Praxis SLP Licensure Exam

How many free morphemes are present in the child's utterance, "The boy pushed the cars?"

1. 2

2. 3

3. 4

4. 5

The correct answer is: 5

In the utterance "The boy pushed the cars," it's important to identify the free morphemes, which are meaningful units of language that can stand alone as words. The phrase can be broken down as follows: - "The" is a determiner that serves as a free morpheme. - "boy" is a noun and also a free morpheme. - "pushed" is the past tense form of the verb "push," and the base form "push" is a free morpheme. Although "pushed" contains an inflection, it is derived from "push," which is recognized as a stand-alone unit. - "the" appears again as part of the noun phrase. - "cars" is the plural form of "car," and while it contains the plural morpheme '-s,' the base word "car" is a free morpheme. When counting the free morphemes in the utterance: 1. "the" (first appearance) 2. "boy" 3. "push" (in its past tense form "pushed") 4. "the" (second appearance) 5. "car" (from "cars") Thus, there are five identifiable free mor