Question

Smallest unit of meaning in a language is
1. syntax
2. morpheme
3. phoneme
4. pragmatics

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 2 : morpheme

Language is a system of communication that is used to express thoughts, ideas and feelings. Language is a vital part of human connection. Humans are the only ones that have mastered cognitive language connection.

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in language providing the foundation of language and can not be divided into smaller parts carrying meaning. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal environments. The study of morphemes is called Morphology.  There are two types of morphemes- Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes.

• Free Morphemes can stand alone with specific meanings. It can be formed independently. For example; happy, get, when, etc. All of them have individual meaning and are free morphemes. 
• Free Morphemes can be categorized into two types: Lexical Morphemes and Grammatical / Functional Morphemes. 
  1. Lexical Morphemes are those that are large in number and independently meaningful. It includes nouns, adjectives and verbs. Example; boy, bad etc.
  2. Grammatical / Functional Morphemes consist of functional words in a language such as prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions. Example; but, on, and, above etc.  
• Bound Morphemes do not have any independent meaning and can be formed with help of free morphemes. Example; un, pre, en, etc. Bound Morphemes can be categorized into two sub-classes: Bound Roots and Affixes.
  1. Bound Roots have lexical meaning when included in other bound morphemes to form the content word. Example;- tain (retain, contain).
  2. Affixes naturally attached different types of words and used them to change the meaning of those words. Example;-ing in reading, writing, sleeping.

​Hence, the smallest unit of meaning in language is morphemes.

• Syntax:  Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.
• Phoneme: Phoneme is the smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word from another, as the element 't' in a cat which separates that word from "can", "cab".
• Pragmatics: Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics, which is the study of language.