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Sunday 31 March 2013

Morphology

Morphology is a branch of linguistics that deals with words.
It can be defined as the scientific study of the forms and structure of words in a language. 


The smallest units of meaning are called morphemes.  Morphemes are of two types: free morphemes and bound morphemes. 

Free Morphemes: they can be defined as those morphemes that can stand on their own and make sense. 
For example: happy - read .

Bound morphemes: can be defined as those morphemes that can not stand on their own but must attach other words, usually free morphemes, to make sense.
For example: unhappy - reading. 

Free morphemes can combined together to form new words called compound words.
For example: 
Tea + pot = teapot
Star + light = starlight

Some of these compound words are written with a hyphen between them.
For example:
School + bus = school-bus
Taxi + driver = taxi driver.

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