Morphemes in “commentators”
“commentators” has 4 morphemes: comment + -ate + -or + -s.
Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are comment + -ate + -or + -s.
Each morpheme explained
| Morpheme | Type | Free / bound | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| comment | free root | free | a statement that expresses a personal opinion or belief or adds information |
| -ate (written at) | derivational suffix | bound | having, full of (adj); to make (verb) |
| -or | derivational suffix | bound | a person or thing that does (agent) |
| -s | inflectional suffix | bound | plural (nouns) / third-person singular present (verbs) |
How the word is built
comment → commentator → commentators
Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “comment” is where the chain starts.
Morphemes are not syllables
Morphemes are units of meaning; syllables are units of sound. The boundaries often fall in different places, which is why “commentators” splits one way for a morphology exercise and another for a syllable count.
Break any word into morphemes
Prefixes, roots and suffixes with glosses, free and in your browser.
Open the morphological analyzer →Related words
Segmentation derived from MorphyNet (Batsuren, Bella & Giunchiglia, 2021; CC BY-SA 3.0, built from Wiktionary), with hand-written affix glosses and root meanings from WordNet. Reviewed for classroom use; tell us if you spot an error.