Which morpheme type attaches to the end of a word to indicate tense or number, as in -ing or -s?

• A. Inflectional morphemes
• B. Derivational morphemes
• C. Prefix morphemes
• D. Root morphemes

Answer: (A)

Inflectional morphemes are attached to the end of a word to signal grammatical features like tense or number. They don’t change what the word is, just how it functions in a sentence. For example, -ing marks ongoing action, and -s marks plural nouns or third-person singular verbs. Derivational morphemes, by contrast, can change the word’s meaning or its part of speech (happy → happiness, teach → teacher). Prefix morphemes attach to the front of a word (un-, re-, pre-), while root morphemes are the base forms that carry the core meaning. So the endings that show tense or number are inflectional morphemes.