Learn about the different types of Spanish morphemes: grammatical and lexical
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola a todos, ¿cómo están? |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. “Spanish Morphemes: Break It Down for Me, Buddy!” In this lesson, you will learn about Morphemes. |
| Dylan: Are you ready? |
| Carlos: Are you kidding? I could barely pronounce that. |
| Dylan: Well, don’t worry. |
| Carlos: Well, are we still with Michelle and Manuel? |
| Dylan: Well, we are still with Michelle and now she is at the gym with an instructor. |
| Carlos: So are they speaking formally or informally? |
| Dylan: Well, yeah he is making a sales pitch and you know they want to be informal. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| INSTRUCTOR: ¡Hola, amiga, bienvenida al Gimnasio Muscle Masters! |
| MICHELLE: Ehhh… Hola… venía por información. |
| INSTRUCTOR: Pesas, cardio, yoga, pilates, natación... ¡lo que quieras! |
| MICHELLE: Yo quería saber el horario y precio. |
| INSTRUCTOR : Todos los días, de las cinco de la mañana a las nueve de la noche por la mínima suma de cuatrocientos dólares al mes. |
| MICHELLE: ¿¡Qué!? ¿Estás bromeando? |
| INSTRUCTOR: Amiga, la salud no tiene precio. |
| And now, slowly. |
| Una vez más, esta vez lentamente. |
| INSTRUCTOR: ¡Hola, amiga, bienvenida al Gimnasio Muscle Masters! |
| MICHELLE: Ehhh… Hola… venía por información. |
| INSTRUCTOR: Pesas, cardio, yoga, pilates, natación... ¡lo que quieras! |
| MICHELLE: Yo quería saber el horario y precio. |
| INSTRUCTOR : Todos los días, de las cinco de la mañana a las nueve de la noche por la mínima suma de cuatrocientos dólares al mes. |
| MICHELLE: ¿¡Qué!? ¿Estás bromeando? |
| INSTRUCTOR: Amiga, la salud no tiene precio. |
| And now, with the translation. |
| Ahora, incluimos la traducción. |
| INSTRUCTOR: ¡Hola, amiga, bienvenida al Gimnasio Muscle Masters! |
| INSTRUCTOR: Hey buddy, welcome to the Muscle Masters Gym! |
| MICHELLE: Ehhh… Hola… venía por información. |
| MICHELLE: Eh…hi...I was coming in for some information. |
| INSTRUCTOR: Pesas, cardio, yoga, pilates, natación... ¡lo que quieras! |
| INSTRUCTOR: Weights, cardio, yoga, Pilates, swimming...you name it! |
| MICHELLE: Yo quería saber el horario y precio. |
| MICHELE: I wanted to know the hours and prices. |
| INSTRUCTOR : Todos los días, de las cinco de la mañana a las nueve de la noche por la mínima suma de cuatrocientos dólares al mes. |
| INSTRUCTOR: Everyday from five o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night for the minimum amount of four hundred dollars per month. |
| MICHELLE: ¿¡Qué!? ¿Estás bromeando? |
| MICHELLE: Whaaaat? Are you joking? |
| INSTRUCTOR: Amiga, la salud no tiene precio. |
| INSTRUCTOR: Buddy, health is priceless. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Dylan, $400 a month, can you believe that? |
| Dylan: That’s too much, especially in Costa Rica like people don’t make that in a month. |
| Carlos: But I don’t know if they are in Costa Rica, but if they are, yeah that’s rent. That’s rent in a nice place. |
| Dylan: You know, it has to be Costa Rica because “hartar” which was in the last conversation is very common in Costa Rica. |
| Carlos: Oh well, thank you for pointing that out. |
| Dylan: All right. |
| Carlos: But you know, I won’t pay more than a 50 bucks a month for a health club. |
| Dylan: Yeah. |
| Carlos: Why should I pay 50 bucks for something that I am not going to? |
| Dylan: Exactly. |
| Carlos: That money out of my pocket. Okay, let’s look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Pesa”. |
| Carlos: “Weight.” |
| Dylan: “Pe-sa”, “pesa”. |
| Dylan: “Natación”. |
| Carlos: “Swimming.” |
| Dylan: “Na-ta-ción”, “natación”. |
| Dylan: “Lo que quieras”. |
| Carlos: “Whatever you want.” |
