It is possible to seek a single factor of meaning common to all the occurrences of a morpheme, so that the range of meaning can be stated in terms of a meaning element which always occurs with the morpheme, plus added variations in various environments. However, this will not necessarily yield a more convenient or compact set of statements in every case. It may be more useful for descriptive linguistics to treat the range of meaning of a morpheme as consisting of several environmentally-restreicted meanings, the environmental ranges to which each meaning is restricted being selected in the manner of chapter 15 [morpheme classes].
- Harris (1951), a pag.191