双语丨 词素=语素（Morphemes）
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in the grammatical system of a language.
In a simpler way, we can define a morpheme as a minimal meaningful grammatical unit.
词素是语言语法系统中最小的有意义的单位。
简单地说，我们可以把词素定义为最小的有意义的语法单位。
The three key words in the definition are worthy of our note: minimal, meaningful and grammatical.
定义中的三个关键词值得我们注意:最小、有意义和语法的。
By minimal, we mean “the smallest", i. e. a form larger than one meaningful unit can"t be regarded as a morpheme.
所谓最小，我们指的是“最小的”，即大于一个意义单位的形式不能被称为词素。
For example, the word blackboard is obviously made up of two meaningful parts:black and board.
例如，单词blackboard（黑板）显然是由两个有意义的部分组成:black（黑色）和board（板）。
Therefore, it consists of two morphemes:black and board, although traditionally,people thought of words like this as the smallest meaningful units simply because words are always separated from each other in the written language.
因此，它由两个词素组成:black and board，尽管传统上人们认为这样的单词是最小的有意义的单位，因为在书面语言中单词总是彼此分开的。
It"s the same case with disagree, which can be further divided into two parts: dis and agree, therefore, it is said to contain two morphemes.
这和disagree是一样的情况，disagree可以进一步分为两个部分:dis和agree，因此，它包含了两个词素。
By meaningful, we mean that a morpheme cannot be further divided without destroying its meaning.
所谓意义，我们是指一个词素 不能 在不能破坏其意义的情况下 进一步划分。
For example, captain is a single morpheme even though it appears to contain two parts: cap and tain.
例如，captain是一个单一的词素，尽管它看起来包含两个部分:cap和tain。
The reason is that the meaning of the cap has no relation with the meaning of the word captain and moreover, tain is not a meaningful unit here
他的理由是cap（帽子）的意思和captain（队长）的意思没有关系，而且，tain在这里不是一个有意义的单位。.
It"s the same case with manage, which seems to be composed of two meaningful parts: man and age.
manage（管理）也是一样，它似乎由两个有意义的部分组成:man（男人）和age（年龄）。
But the meanings of man and age have no bearing on the meaning of the word manage.
但是，man“人”和age“年龄”的意义与manage“管理”这个词的意义没有关系。
The reason why we say that a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammatical system rather than in the lexical system of a language is that if morphemes were defined to be the basic units in the lexical system,the linguistic forms like a ,the, and to could not be taken into consideration at the morphemic level.
为什么我们说 一个词素是在语法系统中最小的有意义的单位 而不是一种语言的词汇系统,原因是 如果词素被定义为是在词汇系统中的基本单位,语言形式像like,a,to,就不能考虑在词素层面上。
For example, the underlined words in the sentence I told theperson to come here for a visit have no lexical meaning.
例如，在句子I told the person to come here For a visit中，下划线的单词没有词汇意义。
However, they cannot be omitted if we want to produce a well-formed sentence.
然而，如果我们想要形成一个结构良好符合语法规则的句子，就不能省略它们。
Thus, they have definite grammatical functions or grammatical meanings.
因此，它们具有一定的语法功能或语法意义。
Some other morphemes are not lexical items at all.
其他一些词素根本就不是词汇。
For instance, in the words books, faster, John"s and worked, the forms -s ,-er, -"s and -ed are all regarded as morphemes, because they have grammatical meanings (although they have no lexical meaning).
例如，在单词books, faster, John"s和worked中，形式-s， -er，-"s和-ed都被认为是词素，因为它们有语法意义(尽管它们没有词汇意义)。
Let" s clarify the definition with some more examples.
让我们用更多的例子来阐明这个定义。
Consider the word international.
考虑一下international（国际的）这个词。
When we are using this word,we think of it as creating a single meaning, but if we want to, we can divide it into three clear morphemes,that is, three smallest meaningful grammatical units.
当我们使用这个词的时候，我们认为它创造了一个单一的意义，但是如果我们想，我们可以把它分成三个清晰的词素，也就是说，三个最小的有意义的语法单位。
Inter- means "between";
nation is a complete word by itself,but here it is serving as the root of a larger word;
-al serves a grammatical function and turns a word such as "nation" from a noun into an adjective.
Inter- 意味着between;
Nation本身是一个完整的词，但在这里它是一个更大的词的词根;
-al起语法作用，并把nation这样的词从名词变成形容词。
The word tourists contains three morphemes: tour, -ist (meaning “a person who does something"), and -s (indicating plural).
单词tourists（旅游者）包含三个词素:tour， -ist(意思是“做某事的人”)和-s(表示复数)。