The Importance of Bound Morphemes in Word Formation and Vocabulary Expansion

bound morpheme

A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word, must occur with another morpheme.(English ex: plural -s in cats or sits)(ASL ex: “3” handshape in THREE WEEKS)

A bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word and always needs to be attached to a root word or another morpheme to form a meaningful word. Bound morphemes are also called affixes and can be either prefixes that are added to the beginning of a word or suffixes that are added to the end of a word.

For example, the prefix “un-” is a bound morpheme that can change the meaning of a word by indicating the opposite, such as “happy” becoming “unhappy.” Similarly, the suffix “-ful” is a bound morpheme that can be added to a root word to indicate “full of” or “having,” such as “joyful” meaning “full of joy.”

Bound morphemes are important in word formation and can greatly expand our vocabulary in a language. They are also useful in understanding the meaning of unfamiliar words and how they relate to other words.

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