Simplex words are words with a single morpheme and no affixes that cannot be broken down into anything smaller. Complex words are words that have two or more morphemes, affixes and are able to break down into smaller parts. When looking at the words forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, and forswear they are all complex words. Each word can separate to have it’s own meaning and have a different meaning when put together. For example, for-bid, for-get, for-give, for-go, and for-swear. When examining each word, there is a prefix “for” in the beginning of each word and at the end there are different constituents attached. For example, bid, get, give, go, and swear are all constituents added on to the prefix “for” in order to create more complex words from a simplex word. Since all of these words can be broken apart into smaller words, it shows that they are all complex.


