Questions tagged [morphemes]
for questions about morphemes.
18
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1answer
128 views
What does the -mate suffix mean and where does it come from?
What does the suffix "-mate" mean? It makes a word into a verb, like with automate or decimate, but does it actually have a meaning? Is it perhaps Greek for "to make" or something?
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2answers
109 views
What is the origin of -oid in ‘factoid’? [closed]
I was thinking about the words ‘factoid’ (a statement based on assumption) and ‘fact’. Are these words unrelated or is -oid a bound morpheme in this case? If it is a morpheme, what exactly does -oid ...
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0answers
36 views
Plural affix in the Oxford English Dictionary
I cannot find an entry for the plural affix in the OED (-es, -s , 's, s), unlike say for -en.
Also for -ed we have : -ed, suffix1, -ed, suffix2, -d, -t, suffix1, -t, suffix2, etc.
What are the ...
2
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0answers
40 views
Latin/Greek morpheme meaning 'fundamental'?
Is there a Latin or Greek prefix or suffix out there that can be added to a word to make it mean the fundamental from which everything is derived?
Here's an example. You've got linguistics, that is ...
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0answers
85 views
Whence the English Plural -s? [duplicate]
There are many questions here unsure about the difference between user's/users'/users guide and the like, whether that's called posessive, genitive or whatever. bridesmaid for example clearly does ...
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1answer
412 views
Allomorph or suppletion?
Buy / Bought - are these two words allomorphs (of the "past tense" morpheme), or do they represent the phenomenon of suppletion, or perhaps both? Help!
0
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1answer
989 views
Why isn't {-able} considered a free morpheme?
So the question is that if the morpheme, {-able}, is considered a bound morpheme, however, I am not sure why it cannot be used by itself and be considered a free morpheme, i.e. I am able to do this. ...
7
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4answers
5k views
Is the correct pronunciation of “Have you seen Mary's book” “Mary book”?
So there is this question about the pronunciation of the noun possessive inflection.
A certain text states that a zero allomorph is used by certain American English speakers for the noun possessive ...
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1answer
701 views
Morpheme 'li' in friendliness
In class today the word 'friendliness' was split up into three morphemes rather than my prefered two.
I don't understand why 'li' has claim to be a morpheme rather than 'liness', which seems to be ...
2
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1answer
1k views
Is “best” monomorphemic?
Is the word best monomorphemic?
I'm not too sure about this. Can someone please help?
14
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5answers
2k views
Is there a term for the part of a word that “pluralizes” it?
For example, what is the "s" in "apples" or the "ies" in "ponies" called? I found that "morpheme" is probably close, since that's just the smallest grammatical unit in a language, but that's not ...
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1answer
1k views
number of morphemes in “liver”
So my understanding is that all morphemes are either "free" morphemes (can exist on their own as words with meaning) or "bound" morphemes (can't exist on their own as words, which means that every ...
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6answers
1k views
Can foreign words be reduced into English morphemes?
In class today, during an activity when we were given the task of breaking down a list of words into morphemes, I had a disagreement with a professor who tried to convince me that the word "...
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1answer
2k views
Is there such a thing as a dictionary that lists all the words for a given morpheme?
I've just discovered what a morpheme is. The article I read on the subject listed many morphemes and gave examples words of each type but the list of words for each morpheme was not exhaustive. I've ...
0
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1answer
370 views
What are lexemes and morphemes? [closed]
I am preparing for my TOEFL test and want to increase my vocabulary. Can anybody please tell me what lexemes and morphemes are, and why they are important?
I have Googled the terms but I need the ...
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1answer
3k views
What is the root morpheme of a word when 'y' turns into 'ies' or 'ier'?
Suppose I have to write out the root morpheme and the bound morpheme. Consider the word 'happier'.
I've seen some examples, for example here on the second slide: http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/...
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3answers
985 views
Do the words 'poster' and 'mixer' have one or two morphemes?
The words 'Driver', 'writer' and 'player' are composed of base and -er morpheme, which have the meaning of the one who writes or drives..., whereas 'mixer' doesn't mean the one who mixes, does it mean ...
3
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3answers
456 views
Why Greek morphemes over Latin, or Latin over Greek? *A Call to Lexicographers*
Is there a rationale behind why certain English words take Greek morphemes (or affixes) over Latin morphemes, and vice versa? Why do certain Greek morphemes become standard English idiom over Latin ...
