This video is on BSL linguistics, the topic is Morphemes.
BSL morphemes not English morphemes.
What are morphemes?
The smallest unit within a word or sign that if it stands alone still has a meaning.
I think an example is best.
Take the sign "happy." How many morphemes do you think it has?
Can you split the sign apart?
No you can't
So it means it has just one morpheme, one unit of meaning.That's it.
So what about the sign for "true', morphemes how many?
Again just one.
You can't split it apart without loosing the meaning.
Those signs belong to a group that  contain monomorphemic morphemes, meaning they only have one morpheme in the sign that has meaning.
What about the sign "promise?"
How many morphemes do you think it has?
You can split the sign apart
Say, true, put them together meaning promise.
If you notice the first sign with promise is quick, "say". That hand is ready.
Another example is the sign for "blood."
It's made up of the sign red, flow. Put together it's the sign for blood.
Another example is the sign "believe."
Think, truth, put together it's the sign believe.
But the sign for believe is a bit different because the sign for think comes out, unlike believe that comes straight down.
That group is known as polymorphemic morphemes, meaning it has more than one morpheme.
Sometimes a sign can have 3 or more morphemes.
An example is, "I tease you."
That has 3 morphemes, I, tease, you.
Or you can change to, you, tease, me.
It depends because it's an agreement verb, tease you, tease me.
It's just one sign but has 3 morphemes.
Now we need to think about something called bound and free morphemes. It's not too difficult.
Free morphemes mean they can stand alone and still have meaning.
Remember true, that's a free morpheme.
Promise, say, true, that's two free morphemes. There are many others.
It means they can stand alone.
Bound morphemes can't stand alone because the meaning is lost.
So they need another bound morpheme or another free morpheme to have meaning.
So an example, "walk casually."
Free morpheme is walk and the bound morpheme is the N/M/F i.e the cheeks puffed out.
This is a morpheme but only the meaning is gone. So it needs another morpheme.
Another example is signing age. The little boy is 3 yrs old.
That's more than one morpheme.
From the nose, location, the handshape 3 and the movement coming away from the nose.
There are two bound morphemes and one free, which is the number three which still has meaning if signed alone.
It's the same with money that comes from the chin, example £3.
Now you've learned two groups, monomorphemic and polymorphemic, which means more than one. That [monomorphemic] means just one morpheme.
Now polymorphemic has 3 sub groups.
The first is compound, sorry lots of finger spelling.It means the sign has two or more free morphemes.
Remember the signs promise, believe, blood. There compound morphemes.
The second is combination morphemes.
It means they have more than one morpheme but one is free and one is bound. the number of bound morphemes and combined morphemes can vary.
Walk casually, that's a combination.
The third is signs with just bound morphemes, more than one.It's normally plurals but it depends.
An example is children
The English language can have bound morphemes, for example the word goose.
Goose means just one.
But if you change the vowels to the word geese you know it's more than one.
That word in English has two morphemes.
But if you want to be more specific you need to add quantifiers.
For example, few, many or numbers. They are quantifiers.
Okay so that's it, I think maybe watch the video again, perhaps take notes. It's not that difficult really.
Anyway, thank you for watching and I'll see you soon.
