In Mandarin Chinese, morpheme can be divided into different classifications in various perspectives. From the view of number of syllables, it can be divided into monosyllabic morpheme and multi-syllabic morpheme. For the purpose of giving a clear idea of it for the students who attend to summer program in China, each classification will be explained in the following parts with typical examples.
The monosyllabic morpheme is the morpheme composed of only one syllable, which is the basic form of the morpheme in Chinese language. It is a syllable when being read while a character when being written such as 人、去、我、民、往、其、很、虽、自、以, etc. The monosyllabic morphemes in Chinese are very powerful because they all have strong ability of word formation.
For the multi-syllabic morpheme, some of them are disyllabic morphemes. When being read, they are just one syllable but two characters when being written but have only one meaning. There are mainly two types of disyllabic morphemes in Chinese language. The first group is the compound words, which will be further divided into two types. The first kind is the words which have the same initial consonants such as 秋千、蜘蛛、流连and犹豫. The other type is the words with the similar simple or compound vowels like 橄榄、徜徉、怂恿and肮脏, to name but a few.
The second condition of the disyllabic morpheme is the loan words of transliteration like 葡萄、菩萨、咖啡and马达. For such kind of words, the students study in online Chinese Lessons may feel easy to learn and understand. In addition, the morphemes with three or more syllables are mostly the loan words or words for places. The frequently used words of such type might be 巧克力、白兰地、尼古丁、木乃伊、歇斯底里and可口可乐.
Usually speaking, the dissyllabic morphemes and multi-syllabic morphemes can form into words independently. And some others can form words after combining with other morphemes. Of course, morpheme can be divided into more classifications except from the perspective of number of syllables. We can also divide from the views of semantics and grammar into morphemes with different values.