Free and Bound Morphemes

Tell apart morphemes that can stand alone from those that must attach to something.

Morphemes come in two kinds. A free morpheme can stand alone as a word: 'help', 'tree', 'cycle'. A bound morpheme cannot stand alone; it must attach to another part. Prefixes like pre- and suffixes like -ful are bound. So are many Greek and Latin roots. Look at 'construct'. The root 'struct' (build) is bound: you never write 'struct' as a sentence word. Compare 'helpful': 'help' is free and '-ful' is bound. Knowing this matters because bound roots are where a lot of meaning hides in academic words. Take 'audible'.

You may not know it, but you can spot the bound root 'aud', which also appears in 'audience' and 'audio'. All three involve hearing, so 'audible' likely means 'able to be heard'. Free morphemes are easy to see; bound ones reward the reader who learns to recognize them.

• 1Free morphemes can stand alone as words.
• 2Bound morphemes (affixes and many roots) must attach to something.
• 3Bound roots often carry the core meaning of academic words.