PRACTICE

Exercise 1:
Identify the number of morphemes in each of the given words. Complete the table below.
1 play 1 11 keeper
2 replay 2 (re- and play) 12 able
3 date 13 unable
4 antedate 14 mahogany 1
5 hygiene 15 rain
6 weak 16 rainy
7 weaken 17 cheap
8 man 18 cheaply 2 (cheap and -ly)
9 manly 19 cheaper
10 keep 20 honest

Exercise 2:
Identify the bound morpheme(s) in each of the given words. Complete the table given
below.
1 speaker -er 6 delivery
2 kingdom 7 intervene inter-, -vene
3 phonemic 8 revise
4 idolize 9 dreamed
5 selective 10 undone

Exercise 3:
Underline the base in each of the given words. Complete the table given below.
1 womanly 6 lighten 11 unlikely
2 endear 7 enlighten 12 pre-war

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3 failure 8 friendship 13 subway
4 famous 9 befriend 14 falsify
5 infamous 10 Bostonian 15 unenlivened

Exercise 4:
List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free (F) or
bound (B).
1. creating 6. unhealthy
2. seaward 7. waiter
3. wastage 8. reconsider
4. poetic 9. keys
5. modernize 10. Incompletion
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Exercise 5:
Identify the meaning of the affix in each of the given words. Complete the table below.

1 antedate The prefix ante- means ‘before’.

Exercise 6:
Identify the meaning of the bound basein the given sets of words. Complete the table
given below.
1 audience, audible, audition and auditorium The bound base audi- means ‘hear’.
2 suicide, patricide, matricide and infanticide The bound base -cide means ‘killing’.
3 oral, orate, oration, oracle, and oratory
4 aquaplane, aquarium, aquatic, and
aquaduct
5 mortuary, moribund, mortal, and immortal
6 corporation, corporeal, corps, and corpse
7 tenable, tenant, tenure, and tenacious
8 pendulum, suspender, pendant, and
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9 manuscript, manacle, manual, and manicure
10 eject, inject, reject, and projectile

Exercise 7:
Identify the meaning of the bound base in each of the given words, and then give as many
words with the same bound base as you can. Complete the table below.
1 revise -vise = devise, visible, visionary, (tele)vision, visibility, (audio-
‘see’ )visual, supervise, etc.
2 contradict -dict = dictate, dictator, dictation, diction, dictum, contradiction, etc.
‘say’
3 regress
4 intervene
5 recur
6 inspect
7 oppose
8 rodent
9 portable
10 rupture
11 annual
12 bigamy

Exercise 8:
Comment on the following definition of words: ‘A word is a group of morphemes that
have meaning’.
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Exercise 9:
Are bound morphemes and affixes similar to each other?
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Exercise 10:
If roots are usually free, do we really need both the terms “root” and “free morpheme”?
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Exercise 11:
A word can contain no more than one root. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Explain your answer with specific examples.
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Exercise 12:
How do you distinguish inflectional morphemes from derivational morphemes?
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Exercise 13:
Derivational morphemes are both similar to and different from lexical morphemes. To
what extend do you agree with this statement? Use specific examples in your answer.
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Exercise 14:
toys fatherly
tidier hostilities
misperceive unbelievable
A. For each word listed above, identify its lexical category (noun, adjective, verb, etc.).
B. List all the morphemes (each word here contains more than one) and indicate whether
they are free or bound.
C. For each affix, indicate whether it is derivational or inflectional.
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Exercise 15:
What type of morphemes has allomorphs? Give specific examples to support your answer.
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Exercise 16:
What is the relationship between morphs, allomorphs and morphemes?
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Exercise 17:
How do you distinguish morphemes from phonemes, syllables and words?
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Exercise 18:
What are the functional morphemes in the following sentences?
When he arrived, the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic bag full of
books.
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Exercise 19:
(a) List the bound morphemes in the following words: fearlessly, misleads, previewer,
shortened, unhappier
(b) In which of the following examples should the ‘a’ be treated as a bound morpheme?
a boy, apple, atypical, AWOL
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Exercise 20:
What are the inflectional morphemes in these expressions?
It’s raining; the cow jumped over the moon; the newest style; the singer’s new
songs
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Exercise 21:
Analyze the following words into their constituent morphemes, giving a meaning to each
morpheme.
e.g.:

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* preordained: pre- before; ordain, ed- past tense/past participle
* incapacitate: in- not; capacity(y), - ate change noun to verb
1. undecided 5. reintroduction 9. wallflowers
2. devolution 6. makes 10. disestablished
3. fatality 7. uninteresting
4. impenetrability 8. revengeful
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Exercise 22:
Which of the following items is an English word? Support your answer.
(1) ationizealnationde (ation-ize-al-nation-de)
(2) alizedeationnation (al-ize-de-ation-nation)
(3) denationalization (de-nation-al-ize-ation)
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Exercise 23:
What are the allomorphs of the morpheme ‘plural’ in this set of English words?
criteria; dogs; oxen; deer; judges; stimuli

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Exercise 24:
Provide equivalent forms, in the languages listed, for the English translations shown on
the right below.
Ganda omuloŋgo (‘twins’) - (‘twins’) _________
Ilocano tawtáwa (‘windows’) - (‘windows’) _________
Kanuri nǝmkǝǰi (‘sweetness’) - (‘sweet’) _________
Tagalog bili (‘buy’) - (‘will buy’) _________
Tagalog kain (‘eat’) - (‘Eat!’) _________

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Exercise 25:
What is reduplication?
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Exercise 26:
Give the morphemic structure of the following words, indicating whether the affixes are
derivational (D) or inflectional (I).
e.g.:
imposition: impos(e) –ition (D) –s (I)
retainable: re– (D) attain –able (D)
1. predetermined 5. confidential 9. hopefully
2. reinterpreting 6. loganberries 10. ironmongery
3. irresistible 7. unverbalized
4. inflammations 8. deafened
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Exercise 27:
For the following English nouns, indicate in each case what the allomorph of the plural
morpheme is.
e.g.:
boat – boats: suffix /-s/
goose – geese: vowel change /u/ to /i/
1. apple apples 7. child children
2. apricot apricots 8. tooth teeth
3. peach peaches 9. ox oxen
4. sheep sheep 10. calf calves
5. foot feet 11. bath baths
6. man men
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Exercise 28:
For each of the following English verbs, indicate what the allomorph of the ‘past tense’
morpheme is, and what the allomorph of the ‘past participle’ morpheme is.
1. save saved saved
2. miss missed missed
3. end ended ended
4. hit hit hit
5. fling flung flung
6. find found found
7. tear tore torn
8. sink sank sunk
9. run ran run
10. send sent sent
11. catch caught caught
12. tell told told
13. leave left left
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14. show showed shown
15. do did done
16. go went gone
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Exercise 29:
Explain why ‘a’ and ‘an’ are two allomorphs of the same morpheme.
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Exercise 30:
Identify the allomorphs of the inflectional verb past simple morpheme {-D1}in the verb
‘be’. How are they conditioned?
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