Morpheme

Definition

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a word with an independent meaning (ie., grammatical function, inflection)

Examples

• Hul’q’umi’num’

• Skwxwú7mesh

• Secwepemctsín:
  • In the example provided below, the first line in the gloss represents the phrase in Secwepemctsín and each morpheme separated by a “.”. The meanings of each morpheme are provided in the second line, and the English translation is provided in the last line. In this example, the morphemes are:
  • Secwé
    • Shuswap
  • -cw-
    • 1 person singular reduplicated
  • -pemc-
    • 1 person singular
  • -ken
    • indicative mood