Morphemes: Structural Clues

for Word Meaning

Morphemesare the smallest units of

meaning in English words. They are the base parts in

compound words, the prefixes and suffixes, the Latin roots and the Greek combining

forms.

Teachers need to know morpheme patterns.

These patterns become the strategies students can use to decode, spell unfamiliar words and form the new

words broading their vocabulary.

Suffixes are great ways to learn parts of speech.

Noun endings: Adjective endings: Adverb ending: -ion -ive -ly-ist -est -or -ible

Students will need to learn when to double the final

consonant, drop the final ‘e’ and change ‘y’ into ‘i’ when

adding suffixes.mad/madderskate/skatingbaby/babies

If students know the meaning of Latin or

Greek roots they can easily

understand the translation of words which include such

morphemes:

The morpheme spect comes from Latin “to see, to watch”

Respect inspect spectator spectacular introspective spectacle

The Greek morphemes graph and gram meaning ‘written or drawn’

Phonograph autograph biography telegram phonogram

Some examples of lexical morphemes in English:

Bases.Nouns: dog, word, chart, child.Verbs: have, be, touch, stay.Adjectives: silly, hot, strong.

Affixes.Prefixes: anti, con, di,

pro.Suffixes: ness, ion, ity,

or.