Segmentation

Definition

In morphology, the process of segmentation is to separate each unique morpheme in a word or sentence in order to derive their respective meanings. This is often done by providing linguistic glosses.

Examples

• Hul’q’umi’num’

• Skwxwú7mesh

• Secwepemctsín:
  • The following example is a linguistic gloss provided by (Lai, 1996). In this gloss, the first row separates each unique morpheme by a dash (-). In the second row the literal translations, including their grammatical functions (e.g., aut-3sg.ind) of each morphemes are provided, and finally in the third row the English translation is provided. This is an example of how morphology is segmented in order to discern the unique morphemes in a word.