Mississippi Foundations of Reading Practice Test

Disable ads (and more) with a membership for a one time $2.99 payment

Study effectively for the Mississippi Foundations of Reading Test. Reinforce your knowledge with flashcards and multiple choice questions, each equipped with helpful hints and thorough explanations. Maximize your readiness and boost your confidence for exam day!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

Practice this question and more.

What type of morpheme is added to the end of a word to indicate tense, number, or comparison?

Inflectional morpheme
Derivational morpheme
Free morpheme
Bound morpheme

The correct answer is: Inflectional morpheme

The addition of a morpheme to the end of a word to indicate tense, number, or comparison refers to an inflectional morpheme. Inflectional morphemes modify a word's grammatical function without changing its core meaning. For instance, when the suffix "-s" is added to a noun to indicate plural (as in "cats") or the suffix "-ed" is appended to a verb to signal past tense (as in "walked"), these are examples of inflectional morphemes in action. In contrast, derivational morphemes are used to create new words and often change the meaning or part of speech, such as adding "-ness" to form "happiness" from "happy." Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g., "cat," "walk") while bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must be attached to other morphemes. These distinctions underscore why the term "inflectional morpheme" specifically pertains to the grammatical modifications discussed in the question.