A Morphological Study of "Word" and "zi" (character) in English and Chinese from a Contrastive Perspective

This article attempts to reexamine the morphological structure and the formation of word and zi(character) in English and Chinese.It begins with the definition of word in English and zi in Chinese,reconsiders their roles in both languages,and clarifies the confusion caused by the Chinese translation of the term morpheme.It is suggested that word and zi are the basic units in the two languages,and they share similarities in their morphological analysis and formation of words in both languages.Therefore,a contrastive study of their structure and formation are of significance in the teaching and learning of English and Chinese.