Morphology Basics
The smallest unit of meaning in a language — it can be a root like cat or an ending like ‑s.
What is a morpheme?
A prefix meaning again that turns do into redo.
What is re‑?
When you figure out what a word means by using clues around it in the sentence.
What are context clues?
The form of an adjective that doesn’t compare, like big.
What is positive degree?
If you remove un‑ from unhappy, this is the base word left.
What is happy?
This is a morpheme that must be attached to another word, like ‑ed in walked.
What is a bound morpheme?
This suffix often turns adjectives into adverbs: quick → quickly.
What is ‑ly?
A strategy where you guess the meaning of a word based on your own experience plus clues in the text.
What is making an inference?
The form that compares two things, like bigger.
What is comparative degree?
Un‑ in unfair changes the word by adding this.
What is a prefix?
A morpheme that can stand alone with meaning, like teach or run.
What is a free morpheme?
A suffix meaning full of, as in joyful.
What is ‑ful?
Comparing two parts of a text to find how they are alike and different is called this.
What is compare and contrast?
The form that shows the most extreme comparison, like biggest.
What is superlative degree?
‑ed in jumped shows this grammatical meaning.
What is past tense?
This process creates a new word from a root using an affix, like joy → joyful.
What is derivation?
A prefix meaning before, found in predict.
What is pre‑?
This is the main idea plus the facts or examples that support it.
What are main idea and supporting details?
When you add ‑er or ‑est to adjectives to show comparison.
What is morphological comparison?
Kind and kindness share the same root but different endings — this process is called what?
What is derivation?
When a word changes form to show tense, number, or comparison without creating a new word, like big → bigger or walk → walked.
What is inflection? (e.g., comparative & superlative forms)
When two free morphemes join together, like moon + light.
What is compounding?
When you connect what you’re reading to your own life, the world, or another text.
What are text‑to‑self, text‑to‑world, or text‑to‑text connections?
When more or most are used instead of endings to compare longer words.
What is syntactic comparison?
Prefix, root, and suffix all work together to form this.
What is a word? (or What is a morphological structure?)