| Dylan: “Lo que quie-ras”, “lo que quieras”. |
| Dylan: “Horario”. |
| Carlos: “Hours”, “schedule.” |
| Dylan: “Ho-ra-rio”, “horario”. |
| Dylan: “Bromear”. |
| Carlos: “To kid”, “to joke.” |
| Dylan: “Bro-me-ar”, “bromear”. |
| Dylan: “Salud”. |
| Carlos: “Health”, “cheers.” |
| Dylan: “Sa-lud”, “salud”. |
| Carlos: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Dylan: The first word we will look at is “pesa”. |
| Carlos: “Pesa”, “weight.” For all of you out there that want to be a muscle man, grr…ah….what? |
| Dylan: I just thought about when you were helping us move and you were helping lift a refrigerator ah….. |
| Carlos: What? I was lifting a lot of weight. |
| Dylan: Yeah, but it just reminded me of that YouTube video where that guy says, “yeah I grunt when I get my swell on at the gym. So everyone can see how Jacked &Tan I am.” |
| Carlos: Well, whatever, it increased my strength and I still lifted refrigerator. |
| Dylan: Yeah, well I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. How is the feminine noun “pesa” used in the conversation? |
| Carlos: Well, when the instructor tells Michelle – well actually he is describing what they have in the gym. He says “Pesas, cardio, yoga, pilates”. |
| Dylan: “Pilates”. |
| Carlos: “Natación…”, “weights”, “cardio”, “yoga”, “Pilates”, “swimming.” |
| Dylan: He is making a sales pitch. |
| Carlos: Exactly. |
| Dylan: Now there is another way to use “pesa”. |
| Carlos: How so? |
| Dylan: Well, someone can ask you “¿cuanto pesa?”. “How much do you weigh?” |
| Carlos: Once again one of those questions I have no problem answering but I will never ever ask or imply I know the answer for women. |
| Dylan: So do you mean, you’ve never been lowered by a woman asking “come on, guess how much do you think I weigh.” |
| Carlos: I am a little more smart than that. That’s like them asking, “come on, guess how old I am.” I refuse to touch either of those subjects. So I pretty much take the Fifth Amendment. |
| Dylan: Do you know the adjective that relates to “pesa”? |
| Carlos: No, what is it? |
| Dylan: “Pesado”. Like the refrigerator that you are lifting was “pesado”. |
| Carlos: Ah, “heavy” and that’s why I grunted. |
| Dylan: You are going to make me laugh too much. So I have to move on to the next word, Carlos. |
| Carlos: Sure what is it grr |
| Dylan: It’s another feminine noun, “natación”. |
| Carlos: “Natación”. Now what I reminded of the news. |
| Dylan: Not the newspaper “La Nación”, “natación”. |
| Carlos: Ah well, they sound very similar to someone learning Spanish. So what does the feminine noun “natación” mean? |
| Dylan: “Swimming.” |
| Carlos: Isn’t that the verb “nadar”? |
| Dylan: Yes, the verb “nadar” means “to swim” but here we have it being used as a noun, an exercise. It’s a thing being described. Remember, it’s used in the sales pitch list. |
| Carlos: Right. “Pesas, cardio, yoga, pilates, natación…”. “Weights, Cardio, Yoga, Pilates, Swimming.” And that gym sounds pretty fully loaded. |
| Dylan: It should be for the price they are asking. |
| Carlos: Price they are asking. That should work out for me. |
| Dylan: That’s like more expensive than LA. |
| Carlos: Seriously. |
| Dylan: For the entire family. |
| Carlos: For the entire family. |
| Dylan: Yeah. |
| Carlos: But you know, they have a – its good they have a pool because “la natación es un ejercicio muy completo”. |
| Dylan: “Swimming is a complete exercise.” |
| Carlos: And some related words? |
| Dylan: Well, you already brought up the verb “nadar” but another related word especially at a gym would be the noun... |
| Carlos: “Piscina”, “pool.” |
| Dylan: All right. Well, next up we have a very enthusiastic and laidback phrase. |
| Carlos: Enthusiastic and laidback. It’s kind of interesting, which? |
| Dylan: “Lo que quieras”, “Whatever you want.” |
