person leaning on a tree. 手 means "hand" and 打, which means "hit", is something you do with your hands (many verbs involving hands include the 打 radical) and the left-hand side of that character is a modified version of the "hand" character. 口 means mouth (many verbs involving speech, yelling, calling, etc., include this radical) and 門 means door, and 問, which means "ask", looks like a mouth in a door.)

Do you think these are morphemes? Why or why not?

(You don't need to search any other readings or information to answer this question; I'm not looking for a particular "right answer", I want to know your own opinion.)

Personally, I don't consider radicals to be morphemes. While they do mean something on their own (e.g., 人、手、口、月 all have meanings), their meanings are often only loosely related to the meanings of the characters they make (休、打、問、腰). For example, while 休 looks like a person leaning on a tree and that concept is associated with "resting", you couldn't say that the meaning of 休 is actually the meaning of 人 plus the meaning of 木 (unlike other cases, like 茶杯 ["teacup"], which really is the meaning of 茶 "tea" plus the meaning of 杯 "cup"; a 茶杯 is literally a 杯 for drinking 茶). 問 looks like a mouth in the door coming to ask a question, but the meaning of 問 is not literally the meaning of door plus mouth. And for 打 and 腰, these are phono-semantic combinations; 丁 and 要 don't contribute any meaning to these characters at all, so certainly the meaning of 打 is not a combination of the meaning of 手 plus the meaning of 丁. Keep in mind what I wrote at the beginning of this activity:

To have evidence that something is a morpheme in a word, it should be contributing to the meaning of the word. For example, the -er in runner is a morpheme, because the meaning of runner is made of the meaning of run plus the meaning of -er. On the other hand, the -s in bus is not a morpheme, because the meaning of bus is not made of "the meaning of bu plus the meaning of -s".

By that definition, radicals don't seem to qualify as morphemes. Furthermore, these also have exceptions; for example, 月 occurs in a lot of words for meaty body parts, but it also occurs in 朋, which is not a meaty body part. Overall, therefore, Chinese radicals seem similar to English phonaesthemes to me; i.e., not morphemes. Nevertheless, it's a tricky situation, and there are arguments both for and against.


In the previous activity, I asked you to find a Chinese paragraph and break it into words. Now let's do something similar to practice how you recognize morphemes. But this time, find an English paragraph, and break it into morphemes.

Now do the same thing, but in Chinese. Find a Chinese paragraph, and break it into morphemes.

Which one felt easier to do, English or Chinese? Did you notice any major differences between English and Chinese in terms of how you divide them into morphemes?

You may have noticed that in your Chinese passage, it was probably pretty easy to divide everything into morphemes, because one morpheme is usually one character.

Is one morpheme always one character? Is one character always one morpheme?

Here are a few Chinese words or characters to consider:

What do these tell you about the question of whether or not one character is one morpheme?

When you have finished these activities, continue to the next section of the module: "Using morphemes to build new words".


by Stephen Politzer-Ahles. Last modified on 2021-04-21. CC-BY-4.0.