Connecticut Foundations of Reading Test (FORT) Practice

What do the words 'ungrateful' and 'seventeen' have in common linguistically?

1. They contain no morphemes

2. They include multiple morphemes

3. They are single syllable words

4. They are both compounds

The correct answer is: They include multiple morphemes

The words 'ungrateful' and 'seventeen' share the characteristic of being composed of multiple morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning in a language. In 'ungrateful', there are three morphemes: 'un-', which is a prefix indicating negation, 'grate', the root word that pertains to thankfulness, and '-ful', a suffix that converts the root into an adjective meaning 'full of' or 'characterized by'. In 'seventeen', the word can be divided into two morphemes: 'seven', which is the base number, and the suffix '-teen', which indicates that it falls within the teenage numbers (specifically, numbers from thirteen to nineteen inclusive). This understanding is crucial in linguistic analysis as it illustrates how words can be constructed from smaller meaningful parts. The other answer choices do not accurately reflect the linguistic properties of these words, as they do not lack morphemes, consist of a single syllable, nor are they compounds formed from two independent words.