| Carlos: Ah okay, because in the conversation, it follows a sales pitch when he says “¡lo que quieras!” but it’s translated as you name it. |
| Dylan: Well, we could easily change it to “whatever you want”, but if you think about it, saying you name it is the same thing. |
| Carlos: Right, you name it, we got it. Whatever you want. |
| Dylan: Exactly. Can you think of the last time you said “¡lo que quieras!”? |
| Carlos: Oh yeah, when I was asked where I wanted to go out and eat. I really didn’t care at that point. So I said “¡lo que quieras!”, “whatever you want.” |
| Dylan: Another related phrase is “pide lo que quieras”, “ask for whatever you want.” |
| Carlos: Or “¿cuánto quieres?”, “how much do you want?” Pretty much, pretty much audience, just think of what you want. |
| Dylan: Well, I want our next word. |
| Carlos: Well, you have the master list, go right ahead. |
| Dylan: A noun, “horario”. |
| Carlos: “Horario”. Now I know this one. “Hours” or “schedule.” |
| Dylan: Yep. Michelle wants to know “el horario y precio”. |
| Carlos: “The schedule” or “hours” and “price” and this is where the instructor says “Todos los días, de las cinco de la mañana a las nueve de la noche”. “Every day from 5 o’clock in the morning to 9 o’clock at night.” |
| Dylan: Yeah. So here “horario” is being used to describe hours of operation. |
| Carlos: Like “El horario de la biblioteca es de 7 a 6”. “The hours of the library are from 7 to 6” or it can be used to describe my schedule for the day. |
| Dylan: “Mi horario para mañana está libre”. |
| Carlos: “My schedule for tomorrow is free.” And you know, that’s the hard thing about going to the gym. I know my work schedule gets in the way. |
| Dylan: Cry me a river, Carlos. Try having to run around after two kids. |
| Carlos: You know what Dylan, you are right. That is the gym on its own. |
| Dylan: En mi horario is 24/7. So beat that. |
| Carlos: Hopefully I won’t for a couple more years. |
| Dylan: Yeah. What other word related to time do you notice in “horario”? |
| Carlos: “Hora”, “hour.” |
| Dylan: So looking at that, it can be easy to link “hora”, “hour”, with “horario”, “schedule”, “hours.” |
| Carlos: And what’s next? |
| Dylan: A verb. |
| Carlos: Finally. |
| Dylan: Yep, “bromear”, “to joke.” |
| Carlos: All right and I think the instructor must be joking when he quote this price. “Por la mínima suma de cuatrocientos dólares al mes”. “For the minimum amount of $400 a month.” |
| Dylan: Which is why she answers “¿Estás bromeando?” |
| Carlos: “Are you joking?” They must be. |
| Dylan: I don’t know, Carlos. Health clubs can be expensive. |
| Carlos: But $400 a month. That’s just robbery. |
| Dylan: Yeah, plus he is charging $100. |
| Carlos: True. |
| Dylan: It gets more expensive every month. |
| Carlos: Yeah. |
| Dylan: Well, the verb “bromear” is an appropriate verb to use in response then. |
| Carlos: True. Do you know how I learned that verb? |
| Dylan: How? |
| Carlos: Well, I had a sarcastic sense of humor. |
| Dylan: I know and it’s gotten you in a lot of trouble down here. Hasn’t it? |
| Carlos: Not more than a little bit. |
| Dylan: And let me guess, you had to learn a phrase using “bromear”. |
| Carlos: You read my mind, Dylan. Do you know what it was? |
| Dylan: Yes, I do, but why don’t you tell us? |
| Carlos: “Es broma”, which means “I am joking” and man I had to learn that fast. |
| Dylan: Or just don’t say anything in a sarcastic tone of yours, Carlos. |
| Carlos: That would work too. |
| Dylan: We could also easily associate the noun “broma” or “joke.” |
| Carlos: Yeah, that is obvious but you know there is another word for “joke” that I can’t really remember at the moment. |
| Dylan: And what’s that? |
| Carlos: I just said I can’t remember. |
| Dylan: Are you talking about “chiste”? |
