Morpheme
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Translations
morfema | morphème | Morphem
Article
A m. is defined as the minimal structural endolinguistic unit of morophology. As such, it is the smallest linguistic unit carrying a meaning (Matthews 1974, 11-12), or, in an equivalent fashion if one refers to the theory of sign by F. De Saussure, the minimal linguistic sign. In the context of the study of ancient languages, the correct identification of morphemes is crucial when dealing with contact hypotheses, as the different types of morphemes - those carrying grammatical content and those carrying lexical semantics - behave differently with respect to borrowability hierarchy, in that lexical morphemes are more easily borrowed than grammatical ones.
References
Matthews, P. 1974. Morphology, An Introduction. London.