Content morpheme

Acontent morphemeorcontentive morphemeis a root that forms the semantic core of a major class word. Contentmorphemeshave lexical denotations that are not dependent on the context or on other morphemes. For instance, in English, the abstractnounbeauty(already a fused form with an incorporated suffix) may mean 'pleasing quality'. Adding the causative verbal suffix-fy(a functional morpheme) produces the verbbeautify'to make pleasing'. By adding the suffix-ful(anotherfunctional morpheme), theadjectivebeautifulis formed. Further adding the adverbializer-ly(yet another functional morpheme) produces theadverbbeautifully.The various functional morphemes surrounding the semantic core are able to modify the use of the root through derivation, but do not alter the lexical denotation of the root as somehow 'pleasing' or 'satisfying'.

Most or all major class words include at least one content morpheme; compounds may contain two or more content morphemes. In addition to content morphemes, major class words frequently (but not obligatorily) include one or more functional morphemes affixed to the root(s).

Some languages, such asKharia,can be analyzed as having a single major word class composed of semantic bases or content morphemes. Thus, the distinction between nouns, verbs, and adjectives in such languages is entirely morphological (realized through the concatenation of functional morphemes), rather than lexical (having separate entries in the lexicon for each of the major word classes).