Identifying Root Morphemes
Counting morphemes can be a challenging task, but can be made manageable by applying what you already know about morphology. When looking at a word, first try to identify a root morpheme. Think about the word ‘intergenerational’, and parse off the affixes until only the root remains. ‘Inter-‘ can be removed, as can ‘-al’, leaving just ‘generation’. Frequently, several inflectional morphemes are used together, as is the case with the example word. ‘Generation’ can actually be reduced further into ‘generate’ and ‘-ion’.
Is It a Root, or What?
Sometimes finding a root is less clear. Consider the word ‘receiving’. We can separate the suffix ‘-ing’, but can we parse ‘re-‘ from the word? It is tricky because that would leave only ‘ceive’, which is neither a word nor an affix. The answer is that ‘re-‘ can be removed and counted as a prefix. This is because ‘ceive’ is a bound root. There are far fewer bound roots in English than free roots (such as generate) but they cannot be forgotten. If you are unsure whether a word segment may be a bound root, think about whether there are other words with that segment with different affixes. For instance, ‘ceive’ can easily be considered a morpheme because we know that other words use this root: conceive, deceive, perceive, et cetera.
When There is No Root
Not all words have roots. The exocentric compound ‘scarecrow’, for example, has no root, although it should not be difficult to count morphemes in rootless words.
Beyond Roots and Affixes
Do not forget that roots and affixes are not the only particles that constitute morphemes. Clitics, such as the possessive ‘s, are also considered morphemes.
