Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

Definition:

Free Morphemes is morphemes that can stand alone to function as words.

Examples:

Simple words: the, run, on, well

Compound words: keyboard, greenhouse, bloodshed, smartphone

There are two main types of free morphemes:

• Lexical morphemes

Lexical morphemes are words such as ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs which carry the ‘content’ of the message we convey.

Examples:

car, red, high, chase, copy, swallow

• Functional morphemes

Functional morphemes are functional words such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns.

Examples:

and, but, when, because, of, the, between.

Bound Morphemes is Morphemes that can only be attached to another part of a word (cannot stand alone).

Examples:

pre-, dis-, in-, un-, -ful, -able, -ment, -ly, -ise

pretest, discontent, intolerable, receive

There are two main types bound morphemes:

• Derivational morphemes

Derivational morphemes are morphemes that change the meaning or word class of a word.

Examples:

Negative: deactiviate, disconnect, inability, impossible, misunderstanding, unclassified

Size /degree: enlarge, underachieving, overestimated

Space /time: prerequisite, postgraduate, reuse

Change to adjective: manageable, faithful, anonymous

Change to noun: enjoyment, eagerness

Change to verb: privatise

Change to adverb: absolutely

• Inflectional morphemes

Inflectional morphemes are morphemes that indicate grammatical changes. All inflectional morphemes are suffixes.

Examples:

Attached to verb: reads, reading, ended, taken

Attached to noun: Peter‘s, dogs

Attached to adjective: taller, tallest