What is morpheme?

- a meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided (e.g., in,come, -ing,

forming incoming ).
The smallest recognized unit of grammar and syntax, morphemes function as the foundation of language. Explore
this foundation through a full definition, discussion of types, and examples. Then, test your knowledge with a quiz.
Definition
As scientists have studied the composition of the universe, they've determined that the smallest unit for measuring
an element is the atom. If you think of the Periodic Table of Elements, atoms are what comprise elements, such as
hydrogen, carbon, silver, gold, calcium, and so on. Scientists utilize this classification system for uniformity, so that
they're on the same page in the terminology of their studies.
Atom
Similarly, linguists, or those who study language, its history, and development, have devised a category for the
smallest unit of grammar: morphemes. Morphemes function as the foundation of language and syntax, the
arrangement of words and sentences to create meaning. We shouldn't confuse morphemes as only a given word,
number of syllables, or only as a prefix/suffix. The term morpheme can apply to a variety of different situations. Let's
take a look!
Types
In linguistics, we would further classify morphemes as either as phonemes (the smallest units of grammar
recognizable by sound) or graphemes (the smallest units of written language). For our purposes, we will focus on
graphemes.

Let's examine the word nonperishable, analyze it, and then discuss terms associated with it.
Nonperishable is comprised of 3 morphemes - non-, perish, and -able. It actually has five syllables, though, which is
a good example of why morphemes and syllables are not synonymous.
Non- is an example of a prefix, or a morpheme that precedes a base morpheme. Perish is an example of a base
morpheme, as it gives the word its essential meaning. -Able is an example of a suffix, or a morpheme that follows a
base morpheme. Both non- and -able are examples of an affix, a morpheme attached prior to or following a base
that cannot function independently as a word.
Morpheme Chart

A Morpheme as a Word
When we can take a morpheme independently and use it as a stand-alone word in a sentence, it is known as a
base. As the chart indicates above, these can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, or
determiners. We also classify a morpheme that can function as a stand-alone word as free.
In the sentence, 'The bird-like man hardly touched his food at dinner,' there are a total of 11 morphemes, and 9 or
the 11 are free:
The (part of speech: article)
bird (part of speech: noun)
man (part of speech: noun)
hard (part of speech: adjective, but with the -ly: adverb)
touched (part of speech: verb)
his (part of speech: determiner)
food (part of speech: noun)
at (part of speech: preposition)
dinner (part of speech: noun)
The other two morphemes, '-like' and '-ly', are types of affixes, which brings us to our next topic.
What are Morphemes?
Definition
 
A "morpheme" is a short segment of language that meets three basic criteria:
 1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.
 2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless
remainder.
 3. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal environments.
 
Free and Bound Morphemes
There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone
with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak. "Bound morphemes" cannot stand alone with meaning.
Morphemes are comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases (or roots) and (b) affixes.
 
A "base," or "root" is a morpheme in a word that gives the word its principle meaning. An example of a "free base"
morpheme is woman in the word womanly. An example of a "bound base" morpheme is -sent in the worddissent.
 
Affixes
An "affix" is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a base. An affix that comes before a base is called a
"prefix." Some examples of prefixes are ante-, pre-, un-, and dis-, as in the following words:
antedate
prehistoric
unhealthy
disregard
 
An affix that comes after a base is called a "suffix." Some examples of suffixes are -ly, -er, -ism, and -ness, as in
the following words:
 happily
gardener
capitalism
kindness
 
Derivational Affixes
 An affix can be either derivational or inflectional. "Derivational affixes" serve to alter the meaning of a word by
building on a base. In the examples of words with prefixes and suffixes above, the addition of the
prefix un- tohealthy alters the meaning of healthy. The resulting word means "not healthy." The addition of the
suffix -er togarden changes the meaning of garden, which is a place where plants, flowers, etc., grow, to a word
that refers to 'a person who tends a garden.' It should be noted that all prefixes in English are derivational. However,
suffixes may be either derivational or inflectional.
 
Inflectional Affixes
 There are a large number of derivational affixes in English. In contrast, there are only eight "inflectional affixes" in
English, and these are all suffixes. English has the following inflectional suffixes, which serve a variety of
grammatical functions when added to specific types of words. These grammatical functions are shown to the right of
each suffix.
-s     noun plural
-'s     noun possessive
-s     verb present tense third person singular
-ing     verb present participle/gerund
-ed     verb simple past tense
-en     verb past perfect participle
-er     adjective comparative
-est     adjective superlative
DIALECT, ACCENT AND IDIOLECT

Accent and dialect are very important to the way we speak. Your accent is the way you say words and your dialect is
the form of speech you use depending on where you come from. In any part of the country, words for different things
will be very different. There are a variety of very different and interesting accents in England, Venezuela, Spain,
USA, Africa, China, Japon and so on.

