Practice Exercises in Morphology
Linguistics 201
Free and Bound Morphemes
List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free (F) or
bound (B).
1. creating                                6. unhealthy
       create (F)                                    un (B)
       ing (B)                                       health (F)
                                                     y (B)
2. seaward                                 7. waiter
       sea (F)                                       wait (F)
       ward (B)                                      er (B)
3. wastage                                 8. reconsider
       waste (F)                                     re (B)
       age (B)                                       consider (F)
4. poetic                                  9. keys
       poet (F)                                      key (F)
       ic (B)                                        s (B)
5. modernize                               10. incompletion
       modern (F)                                    in (B)
       ize (B)                                       complete (F)
                                                     ion (B)
Word Trees
For each word below, draw a word tree.
1. shipper                                6. simply
2. disobey                                7. jumping
3. resettled                              8. digitizes
4. anticlimaxes                           9. activity
5. disengagement                          10. confrontational
1.      N                          2.     V
V              DAff                DAff          V
ship           er                  dis           obey
3.                    V
        DAff          V            IAff
        re            settle       d
4.                    N
        DAff          N            IAff
        anti          climax       es
5. 3.                 N
        DAff          V            DAff
        dis           engage       ment
6.       Adv                        7.      V
Adj              DAff               V              IAff
simple           y                  jump           ing
For #7, “jumping” could also be either a noun (“Jumping over the water was dangerous”)
or an adjective (“The jumping bunnies looked ridiculous.”) In both of these cases, “ing”
is a derivational affix.
8.                      V
         N              DAff        IAff
         digit          ize         s
9.                      N
                 Adj
         V              DAff        DAff
         act            ive         ity
10.                     Adj
         V              DAff        DAff
         confront       ation       al
                              Practice Exercises in Morphology III
                                         Linguistics 201
I. Morphological Analysis
From the following data sets, identify the strings of sounds which correspond to the
morphemes in each language.
Swahili
Swahili is a Bantu language which is spoken primarily in East Africa. There are
approximately 800,000 native speakers of Swahili, and some 30,000,000 people (!)
worldwide speak Swahili as a second language.
anapenda                   'he likes'             alimona             'he saw him'
atapenda                   'he will like'         alimsaidia          'he helped him'
alipenda                   'he liked'             alimpiga            'he hit him'
amependa                   'he has liked'         alimchukua          'he carried him'
alinipenda                 'he liked me'          alimua              'he killed him'
alikupenda                 'he liked you'         ananitazama         'he looks at me'
alimpenda                  'he liked him'         atakusikia          'he will hear you'
alitupenda                 'he liked us'          alitupanya          'he cured us'
aliwapenda                 'he liked them'        ninakupenda         'I like you'
nitampenda                 'I will like him'      nitawapenda         'I will like them'
Pronouns                           Tenses                       Verbs
he: a                              [present]: na                see: ona
me: ni                             [future]: ta                 help: saidia
you: ku                            [past]: li                   hit: piga
him: m                             [past part.]: me             carry: chukua
us: tu                                                          kill: ua
them: wa                                                        look: tazama
I: ni                                                           hear: sikia
                                                                cure: panya
                                                                like: penda
Translate the following English sentences into Swahili:
i. He has hit me.
        amenipiga
ii. He helps us.
        anatusaidia
iii. I will look at you.
         nitakutazama