Glossary / Lexicon

Bound morpheme refers to a unit of meaning that exists only when combined or bound to a free morpheme. Bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone, but rather is attached to a word stem (free morphemes) , such as -ed attached to the English verb to indicate past tense; -s attached to a noun to indicate plural. Example cook + ed = cooked is the past tense of the verb cook/to cook and duck + s = ducks plural of the noun duck. (see Free morpheme)