During the free speech sample the child says "It jumped on the blocks." Which of the following is a true statement about the number of linguistic units contained in this utterance?

During the free speech sample the child says "It jumped on the blocks." Which of the following is a true statement about the number of linguistic units contained in this utterance?

• A. Nineteen phonemes
• B. Two complex onsets
• C. Seven morphemes
• D. No rimes

Answer: (C)

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning or grammatical function in a language. In the sentence “It jumped on the blocks,” there are seven such units. It is a single morpheme (a pronoun). Jumped is two morphemes: jump plus the past-tense marker -ed. On is one morpheme. The is one morpheme. Blocks is two morphemes: block plus the plural marker -s. When you add them up, you get seven morphemes in total. If you counted sounds rather than meaning-bearing units, you’d get a higher number of phonemes, which is why seven morphemes is the correct count for this question.

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning or grammatical function in a language. In the sentence “It jumped on the blocks,” there are seven such units. It is a single morpheme (a pronoun). Jumped is two morphemes: jump plus the past-tense marker -ed. On is one morpheme. The is one morpheme. Blocks is two morphemes: block plus the plural marker -s. When you add them up, you get seven morphemes in total. If you counted sounds rather than meaning-bearing units, you’d get a higher number of phonemes, which is why seven morphemes is the correct count for this question.