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?