Morphemes

Jeff Johnson, Designing with the Mind in Mind, (p.69):

• In alphabetic scripts, patterns of characters form morphemes, which we learn to recognize as packets of meaning—for example, “farm,” “tax,” “-ed,” and “-ing” are morphemes in English.
• Morphemes combine to form patterns that we recognize as words—for example, “farm,” “tax,” “-ed,” and “-ing” can be combined to form the words “farm,” “farmed,” “farming,” “tax,” “taxed,” and “taxing.” Even ideographic scripts include symbols that serve as morphemes or modifiers of meaning rather than as words or concepts.