What are morphemes? Meaning, types and spelling of morphemes

Everything in the world consists of something: the human body is made of cells, the clouds are made of water droplets, the forest is made of trees. Human speech is made up of words. And for sure it will be interesting for you to look into the holy of holies - that "workshop" where their education takes place. Words are formed from the special material to which this article is devoted. We will analyze what morphemes are and what they matter.

The meaning of the concept, example

A term of Greek origin literally translates as "form." His authorship belongs to the American Leonard Bloomfield (1933).

What are morphemes? These are the semantic parts that make up the words. We offer to get acquainted with their main features presented in the picture.

We distinguish two fundamental ideas from this information:

1. This is the smallest particle of a word that cannot be split into any other semantic units.
2. It is of particular importance for word formation.

The root, prefix, ending, suffix, postfix (return particle -s or -s) - these are the morphemes that make up the word. All of them have a different designation on the letter, presented just below.

Consider an example: the word "change". It has the following semantic parts:

• re-;
• -men-;
• to-;
• -a.

Let's analyze the meaning of each:

• pere- is a prefix meaning repeated action;
• -men- is the root whose lexical meaning is associated with the designation of a change of action (compare: change, change, change, changer);
• -k - suffix indicating the diminutive meaning of the word.
• -a - an ending indicating that we have a singular noun, feminine.

Root of the word

If the meaning of a word is made up of the meanings of its parts, then the root can be safely considered the main morpheme. It is he who carries the main lexical load, and word formation takes place on its basis. Let's try to illustrate this. We will build new words from the noun "water" while preserving the root -water-.

The meaning of morphemes varies, therefore it is customary to distinguish root and affixal. About the first - in more detail, a little lower.

We are writing correctly

An important point is the spelling of morphemes. In this example, it can be seen that in the root there may be alternations of letters that need to be tracked. The more complex of them are - lag - / - lies - (offer, offer). The following spelling should also be disassembled:

• Unstressed verifiable and unverifiable vowels (flood - watery; dialogue).
• The transition of the letters "and" to "s" after prefixes ending in a consonant (lost, played up).
• The spelling "e" instead of "e" in borrowed words (project, overcoat).
• "O" and "e" after hissing. "E" is written under stress, if you can pick up the same root word with alternating "e - e": stale - callous, millet - millet.
• Paired deaf and voiced consonants require a test word (step - steps, sound - sounds).
• Unpronounceable consonants also need the selection of cognate words (locality - place).
• Double consonants. There are several rules for this spelling, so you need to check the dictionary (reins, yeast, quarrel).

Endings

You can better understand what morphemes are by looking at the following sentence:

• "Came ... in the morning ... and the children ... hurried ... to the schools ...".

The ending has a very important role - it establishes a connection between words in a sentence. Without affecting the lexical meaning of a particular noun or adjective, for example, it is not included in the so-called basis. However, the ending plays a huge role, indicating gender, number and case. Insert the missing endings and read:

• It was morning and the children rushed to school.

Suffixes

This morpheme is the basis and is responsible for word and form formation. An example of the formation of new words:

• mushroom - nickname mushroom;
• silver - silver-isth;
• A hare is a hare-hare.

An example of the formation of new forms:

• declining - declining;
• warm - warm-esh;
• fun - cheerful her.

The suffix -isch is able to increase the item: city - ancient settlement. A -ik, on the contrary, reduce: table - table.

Incidentally, in the Russian language there are words in which two or even three suffixes are found. Examples of the latter:

• Relatives
• teacher
• water content.

Prefixes

The prefixes in front of the root are word-forming particles. It is on their example that it becomes clear what morphemes are. So, they are able to make an incomplete action completed: read - read. Each console has its own purpose:

• No - / no - means the absence of anything (voiceless, disorder).
• You- - demonstrates the direction of the movement out (get out, jump out).
• To - - shows the completion of the action (to run, completion).
• Not - means the denial of what the word itself expresses (untruth, ugly).
• Under - - in relation to verbs it shows insufficiency of actions (undersalt, unreserved), etc.

Having examined what a morpheme in Russian is, one should remember: the use of semantic parts of a word requires knowledge of spelling.