Module 2: Linguistics
In the sentence, “Send these schematics down to the marketers.” the word, “marketers” has 3 morphemes.
Morpheme 1: Market. The root of the word that carries the major meaning of the word. This word could stand alone and make sense if it needed to (though not in the sentence we plucked it from). This morpheme is called the free lexical morpheme.
Morpheme 2: -er. This is the suffix that is added to the word, carrying with it the inherent meaning of “one who does something.” Understanding the suffix allows a student to understand that a marketer is one who markets. This morpheme is called the bound lexical morpheme.
Morpheme 3: -s. This letter is added so that the amount is clear and that the word fits in the sentence grammatically with the intended meaning. The sentence would still make sense without this morpheme, but it would change the meaning. This morpheme is called the bound grammatical morpheme.
In the above example, we discussed some classifications for morphemes. Let’s look closer at these.
Free lexical morpheme: This term is used to describe a morpheme that can exist on its own and make sense. In the previous example, the free lexical morpheme was “market.” Alone, “market” is a word. Conversely, “er” is not a word that can exist on its own and still make sense. While in this case the free lexical morpheme was the root word, it does not have to be. The word “classroom” is composed of two free lexical morphemes—“class” and “room.”
Bound lexical morpheme: This term is used to describe a morpheme that is bound to another morpheme lexically and cannot make sense without it. This term often refers to prefixes and suffixes that are added to words to adjust their meaning. These morphemes cannot function alone and serve to simply modify the meaning of the free lexical morpheme to which they are attached.
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