Monday, August 29, 2011

I have a basic understanding of this concept. However, I am still unclear regarding how a morpheme can change the meaning of a word. The brief explanation about the bound and free morphemes assisted with my understanding, but I think my misunderstanding is what exactly would be considered a morpheme. The difference in the free morpheme mobile and the bound morpheme re have me confused on how basic a morpheme can be or how broad.
Help Please!

2 comments:

  1. Re- is bound because it can not stand alone; it has no meaning unless it is bound to a word
    Ex:
    readjust, rethink, relearn, redo

    A free morpheme such as scope, mobile or graph has a meaning of its own. In other words it can be used in a sentence without being paired with other phonemes.
    Ex:
    A graph is an effective tool for accountants.
    A telegraph is an old for of communication.

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  2. Just want to share here again - re DOES have meaning. It means AGAIN. This is why we add it to words, to change the meaning of the word and to communicate do that again.

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