Morphemic Analysis

A morpheme can be defined as the smallest unit of language that has an associated

meaning. This small unit cannot be subdivided into smaller units that have meaning. Thus,

the purpose of morphemic analysis is to study the morphemes of words to aid in understanding the meaning of those words. In mathematics, this literacy strategy can be applied

to study meaningful parts of words. For example, the word triangle has two morphemes, tri

and angle. These morphemes mean three and the relationship of rays respectively; thus, a

triangle is a three-sided or angled figure.

Morphemic Analysis in the mathematics classroom involves selecting words, identifying

a morpheme of that word, defining the morpheme, identifying mathematics words with that

morpheme, and relating it to words of general usage with the same morpheme. Going

through this process with students helps them understand the meanings of specific words

and the relationships between words. For example, tri in tripod means three and tri in

triangle means three as well. In the mathematics classroom, students in small groups can

identify difficult terminology. As a whole class, the students can create a chart listing a

morpheme, mathematics words that use that morpheme, and finally general usage words

that use the same morphemes.

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morphology. A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.

The concept of word and morpheme are different, a morpheme may or may not stand alone. One or several morphemes compose a word. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone (ex: "one", "possible"), or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme (ex: "im" in im possible). Its actual phonetic representation is the morph, with the different morphs ("in-", "im-") representing the same morpheme being grouped as its allomorphs.

English example:

The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-", a bound morpheme; "break", a free morpheme; and "-able", a bound morpheme. "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both "un-" and "-able" are affixes.

The morpheme plural-s has the morph "-s", /s/, in cats (/kæts/), but "-es", /ɨz/, in dishes (/dɪʃɨz/), and even the voiced "-s", /z/, in dogs (/dɒɡz/). "-s". These are allomorphs.

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