Look at the word DEVELOPMENT. There are two parts here and they are: DEVELOP + MENT. Develop can stand on its own, so, we call it a free morpheme. However, MENT cannot. So, we call it a bound morpheme. This process is not compounding. It is affixation. What then is affixation?
Affixation
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme attached to a word stem to form a new word or new word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English -full and un-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. Affixation is the linguistic process that speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.
Affixation must follow the order of FREE MORPHEME+ BOUND MORPHEME(S).
Be careful not to miss this. Once the word has undergone a Morphological change, it must be accounted for. Now, look at the following words.
1. Kindness
2. Morality
3. Demoralisation
4. Advertisement
5. Impurities
6. Confused
Kindness is KIND+NESS (KIND is the free morpheme because it can stand on its own. It has its own meaning. NESS cannot, hence we call it a bound morpheme.
Morality is MORAL+ITY
DEMORALISATION IS DE+MORALE+ISE+TION
ADVERT+ISE+MENT
IM+PURE+ITY+S
CONFUSE+ED
Now, all these words are formed through AFFIXATION. To affix is to join another to. So, they are formed by joining (binding) a bound morpheme to roots/stems. There are three subcategories of affixation and they are prefixation, infixation and
suffixation
PREFIX
A prefix is a bound morpheme that appears before the root. According to Wikipedia, a prefix is A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix un- is added to the word happy, it creates the word unhappy. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can be either inflectional, creating a new form of the word with the same basic meaning and same lexical category (but playing a different role in the sentence), or derivational, creating a new word with a new semantic meaning and sometimes also a different lexical category. Prefixes, like all other affixes, are usually bound morphemes. In English, there are no inflectional prefixes; English uses suffixes instead for that purpose. The word prefix is itself made up of the root fix (meaning “attach”, in this case), and the prefix pre- (meaning “before”).
INFIX
An infix is an affix brought into the middle of the word. Standard English has no INFIX. So, this can be overlooked.
SUFFIX
Unlike a prefix which comes before a root, a suffix appears after the root. Look at the word FRIENDLINESS for example. The root is FRIEND. So, we have FRIEND+LY+NESS. Both LY and NESS are suffixes.
Remember, affixes can be inflectional or derivational.
All right, guys. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
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