Morphemes
Definition
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language. They can be words, like "cat" or "run," or prefixes and suffixes, like "un-" in "undo" or "-ed" in "played."
Analogy
Think of morphemes as the building blocks of a Lego structure. Each block (morpheme) has its own shape and size (meaning), but when you put them together in different ways, you can create all sorts of structures (sentences).
Related terms
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
Syntax: The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.
Semantics: The study of meaning in language; it considers what words mean individually and when they are combined into sentences.
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