Suppose I have to write out the root morpheme and the bound morpheme. Consider the word 'happier'.
I've seen some examples, for example here on the second slide: http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fatmasima/morphology-son where the root is 'happy' and the bound morpheme is 'er'.
However, on another website (I forgot the link but I will post it if I find it), the example was 'prettier' and it mentioned that the root was 'pretti' and the bound morpheme was 'er'.
My question is, when y turns into ier or ies (for example supplies or prettier), what is the root and bound morpheme?
Best Answer
Grammar.about.com has several examples of root morphemes in compounds like this: beauty+-ful giving beautiful; happy+ness giving happiness. The spelling apparently is the spelling of the root word itself, not the word as it is after spelling changes used when attaching an affix.