Bound or Free? Free morphemes are able to constitute a word of their own.  When combined with bound morphemes the free morphemes are called ‘stems'. In some words identified stems cannot stand alone and are called ‘bound stems' (receive, deceive, perceive). Bound morphemes must be attached to either a free morpheme or another bound morpheme. Prefixes (re-, un-, dis-, pre-) and suffixes (-ness, … [Read more...]

Open and Closed Word Classes How do I know if a word is open or closed class? To answer that question, consider this analogy.  A construction crew is building a high-rise. They create the foundation, establish a steel framework, and then make sure electricity and water is available. Those elements are all closed class. The construction crew then creates floors and walls, as well as the rest of … [Read more...]

Identifying Root Morphemes Counting morphemes can be a challenging task, but can be made manageable by applying what you already know about morphology. When looking at a word, first try to identify a root morpheme. Think about the word ‘intergenerational’, and parse off the affixes until only the root remains. ‘Inter-‘ can be removed, as can ‘-al’, leaving just ‘generation’. Frequently, several … [Read more...]