Re: Linguistic Terminology

Kristian Jensen wrote:
> This is the smallest unit in the grammar that is either a word in
> its own right (free morpheme e.g. "bird"), or part of a word (bound
> morpheme e.g. "-s" in "birds"). Note that in the examples just
> given, "bird" is a lexeme (a lexical/dictionary word) while the "-s"
> ending is a plural suffix.
Actually, "bird" is an example of a *free morpheme*.  A free morpheme is
a unit that can be used by itself, which bird can.  -s is a *bound
morpheme*, a morpheme that cannot be used independantly, it has to be
connected with something else, usually they are affixes.  "Bird" is also
a lexeme, but lexeme does not necessarily equal free morpheme.  IIRC, a
lexeme is a word whose meaning cannot be taken from parts, for example,
"hot dog" is a lexeme.  It must be learned as a seperate item, altho it
is a compound word created from "hot" and "dog", it does not mean "a dog
which is hot".