What are the differences and connections between morphemes, words, phrases and sentences?

Grammar units can be large or small. The largest grammatical unit is the sentence. The grammatical units smaller than the sentence are phrases, words, and morphemes in order. Human language has sounds and meanings, and is composed of speech and The combination of semantics is the basic characteristic of grammatical units. Morphemes are the smallest grammatical units, that is, the smallest combinations of pronunciation and semantics.

Let’s look at the following sentence:

< p>He is sitting on the sofa reading a book.

This is the largest grammatical unit. We divide it into as small as possible, and it becomes:

He│sits│in│ Sofa│Li│Read│Book

Each cut part has a meaning and cannot be divided any more. It is a morpheme. The "sofa" here is just a morpheme, which is the English sofa The transliteration expresses one meaning, so it cannot be divided any more.

It can be seen that the morpheme has two characteristics: one is the smallest and cannot be divided any more; the other is meaningful.

There are no more than 1,400 monosyllabic words in Mandarin, but the number of morphemes is much larger than this number. Why? Because one syllable represents many different meanings. For example, the syllable xīn can mean "xin (hard work), xin (new person)" ), 心 (heart), zinc (zinc mine), salary (salary), wick (wick), xin (fragrance), xin (joy)" and other morphemes. Since Chinese characters are not Pinyin characters, the syllable xīn is written separately It has different forms and has done the work of analyzing morphemes for us. However, it cannot be said that a Chinese character is a morpheme. The relationship between the form, sound, meaning and morphemes of Chinese characters, except for the above mentioned one syllable represents several In addition to morphemes being represented by several Chinese characters, there are also the following situations.

A Chinese character represents several different morphemes, pronounced with the same sound. For example, the word "vice" (fù) It can represent three morphemes: "vice ①", which means the second and secondary meaning, such as "deputy director" and "non-staple food"; "vice ②", which means commensurate, such as "not worthy of its name"; "vice ③", A unit of measurement that represents something, such as "a pair of gloves" or "a stretcher".

A syllable represents only one morpheme, written as a Chinese character. For example: shéi-who, zěn-how, wá- wa, sēng - monk, hén - mark, cè - compassion. There are relatively few examples of this situation.

A morpheme can be represented by different Chinese characters. For example: the "search" of "collection" can be written as "蓓", the "苏" in Su Xing can be written as "苏", which is the so-called variant character.

Several different syllables represent different morphemes, but they are written as the same Chinese character. For example: chā - difference ( difference), chà - difference (bad), chāi - difference (bad), cī - difference (different).

A syllable, written as a Chinese character, can contain two morphemes. For example: "两 (liǎ) )" "仨 (sā)" sounds like only one syllable, but actually contains two morphemes, "Liang" means "two"; "仨" means "three".

Some Chinese characters themselves have no meaning and do not represent any morphemes. For example: grape, grape, centipede, centipede...

Some Chinese characters represent morphemes on certain occasions, but do not represent morphemes on certain occasions. .For example: "sha, fa, qiao, li, ma, ke, da" are all morphemes respectively; while in "sofa", "chocolate" and "motor", they are only symbols of one syllable and are not morphemes. .

If morphemes are divided by syllables, they can be divided into monosyllabic morphemes, bisyllabic morphemes and multi-syllable morphemes. Examples are as follows.

Monosyllabic morphemes: heaven, earth, human, run , dance, sing, red, white, people, friends, thoughts... There are many such morphemes, tens of thousands of them.

Disyllabic morphemes, which are mainly ancient Lianmian characters and transliterated loanwords. Lianmian Words, such as: hesitant, embarrassed, gourd, grape, wandering, wandering; transliterated loanwords, such as: pipa, nylon, coffee, kaji.

Polysyllabic morphemes are mainly transliterated loanwords. For example : Vaseline, Olympics, Bolsheviks.

Some monosyllabic morphemes can be used independently, and therefore can form independent words, such as "人, run, me, pull, red..." Such morphemes are called " "Word morphemes"; some cannot be used independently and therefore cannot form words alone, such as "people, people, machine..." Morphemes such as "people, people, machines..." are called "unword morphemes". Morphemes that cannot form words alone will never be It may be a word; a morpheme that can form a word alone cannot

It is guaranteed to be a word at any time and on any occasion. For example, the "people" in "people" is not a word. It appears in the form of a morpheme here and is a component of the word "people" and cannot be separated. No other components can be inserted into it.

There is a situation worth noting. Not only can a small number of morphemes not be able to form words independently, but their positions are often fixed when combined with other morphemes. For example: first, boss , A Mao, scissors, Hua'er, stone, we. The position of "Di, Lao, A, Yu, Er, Tou, Men" in it, either before or after, is fixed and cannot be changed. We call such morphemes They are additional components, and some people call them affixes. Although the meaning of this additional component is not so obvious, it is different from the "grapes, grapes, centipedes, and centipedes" mentioned above. The former has a less clear meaning. The latter has no meaning.

For morphemes that can independently form words, the denotations of words and morphemes overlap, one morpheme and one word. Such words are called simple words, which are formed from one morpheme and have a simple structure. There is no need to go into detail. Morphemes that cannot form independent words can be combined with other morphemes to form a word. This is what we call compound words. Regarding the structural relationships of compound words, here are a few.

