What type of morpheme changes word class and creates new words?

• A. Free Morpheme
• B. Inflectional Morpheme
• C. Bound Morpheme
• D. Derivational Morpheme

Answer: (D)

The correct option refers to derivational morphemes, which are significant in word formation as they change the class of a word and create entirely new words. For instance, adding the prefix "un-" to the adjective "happy" transforms it into the opposite meaning, "unhappy." Similarly, adding the suffix "-ness" to "happy" changes the adjective into a noun, "happiness." This process illustrates how derivational morphemes are capable of altering the syntactic category of a word (changing a noun to an adjective, an adjective to a noun, etc.) and adding new meanings.

Other morphemes do not share this property to the same extent. Free morphemes can stand alone as words and do not necessarily change the class of a word. Inflectional morphemes modify a word to express different grammatical categories— such as tense, mood, or number—without changing the overall meaning or class of the word. Bound morphemes, while they require attachment to a free morpheme to convey meaning, typically serve to modify or specify meanings rather than creating a new word class. Hence, derivational morphemes are unique in their ability to fundamentally change the word class and contribute to the richness of the