Definition and Examples of Morphemes in English

In English grammar and morphology, a  morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word such as dog, or a word element, such as the -s at the end of dogs, that cant be divided into smaller meaningful parts. Morphemes are the  smallest units of meaning in a language. They are  commonly classified as either free morphemes, which can occur as separate words or  bound morphemes, which cant stand alone as words. Many words in English are made up of a single free morpheme. For example, each word in the following sentence is a distinct morpheme: I need to go now, but you can stay. Put another way, none of the nine words in that sentence can be divided into smaller parts that are also meaningful. Etymology From the French, by analogy with phoneme, from the Greek, shape, form. Examples and Observations A prefix may be a morpheme:What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?—George CarlinIndividual words may be morphemes:They want to put you in a box, but nobodys in a box. Youre not in a box.—John TurturroContracted word forms may be morphemes:They want to put you in a box, but nobodys in a box. Youre not in a box.—John TurturroMorphs and AllomorphsA word can be analyzed as consisting of one morpheme (sad) or two or more morphemes (unluckily; compare luck, lucky, unlucky), each morpheme usually expressing a distinct meaning. When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented by more than one morph, the morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme: the prefixes in- (insane), il- (illegible), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular) are allomorphs of the same negative morpheme.—Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1996Morphemes as Meaningful Sequences of SoundsA word cannot be divided into morphemes just by sounding out its syllables. Some morphemes, like apple, have more than one syllable; others, like -s, are less than a syllable.  A morpheme is  a form (a sequence of sounds) with a recognizable meaning. Knowing a words early history, or etymology, may be useful in dividing it into morphemes, but the decisive factor is the form-meaning link.A morpheme may, however,  have more than one pronunciation or spelling.  For example, the regular noun plural  ending has two spellings (-s and -es) and three pronunciations (an s-sound as in backs, a z-sound as in bags, and a vowel plus z-sound as in batches).  Similarly, when the morpheme  -ate is followed by -ion (as in activate-ion), the t of -ate combines with the i of -ion as the sound sh (so we might spell the word activashun). Such allomorphic variation is typical of the morphemes of English, even though the spelling does not represent it.—John Algeo,  The Origins and Dev elopment of the English Language, 6th ed.  Wadsworth, 2010Grammatical TagsIn addition to serving as resources in the creation of vocabulary, morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, helping us to identify on the basis of form the parts of speech of words in sentences we hear or read. For example, in the sentence Morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, the plural morpheme ending {-s} helps identify morphemes, tags, and words as nouns; the {-ical} ending underscores the adjectival relationship between grammatical and the following noun, tags, which it modifies.—Thomas P. Klammer et al. Analyzing English Grammar. Pearson, 2007Language AcquisitionEnglish-speaking children usually begin to produce two-morpheme words in their third year, and during that year the growth in their use of affixes is rapid and extremely impressive. This is the time, as Roger Brown showed, when children begin to use suffixes for possessive words (Adams ball), for the plural (dogs), for present p rogressive verbs (I walking), for third-person singular present tense verbs (he walks), and for past tense verbs, although not always with complete corectness (I brunged it here) (Brown 1973). Notice that these new morphemes are all of them inflections. Children tend to learn derivational morphemes a little later and to continue to learn about them right through childhood . . ..—Peter Bryant and Terezinha Nunes, Morphemes and Literacy: A Starting Point. Improving Literacy by Teaching Morphemes, ed. by T. Nunes and P. Bryant. Routledge, 2006 Pronunciation: MOR-feem

