Lecture No 1 Word as a basic language unit. Different approaches to the definition of the word. Word meaning as a linguistic phenomenon

Morphological structure of the word
Morpheme is the smallest two-facet unit (it has sound form and meaning) to be found within the word which is studied on the morphological level of analysis.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: root (free) morphemes and non-root (bound) morphemes. Bound morphemes are represented by grammatical (inflections) and derivational (affixes) morphemes. Affixes include suffixes, prefixes, infixes and semi-affixes.

Semantic features – root morphemes (have individual lexical meaning) and non-root morphemes (have generalized meaning).

Root-morphemes are the semantic Centre of the words and the basic constituent part without which the word is inconceivable.

Non-root morphemes include grammatical morphemes (inflections) and derivational morphemes (affixes).

Inflections carry only grammatical meaning reflecting grammatical categories (tense, number, person, degree, etc.).

Affixes are relevant for building various types of stems – the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes, but not with inflectional ones, unless they are important for word building.

Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Besides, we also distinguish infixes (a few) and semi-affixes.

A free morpheme coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with the noun friend.