| Carlos: Yes, yes, “chiste”, a synonym for “broma” which also means “joke.” |
| Dylan: ¡Perfecto! Last but not least, Carlos, we have a very important masculine noun. |
| Carlos: Important in learning Spanish? |
| Dylan: Well, that and also in life. |
| Carlos: Interesting. What is it? |
| Dylan: “Salud”. |
| Carlos: “Salud”. Do you mean like “cheers”? |
| Dylan: No, no, no in this sense “health.” |
| Carlos: Ah, okay. |
| Dylan: Now there is one thing that the instructor says that makes complete sense. |
| Carlos: And what’s that? |
| Dylan: “La salud no tiene precio”. |
| Carlos: “Health is priceless.” You know I agree with that but I still don’t know about $400 a month. |
| Dylan: Yeah, that’s a lot more than some people’s rent. |
| Carlos: Yeah, like we said especially here in like Central America, matter of fact in New York probably. |
| Dylan: Yeah, pero Carlos, la salud es muy importante. |
| Carlos: Now I know how this is important, Dylan, but go outside and take a walk or run or do some pushups in your apartment. At least that’s free. |
| Dylan: Tú estás muy saludable, ¿no? |
| Carlos: Yeah, I like to think of myself as very healthy. I mean thanks to the related adjective. “Saludable”. |
| Dylan: hang in there. Today we are doing something technical. |
| Carlos: Hu hu hu I never like it when you start like that. |
| Dylan: Today we are talking about morphemes classification. |
| Carlos: Morpho... what? |
| Dylan: Morphemes. |
| Carlos: What’s a morpheme? |
| Dylan: A morpheme is a minimal unit of grammatical analysis. It’s the smallest unit you can reach. |
| Carlos: Like the atom. |
| Dylan: Yes, like the atom, escucha. If for example, you start with a sentence, focus in on a word and then start singling out parts of the word. |
| Carlos: Whoa! Parts, parts, like what? |
| Dylan: Like its base and any words added to the beginning or to the end of it. |
| Carlos: Ah, okay. |
| Dylan: Well, there are many kinds of morphemes and not everyone can agree on how to break this group up. |
| Carlos: Oh well, of course, you know, it just will make things a little smoother. |
| Dylan: Well, try like this. There are lexical morphemes and there are grammatical morphemes. |
| Carlos: The difference? |
| Dylan: A lexical morpheme is what holds the fundamental semantic content of the word, its principal meaning. |
| Carlos: Right, and grammatical morphemes? |
| Dylan: Grammatical morpheme, these are either inflected or derivative. |
| Carlos: Okay, I am still with you. |
| Dylan: Let’s start with Lexical morpheme. Here we are referring to the part of the word which contains its semantic meaning. |
| Carlos: For example. |
| Dylan: In the words “amante”, “lover”, and “amado”, “beloved”, the lexical morpheme “am” conveys the meaning of love. |
| Carlos: Now okay, that seems pretty easy but…. |
| Dylan: Grammatical morphemes are a little more involved. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: Grammatical morphemes inflected in nouns, adjectives, determiners and some pronouns, the inflected morpheme may be of gender and number. In the word “niño” what is the lexical morpheme? |
| Carlos: The lexical morpheme if I remember correctly you had in your explanation will be “niñ-” |
| Dylan: So “niñ-” |
| Carlos: “Niñ-”, “nin” with the... |
| Dylan: “Eñe”. |
| Carlos: Will be “n-i-ñ”, “niñ-” |
| Dylan: So that would mean the inflected morpheme is “o”, gender masculine, number singular. In the word “niña” the lexical morpheme is “niñ-” and the inflected morpheme is “a”, gender feminine, number singular. What about “niños”? |
| Carlos: Well, in the word “niños” once again lexical morpheme is “niñ-”, “n-i-ñ”, and the inflected morpheme is “os”, “niños”, gender masculine, number plural, and the word “niñas” before you ask, the lexical morpheme is also “niñ-”, “n-i-ñ” and the inflected morpheme is “as”, “niñas”, gender feminine, number plural. |
