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Describing language
Describing language

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4.1 More about morphemes

To summarise so far:

  • Some morphemes can stand on their own as words: potato, apple, idea, cat, Tuesday. These are called free morphemes.
  • Other morphemes like un-, -ly, dis-, -ness cannot be used on their own, and must be added to free morphemes. Using these bound morphemes changes the meaning or the grammatical properties of the word they are attached to.

It’s possible to add more than one bound morpheme to a free morpheme. For example, underestimation is made up of the free morpheme estimate plus the prefix (a bound morpheme at the start of a word) under- and the suffix (a bound morpheme at the end of a word) -tion (under + estimate + tion). To give another example, unsystematically is made up of the free morpheme system plus the prefix un- and two suffixes -atic and -ally (un + system + atic + ally). You can also put two free morphemes together to create words like hairbrush (hair + brush) and hangnail (hang + nail).

Activity 5 Finding free and bound morphemes

Timing: This activity should take around 15 minutes

Take a look at the list of words below. Some are free morphemes and can’t be divided any further. Others are made of a bound morpheme added to a free morpheme, either at the start (a prefix) or the end (a suffix).

Decide in which column each word should go. The first one has been done for you.

  • entertainment
  • friendship
  • bottle
  • butter
  • impossible
  • resistance
  • disengage
  • proudly
  • water
  • admirable
  • banana
Free morpheme Prefix + free morpheme Free morpheme + suffix
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entertain + ment
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Free morpheme Prefix + free morpheme Free morpheme + suffix
    entertain + ment
    friend + ship
bottle    
butter    
  im + possible  
    resist + ance
  dis + engage  
    proud + ly
water    
    admir[e] + able
banana    

The ‘-ship’ added to friend has nothing to do with boats, so it is not a free morpheme in this case. It is a very old part of English. Other examples of words including this bound morpheme are fellowship, lordship, hardship and relationship.

If you were tempted to find ‘but’ + ‘er’ in butter, you should ask yourself what connection there is between the yellow stuff you spread on bread and the word ‘but’… Apart from the coincidence in the first three letters, there really isn’t any connection between them!

The bound morpheme ‘-ance’ produces a noun from a verb. You’ll learn more about nouns and verbs over the next three weeks. Other examples where adding a bound morpheme can turn a verb into a noun are compliance and defiance (from comply and defy).