>> ZG·Lingua >  >> Applied Linguistics >> Psycholinguistics

Are there zero morphemes in English?

It's impossible to have a word with zero morphemes in English. Here's why:

* Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language. Even words that appear to be single units often contain a single morpheme that acts as both the root and the whole word.

* Every word must have a root morpheme. This is the core of the word's meaning. For example, the word "cat" has a single morpheme that serves as both the root and the whole word.

Examples:

* "run" - One morpheme (root)

* "unbreakable" - Three morphemes (un- + break + -able)

Conclusion:

Even the simplest words in English have at least one morpheme. There's no such thing as a word with zero morphemes.

Copyright © www.zgghmh.com ZG·Lingua All rights reserved.