Morphological Processing

Morphological processing is how our brain breaks down and understands words by examining their building blocks, called morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning, such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes. For example, in the word "unhappiness," "un-" means not, "happy" is a root, and "-ness" indicates a state or quality. Our brain quickly recognizes these parts to interpret new words efficiently, helping us understand the meaning and use of words in context. This process is fundamental to language comprehension and word formation.