1、Morpheme(词素或语素）-the minimal unit of meaning,-Words are composed of morphemes. A morpheme is a meaning and a stretch of sound joined together. Words may consist of one morpheme or more morphemes, e.g. 1-morpheme boy, desire 2-morpheme boy+ish, desir(e)+ble,Free morpheme & bound morpheme,Free morpheme
2、-is one that may constitute a word (free form) by itself, such as bed, tree, sing, dance, etc.Bound morpheme-is one that may appear with at least one other morpheme. They can not stand by themselves, such as “-s” in “dogs”, “al” in “national”, “dis-” in “disclose”, “ed” in “recorded”, etc.,Allomorph
3、语素变体,Some morphemes have a single form in all contexts, such as “dog, bark, cat”,etc. In other instances, there may be some variation, that is, a morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. They are said to be the allomorphs of the morpheme, the plural morpheme may be represented by: map-maps s dog-dogs z watch-watches iz mouse-mice ai ox-oxen n tooth-teeth sheep-sheep Each of the underlined part is called an allomorph of plural morpheme.,