| Dylan: In verbs, the inflected morpheme may be of person, number, tense, mood and aspect. |
| Carlos: Okay, I am still with you. |
| Dylan: And well in “hablábamos” the lexical morpheme is “habl-”, “h-a-b-l-”, “habl-”, and the inflected morphemes are “-á-” which indicates that it belongs to the first conjugation, “ba” which tells us the aspect, which is past tense, and the mood indicative and then “os” which shows us that it’s conjugated to the first person plural. |
| Carlos: Right, in “hablábamos” got it. Dylan, this is all in the grammar bank, right? |
| Dylan: Yep, stick with me though. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: Derivatives. |
| Carlos: Derivatives. |
| Dylan: These are the affixes. They are added to the base or root of a word in order to form new words. |
| Carlos: Oh okay, so here we are talking about prefixes, suffixes and infixes. |
| Dylan: Take the word “refundación”, “re-funda-ción”, “re” it’s a prefix and “ción” is a suffix. |
| Carlos: I think I get it. Like “mujercita”, “mujer-c-ita”, “c” is a infix and “ita” is a suffix. |
| Dylan: Exactly. Notice how in each of the follow words, there is a common lexical morpheme of “cant” and a number of different grammatical morphemes, “cantar”, “to sing”, “encantar”, “to enchant”, “cantante”, “singer”, “encantador”, “enchanting.” |
| Carlos: Man, grammar really is a related system. |
| Dylan: You have no idea. Notice the same with the following words where the common lexical morpheme is “pod” and a number of different grammatical morphemes “poder”, “to be able”, “empoderar”, “to empower”, “poderoso”, “powerful.” |
| Carlos: See so studying these is almost like a shortcut. |
| Dylan: That’s a good summation. Finally in the following words, the common lexical morpheme is “am” and there are a number of different grammatical morphemes. “Amigo, amiga”, “friend”, “amistad”, “friendship”, “amar”, “to love”, “amor”, “love”, “amante”, “lover”, “amado”, “beloved”, “amable”, “kind.” |
| Carlos: Oh and we saw the word “amiga” used in our conversation today. |
| Dylan: Yes, we established that its Lexical morpheme is “am-”. |
| Carlos: And its inflected is “a”. Man, this grammar point has a scary name but it really isn’t that bad at all. |
| Dylan: By studying the Spanish language on this micro level, you learn how to break words down to their smallest possible units and by learning how words get broken down, you will also learn how to construct them. |
| Carlos: Well, that makes sense. |
| Dylan: This means that by learning to recognize the different morphemes in any Spanish word, you will be able to identify key information that gets transmitted to the word and therefore you will understand its meaning just by using the tools you have acquired. |
| Carlos: So learning by knowing commonality is not just memorizing individual words. |
| Dylan: You got it. |
| Carlos: So is there a next step? |
| Dylan: Well, the next step in the study of word structure is to look at the affixes. These include prefix, infixes and suffixes all of which are considered grammatical morphemes as we’ve seen today. Believe it or not, we’ve been looking at these in almost all of our lessons. |
| Carlos: After hearing this lesson, I believe it. |
| Dylan: Every time we study verb endings or how to show gender and number for nouns, we are really studying word structure though without going in as much detail as we have today. |
Outro |
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| Carlos: But that doesn’t mean that today isn’t any more necessary. Well, you know what guys, that just about does it for today. |
| Dylan: ¡Nos vemos! |
| Carlos: ¡Chao! |
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