On the other hand, Idiolect comes from two Greek words, idio, which means personal and lect which means
language. It is essentially your personal language. Imagine you were to write a dictionary of all the words you use,
then that would be your idiolect. The greatest influence on your language is your immediate family, and the people
you spend time with. For scholars who view language from the perspective of linguistic competence, essentially the
knowledge of language and grammar that exists in the mind of an individual language user, the idiolect is a way of
referring to this specific knowledge. For scholars who regard language as a shared social practice, idiolect is more
like a dialect with a speech community of one individual

To better understand the difference between accent, dialect and idiolect, I'll explain with some examples:
Dialect: In Paraguana, it uses a very familiar word that means delay or delayed, “Dilatar” for example: No te vayas a
tardar mucho – No te vayas a dilatar mucho. Another example is in Venezuela to tell “cotufas” to the popcorn

Idiolect: An engineer speaks not just as a doctor, or teen does not talk like his father. The way to speak of a common
adolescent is much easier than that of a professional technician.

Accent: Within a country there can be different accents, for example in Venezuela, how to speak in Zulia state is
different from Falcón State.

In my opinion, it is possible to speak in different dialects, as the person is learning other cultures and other
expressions but it is very difficult to try to speak in different accents, the accent is something innate to the culture of
the person; otherwise it would be called "imitate".

If I knew a way to name things, would appoint the dialect as how to use everyday expressions. the accent is as how
to modulate the voice and the idiolect, would be the individual variety of speech.

Received Pronunciation
the standard form of British English pronunciation, based on educated speech in southern England.

RP: a Social Accent of English

Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’.
Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little
misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford
University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent.

RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-
standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally
non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a
great deal about their social and/or educational background.

Well-known but not widely used

RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet
recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. It has a negligible presence in Scotland and
Northern Ireland and is arguably losing its prestige status in Wales. It should properly, therefore, be described as an
English, rather than a British accent. As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is
the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with
General American) for teaching English as a foreign language. RP is included here as a case study, not to imply it
has greater merit than any other English accent, but because it provides us with an extremely familiar model against
which comparisons with other accents may be made.

What’s in the name?

RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the
English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement
even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in
1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite
after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924).
The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ — as in ‘received wisdom’. We
can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain — indeed Daniel
Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent. Over
the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools
such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their
speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and
Cambridge) — soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status,
particularly within the middle classes in London.

Broadcaster’s choice
RP probably received its greatest impetus, however, when Lord Reith, the first General Manager of the BBC,
adopted it in 1922 as a broadcasting standard - hence the origins of the term BBC English. Reith believed Standard
English, spoken with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood variety of English, both here in the UK and
overseas. He was also conscious that choosing a regional accent might run the risk of alienating some listeners. To
a certain extent Reith’s decision was understandable, and his attitude only reflected the social climate at the time.
But since RP was the preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small
social minority. This policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes
negative perception of regional varieties of English.

There’s more than one RP

A speaker who uses numerous very localised pronunciations is often described as having a ‘broad’ or ‘strong’
regional accent, while terms such as ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly
different from RP speakers. So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another
as having a mild Scottish accent. Such terms are inadequate when applied to Received Pronunciation, although as
with any variety of English, RP encompasses a wide variety of speakers and should not be confused with the notion
of ‘posh’ speech. The various forms of RP can be roughly divided into three categories. Conservative RP refers to a
very traditional variety particularly associated with older speakers and the aristocracy. Mainstream RP describes an
accent that we might consider extremely neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the
speaker. Contemporary RP refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers. All, however, are
united by the fact they do not use any pronunciation patterns that allow us to make assumptions about where they
are from in the UK.

RP today
Like any other accent, RP has also changed over the course of time. The voices we associate with early BBC
broadcasts, for instance, now sound extremely old-fashioned to most. Just as RP is constantly evolving, so our
attitudes towards the accent are changing. For much of the twentieth century, RP represented the voice of
education, authority, social status and economic power. The period immediately after the Second World War was a
time when educational and social advancement suddenly became a possibility for many more people. Those who
were able to take advantage of these opportunities — be it in terms of education or career — often felt under
considerable pressure to conform linguistically and thus adopt the accent of the establishment or at least modify
their speech towards RP norms. In recent years, however, as a result of continued social change, virtually every
accent is represented in all walks of life to which people aspire — sport, the arts, the media, business, even former
strongholds of RP England, such as the City, Civil Service and academia. As a result, fewer younger speakers with
regional accents consider it necessary to adapt their speech to the same extent. Indeed many commentators even
suggest that younger RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their middle-class accent by incorporating
regional features into their speech.