Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

Internal Structure of a Word

Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

Morphemes that can stand alone to function as words are called free morphemes. They comprise simple words (i.e. words made up of one free morpheme) and compound words (i.e. words made up of two free morphemes).

Examples:

Simple words: the, run, on, well

Compound words: keyboard, greenhouse, bloodshed, smartphone

Morphemes that can only be attached to another part of a word (cannot stand alone) are called bound morphemes.

Examples:

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

pretest, discontent, intolerable, receive

Complex words are words that are made up of both free morpheme(s) and bound morpheme(s), or two or more bound morphemes.

Roll your mouse over the words below to see how many morphemes are there and whether they are free morphemes or bound morphemes.

againstagainst	imperativeimperative	realize realize	submitsubmit
assignmentassign+ment	FacebookFace+book	uncommonun+common	misinterpretmis+interpret
disqualifieddis+qualify+ed	encountereden+counter+ed	geographygeo+graph+y	irresistibleir+resist+ible