Page 1 of 1

How many morphemes are there in pencil sharpeners?

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 4:25 pm
by briank
Hello all
I was wondering if anyone could help me with these questions please.

How many morphemes are there in pencil sharpeners?
Is it 3 ? {pencil} + {sharpener}+{-s} or is it 5 - with pencil + sharp+ en + er + s ?

How about sleep walking? 3 Yes?
Understanding {understand}+{ing} 2 Yes?

Thank you so much
BK

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:51 pm
by lucy lace
According to the rules in my Linguistics 101 textbook, pencil sharpener has five morphemes, because the -en suffix is a unit of meaning, to enhance the quality of, as in to 'lighten' or 'darken' a photograph.

Understanding, according to what I understand from my book, has two: understand is a complete unit of meaning and cannot be broken into 'under' and 'stand', plus the -ing.