Catalina de Erauso On Playing Gender Roles Essay

In Spain and the Spanish colonies in South America in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, gender roles were distinct and the opportunity gap was enormous. Catalina de Erauso compares the two roles through her memoir, â€Å"Lieutenant Nun,† where she recounts her life as a transvestite in both the new and old world. Through having experienced the structured life of a woman as well as the freedom involved in being a man, de Erauso formed an identity for herself that crossed the boundaries of both genders. Catalina de Erauso’s life demonstrates the gap in freedom and opportunity for women, as compared to men, in the areas of culture, politics and economy, and religion. Even the broadness of traditional Spanish culture could not†¦show more content†¦For men, though, the choice was remained their own. De Erauso demonstrates this when she, in the role of a man, evades multiple proposals in order to remain free and mobile. This shows that while women were tied down in society and expected to have a man settle with them, men had the opportunity to continue to travel freely and independently. The idea is that women were forced by society to be entirely dependent in order to hold an advantageous position in life. Tied in with this theme of masculine freedom exists the matter of fighting. De Erauso displays her ability to duel for her pride on many occasions, and this is something that she would be incapable of doing in the role of a woman. Only men were allowed the outlet of fighting in order to assert dominance, whereas women had no dominance at all. Women were expected to be entirely passive and dependent (Bentley Ziegler, 534). In one case in specific, a woman de Erauso encounters, doà ±a Catalina, even hires an Indian man to attack another woman for her because she did not have the societal freedom to do so herself (Erauso, 36). In the realm of outward violence, women were greatly restricted while men had no limitations other than the law above them. De Erauso explores this freedom in the form of fighting, gambling, and being reckless in general. Had she been presented as a woman in these scenarios, she would have suffered far more