一 , two morphemes are combined into a word according to a certain relationship. This combination is called compound. It can be divided into six forms:

1. The relationship between the two morphemes is equal, not They are divided into priorities, and there is a joint relationship between them. For example:

Friends’ language struggle was great and brave just now

Whether or not, things will eventually turn into each other sooner or later

2. Two Morphemes are divided into primary and secondary, and there is a positive relationship between them. The former morpheme describes or restricts the latter morpheme:

The advantages of trains and railways value snow and white as long as

Stone flower core Goodwill and Pride Qianmen Ship

3. There is a dominance relationship between two morphemes. The former morpheme represents a behavioral action, and the latter morpheme represents the things dominated and affected by this behavioral action. For example:

The revolution takes the lead in mobilizing limited officers to wear leggings

Conservative and confidant applaud for breaking promises and admitting defeat

4. The latter morpheme is a description of the previous morpheme, and the relationship between them is Describe the relationship. For example:

Earthquake, winter solstice, distressed, young, impatient, timid

Sunrise, panic, thirst, civil voluntary weight

5. The latter morpheme is to supplement the previous one. The results of behavioral actions expressed by morphemes are complementary relationships. For example:

Explain, improve, see, promote, reduce recognition

Defeat, narrow, correct, defeat, prove, expose

< p>6. The former morpheme represents a thing, and the latter morpheme indicates the unit of measurement of this thing. The relationship between them is quite special. For example:

Ships, papers, people, rooms, guns, books

Cars, horses, lamps, cloth, rice grains, flowers

2. A morpheme that represents a specific word meaning is combined with an additional component to form a word. For example:

Brush: brush, comb, pliers, clip, scissors

Children: painted sticks and covered circles

Tou: sweetness and bitterness behind the steamed buns and stones

We: we, you, them, us

No.: First, second, tenth

Third, combine words by repeating morphemes. This combination is called overlapping. For example:

Mom gradually and often just think about it< /p>

Most words in Chinese are composed of two morphemes, and some words contain more than two morphemes. For example, "tractor", "library", "view of life", "electrification" and "typicality" "Young man" and so on, such words first form a word from the first two morphemes, and then add another morpheme.

Understand the characteristics of Chinese morphemes, its relationship with Chinese characters, and its relationship with Chinese vocabulary. It is extremely useful for learning Chinese. Since morphemes have meaning, words composed of morphemes are related to the meanings of morphemes. "Peace", "competition", "flowing water", "ship", "peace of mind", "applause" The meanings of words such as "panic" and "earthquake" are a collection of the meanings of two morphemes. For words with special combinations such as "ship" and "vehicle", the morpheme behind the quantifier is also meaningful. We cannot say "ship" as "Shipbook","

"Book" cannot be said to be "book", because boats are about books and books are about books.

After understanding the knowledge of morphemes, you can better identify the meaning of words. For example: "water conservancy", " As long as we understand the morphemes "Li (interest)" and "Li (power, ability)" of the two words "hydraulic power", we can distinguish their meanings.

In Chinese teaching, the status of morphemes is very important. important, but the concept of morphemes is relatively abstract. When teachers teach this part of the content, they should not talk too much about theoretical analysis issues. They can integrate the knowledge of morphemes into Chinese character teaching and vocabulary teaching, and use a large number of various Practice to teach students. In this way, the teaching effect may be better.

(1) My opinion

To put it simply, the biggest difference between words and phrases is that; words The internal structure of the phrase is tight, and no ingredients can be added in the middle. If other ingredients are added, the meaning will change. The phrase is relatively loose, and other ingredients can be added in the middle.

Example

The university has Its specific meaning cannot be added in the middle. If "的" or "和" is added, the meaning will change and become "big learning", "大和学", etc. Therefore, university is a word.

Gaolou

You can add the word "的" in the middle to become "高楼", and its connotation has not changed. Therefore, you can recognize "高楼" as a phrase.

（ 2) Statement of the data

There is such a joke:

A teacher asked students to use the word "sad" to make a sentence. One student wrote like this: "From my house to grandma's house, There is a river that is very sad."

Obviously, the teacher asked the students to use "sad" in sentences, treating it as a word with the meaning of "sad", but the students used "sad" in the sentence. Misused as a phrase, it means "hard to pass". The reason for the misunderstanding is that the student does not know that in modern Chinese, the phonetic unit with the same shape and two-sound structure is one word in some contexts. In some contexts, it may be a phrase.

Example: ①I invite you to dinner. ("Eat" is a phrase, which refers to eating a certain meal)

②*** Communists do not rely on scaring people to make a living. ("Eat" is a word, which generally refers to life or survival)

③Put away everything you want to bring. ("stuff" refers to items)

④ When I came to Beijing for the first time, I couldn’t tell the difference between east and west when I left the station. (“East and west” is a phrase, referring to the east and west, and generally refers to the direction)

To distinguish the two, first of all It is to analyze its semantics in a specific language. Generally speaking, the semantics of a phrase is often the simple sum of the meanings of several words that make up it. For example, "有电" means "有" and "电". Simple addition. The semantics of a compound word is not necessarily a simple addition of the meanings of its morphemes. For example, "horse road" cannot be said to be "horse's road". In the same way, "I felt very sad when I heard the news of his death." "Sad", the "sad" in the sentence means "uncomfortable, sad", it is not a simple addition of morpheme meanings, and the meaning of "sad" in "There is a river that is very sad" is the addition of the two meanings. From This distinguishes the former as a word and the latter as a phrase.

Secondly, from the perspective of grammatical structure, the internal morphemes of a word are closely structured, stereotyped and non-expandable; the internal words of a phrase are The structure between words is loose and can be split and expanded (that is, other components can be inserted in the middle). In example 1, "I treat you to a meal" can be expanded to "I treat you to a reunion dinner"; in example 2, it cannot be said "The Communists don't eat their breakfast by scaring people." It can be seen that using the expansion method is a more reliable method to distinguish words and phrases, especially words and phrases with the same pronunciation and the same shape.