English syllable and morpheme boundaries are sometimes identical. The word friendly has two syllables and two morphemes. They are the word friend and the suffix -ly. However, in many cases, syllable and morpheme boundaries are different. Let us illustrate with examples.
Here are the morpheme boundaries of ten words:
coldest cold+est
nicely nice+ly
disagree dis+agree
unusual un+usual
soften soft+en
immature im+mature
acted act+ed
looked look+ed
given give+en
windy wind+y
Now we can examine the syllable boundaries:
coldest col.dest
nicely ni.cely
disagree di.sa.gree
unusual u.nu.su.al
soften so.ften
immature i.mma.ture
acted ac.ted
looked looked
given gi.ven
windy win.dy
From the examples it is clear that syllable and morpheme boundaries are often different. In many cases the number of syllables and morphemes also varies. The word looked has two morphemes but one syllable, and disagree has two morphemes but three syllables. Also, the final consonant of many morphemes is in the onset of the following syllable as is the case with windy. The result is that many syllable and morpheme boundaries are distinct from one another..
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