MLAT Word Structure & Morphological Analysis 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following is an example of a bound morpheme?
- house
- run
- -tion (Correct answer)
- cat
Correct answer: -tion
'-tion' is a bound morpheme because it cannot stand alone as a word; it must be attached to a base (e.g., action, nation).
Question 2: What is 'derivational morphology' primarily concerned with?
- Changing the tense of verbs
- Making nouns plural
- Creating new words by adding affixes that often change word class (Correct answer)
- Combining two complete independent words
Correct answer: Creating new words by adding affixes that often change word class
Derivational morphology involves creating new words (often changing their grammatical class or core meaning) by adding prefixes or suffixes to base words.
Question 3: Which of the following pairs shows zero-derivation (conversion)?
- happy / happiness
- book / booklet
- email (noun) / email (verb) (Correct answer)
- act / actor
Correct answer: email (noun) / email (verb)
Zero-derivation occurs when a word changes its grammatical category without any morphological change, as with 'email' used as both noun and verb.
Question 4: What does the Latin root 'port' mean in words such as 'transport,' 'portable,' and 'export'?
- To carry (Correct answer)
- To speak
- To see
- To write
Correct answer: To carry
The Latin root 'port' means 'to carry,' which explains 'transport' (carry across), 'portable' (can be carried), and 'export' (carry out).
Question 5: In morphological analysis, 'affixation' refers to:
- Only prefixes added to a root
- The study of verb conjugation patterns
- Adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes to a base word (Correct answer)
- Combining two independent root words
Correct answer: Adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes to a base word
Affixation is the process of adding any type of affix—prefix, suffix, or infix—to a base word to form a new word or grammatical variant.
Question 6: The word 'bicyclist' can be divided into which set of morphemes?
- bi + cycle + ist (Correct answer)
- bicy + cl + ist
- bi + cy + clist
- bicycl + ist
Correct answer: bi + cycle + ist
'Bicyclist' contains three morphemes: 'bi-' (two), 'cycle' (from Greek kyklos, meaning wheel/circle), and '-ist' (one who does).
Question 7: Which of the following words is morphologically simple (contains only one morpheme)?
- teacher
- running
- cats
- depth (Correct answer)
Correct answer: depth
'Depth' contains only the single morpheme 'depth'—it cannot be further divided into meaningful parts (unlike teacher = teach + -er, running = run + -ing, cats = cat + -s).
MLAT Word Structure & Morphological Analysis 2
Which of the following is an example of a bound morpheme?