How does administrative law change bureaucratic behaviour Free Essays

The Committee presented a plan for an entirely new system of administrative law that rested upon a fresh vision of the role that external review agencies should play in safeguarding the rights of the public regarding executive decision-making. Three Acts were implemented by the Parliament. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth) (AAT Act) established two bodies – an Administrative Appeals Tribunal to undertake merit review of a general range of Commonwealth decisions, and an Administrative Review Council to perform a research, advisory and coordination function. We will write a custom essay sample on How does administrative law change bureaucratic behaviour or any similar topic only for you Order Now The Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth) established an Ombudsman to investigate complaints of maladministration by Commonwealth government agencies. The Administrative Decisions Oudicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) conferred upon the newly-created Federal Court a reformed Jurisdiction to undertake Judicial review of Commonwealth decision-making. Purpose of Administrative Law Administrative Law concerns the relationship between the government and the public. It refers to a wide range of controls exercisable by the law over the powers nd procedures of government decision-makers and administrators. It constitutes a means of protecting the rights of the public by making the government decision- makers accountable. With the growth of technology, financial institutions and globalization, society is becoming more complex, the role of government has expanded in terms of regulation and intervention. This has led to a growth in the number of bureaucratic decision makers which in turn led to an expansion in controls over administrative actions to counter balance the power of the decision makers. The Kerr and Bland Committees saw that the purpose of Administrative Law was to rotect citizens against government, when government was growing in size and exercising more administrative authority and discretionary power. It pointed to a posed threats to the rights and liberties of citizens . The view from the Kerr and Bland Committees is compatible with that of Professor Cane that the Administrative Law can be used to regulate the way the administrators make decisions so that the power will not be misused. How to measure success of the Administrative Law? There are two views about the measurement of success of Administrative Law: (i) The instrumentalist believes the success lies in its impact on behaviour and outcomes, ence the law should bring behaviour and outcomes into conformity with specified value. (it) The non-instrumentalist believes its success lies in its rules and practices. The law could be counted as a success if it clearly, consistently and coherently expressed specified values. The supporters of regulatory approach to Administrative Law are instrumentalists whereas the supporters of legal approach are non-instrumentalists. What are the regulatory and legal approaches to Administrative Law? A regulatory system has three components (i) a set of standards that announce how eople ought to behave; (it) a mechanism for monitoring compliance with those standards; (iii) a mechanism for promoting future compliance. Administrative Law consists of a set of rules and principles about how decisions ought to be made. Individuals affected by the administrative decisions can utilize various tribunals and ombudsmen to review decisions and in turn provide incentive for the decision makers to comply with Administrative Law in future. The regulatory approach focuses on the future rather than the way decision makers behaved in the past. It aims to prevent potential issues by making the decision akers responsible for it. On the contrary, the legal approach presents administrative law to be used by complainants a means to redress past breaches so that decision makers can be held accountable for such breaches. It looks at the success of administrative law on its ability to provide redress to those adversely affected by unlawful decisions. The regulatory approach focuses accountability based on the institutional design and interaction between different organs of the system such as ombudsmen, parliamentary committee and internal review. The legal approach focuses more on the accountability of the government to the public. In constitutional terms, the regulatory approach addresses it with separation of power whereas the legal approach focuses on the concept of rule of law. Administrative law focuses on the accountability of government. By demanding compliance with administrative law principles, and by valuing review mechanisms for rectifying human error, it impacts upon the decision-making processes in order to ensure that the wrongful exercise of administrative power is curbed. The Australian tax system is an example of how administrative law impacts on bureaucratic behaviour. The tax system, being a self assessment system, encourages ne to voluntarily comply with the tax legislation. Tax compliance officers review the tax returns to identity potential risk to revenue. Where the risks being identified in a review are significant, the tax office will escalate the case to an audit. During an audit, there will be an information request followed by the issuance of a position paper. If the taxpayers realize any errors in their tax returns, they can make voluntary disclosure in order to reduce any shortfall liability and penalty interests. Alternatively they can express their views if there is any contentious issue about the application of law. The taxpayers will be given an opportunity to comment on the position paper before an amended assessment is issued. The taxpayers can object to the amended assessment which is normally handled by the objection team that is independent from the compliance team. If the decision stays, an application can be lodged to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review the decision. The tax office has internal guidelines such as Practice Statement Law Administration for the staff to follow before any administrative decision is made. This ensures the taxpayers would be fairly treated. Before a decision is reached, taxpayers will be iven opportunities to be heard and supply information to support their claim. The process demonstrates how the Administrative Law influences the bureaucratic behaviour. The decision-makers need to supply proper reasoning before issuing an amended assessment. What are the positive and negative changes on bureaucratic behaviour? On the positive side, more senior public servants are required to be legally trained as they are expected to make decisions based on strong legal grounds so that their decisions will be less likely to be challenged in future. The decisions being made would also be based on fairness with properly established facts. However, onerous review systems may cause potentially adverse bureaucratic behaviour. The onerous review system may sometimes lead to ‘No further action’ on many potential tax evasion cases. The following explains the negative bureaucratic behaviour that is undesirable to the society goal. review the taxpayers’ tax return and amend the assessments. The review period could be two or four years depending on the size of the business and the nature of entity. Once the ‘period of review expires, the tax office cannot amend the assessment unless there is fraud or evasion for which intention needs to be established. Knowing this system, some taxpayers may simply delay in supplying information or supplying irrelevant information to make the cases difficult to pursue. By contrast with the private sector for which financial target is the prime objective, the public bureaucrats may not have such incentive to pursue difficult cases that may eventually lead to tribunal review. Further to that, the tax officers need to follow strict guideline when dealing with fraud cases where intention needs to be established. As all elements need to be established before a case can be referred to prosecution, some fraud cases end up being ‘No further action’. This is undesirable to the societal goal as it means people who dodge the system may not be penalized. Can we Judge the success of Administrative Law as a regulatory tool primarily by its effect on bureaucratic behaviour? As mentioned above, the purpose of the Administrative Law is to make government decision-makers accountable. It promotes the fair procedures and compliance by decisions-makers with legal limitations on their powers. The public can use the merit review system to review the administrative decision of the government. The merit review allows the facts and legal aspects of the decision to be considered afresh. Based on the merits, the tribunal can affirm, vary or set aside the original decision. From a regulatory point of view, an independent body has stepped in to review the government decisions and therefore it limits the power of the bureaucrats. Therefore, the bureaucrats must obtain sufficient evidence and provide sound reasons to support their decisions. Furthermore, it encourages government bureaucrats to ensure they act consistently with relevant legal requirements. Based on the above, it appears that one can assert that Administrative Law has achieved its purpose as a regulatory tool that impacts on bureaucratic behaviour. How to cite How does administrative law change bureaucratic behaviour, Essays