Question

What is a morpheme?

• A. A group of words that form a complete thought
• B. The smallest meaningful unit in a language
• C. A sound that can change the meaning of a word
• D. A grammatical structure that dictates sentence formation

Answer 1

Answer:

B. The smallest meaningful unit in a language

• A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that carries meaning. It cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

  There are two main types:

  • Free morphemes: Can stand alone as words (e.g., book, run, happy).

  • Bound morphemes: Must be attached to another morpheme (e.g., prefixes like un- or suffixes like -ing, -ed).