Wisconsin FORT (Foundations of Reading) Practice Test

What is a morpheme?

1. A meaningful linguistic unit that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful elements

2. The initial part of a word that precedes the vowel

3. A strategy that shows readers and writers how to organize important information

4. A suffix that changes the form or function of a word but not its basic meaning

The correct answer is: A meaningful linguistic unit that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful elements

A morpheme is defined as the smallest unit of language that carries meaning. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful elements. In linguistics, morphemes can be divided into two categories: free morphemes, which can stand alone as words (e.g., dog, happy), and bound morphemes, which are typically affixes added to free morphemes to change their meaning or grammatical function (e.g., -ed, -un). Therefore, option A accurately describes what a morpheme is, making it the correct choice.