what's the difference between a lexeme and a morpheme?
Dear English Teachers,
Following is what I have found (by googling) in the Internet:
QUOTE Lexeme is the smallest unit in the meaning system of a language that can be distinguished from other similar units. A lexeme is an abstract unit. It can occur in many different forms in actual spoken or written sentences, and is regarded as the same lexeme even when inflected. For example, in English, all inflected forms such as give, gives, give,,, giving, gave would belong to the one lexeme give. Similarly, such expressions as bury the hatchet, hammer and tongs, give up, and whüe paper would each be considered a single lexeme. In a dictionary, each lexeme merits a separate entry or sub-entry.
Morphem is also the smallest meaningful unit in a language. but a morpheme cannot be divided without altering or destroying its meaning. For example, the English word 'kind' is a morpheme. If the 'd' is removed, it changes to 'kin', which has a different meaning. Some words consist of one morpheme, e.g. kind others of more than one. For example, the English word 'unkindness' consists of three morphemes: the STEM1 'kind', the negative prefix 'un-', and the noun-forming suffix '-ness'. Morphemes can have grammatical functions. For example, in English the -s in she walks is a grammatical morpheme which shows that the verb is the third-person singular present-tense form. UNQUOTE
If there exists a better (=less verbose, more precise) explanation/definition that you can share with me, please let me know.
Thank you!
mus-te
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