Notes on morphology with special reference to Tswana

Abstract

The aim of this article is to determine and to classify the various types of morphemes found in the word structure of Tswana; and to determine how they are hierarchically structured in word. These issues are investigated by comparing and evaluating the views of a number of linguists who have focused on morphology. Special attention is given to the component called the stem (or base), i.e. that meaningful part of a word which is neither a grammatical morpheme nor a root, and which therefore occupies some sort of in-between status. Reasons are given for acknowledging the notion of stem (word correlate) as an intermediary morphological component. It is concluded that a hierarchical morphological analysis which mirrors word-formation processes cannot be conducted without acknowledging the existence of the stem. The acknowledgement of the stem as a morphological component does not affect the status of the word in any way.