Entertainment / Literature / Morpheme: Linguistically, the smallest collection of sounds or letters in a spoken or written word that has semiotic importance or significance--a unit of meaning that cannot be divided into tinier units of meaning. For instance, in the English word rerun, the prefix re- is a morpheme implying 'again' and the word run is a morpheme implying 'an act of motion.' If we try to cut the prefix re- into smaller collections of sounds (/r/ and /I/ phonetically), these sounds no longer have meaning attached to them, and they are no longer morphemes. Likewise, the morpheme run cannot be further subdivided into meaningful morphemes. Note that morphemes can be either free or bound. Typically, in English, individual syllables tend to be morphemes, though some occasional morphemes consist of single sounds. Contrast with grapheme and phoneme.
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Entertainment / Literature / Base Morpheme: A free or bound morpheme, to which other meaningful sounds can be added to form words. Examples of base morphemes include base in basic, or frame in reframe. MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Free Morpheme: Any morpheme that can function by itself as a word, such as the two morphemes it and self found in the word itself. This is the opposite of a bound morpheme, one that only makes sense when it is part MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Bound Morpheme: A morpheme used exclusively as part of a larger word rather than one that can stand alone and retain independent meaning. Examples include the morpheme ept in the word inept, or the morpheme gruntle i MORE