Linguistics For Everyone - Chapter 5 - Morphology

Front 1

Morphology

Back 1

Study of the system of rules underlying our knowledge of word structure.

Front 2

Lexicon

Back 2

Our mental dictionary; information about words and the lexical rules we use to build them.

Front 3

Morpheme

Back 3

The smallest unit of meaning in a word. A morpheme is NOT the same as a syllable. Examples: pancake = 2 morphemes; waspishness = 3 morphemes; Google = 1 morpheme

Front 4

Syntactic category

Back 4

A set of words that share a signifcant number of grammatical characteristics (nouns, verbs, etc). Synonomous with 'part of speech'

Front 5

Word

Back 5

A morpheme or combination of morphemes to which we attach meaning.

Front 6

Parts of speech

Back 6

Noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, auxiliary verb, modal, determiner, quantifier, numeral, pronoun, degree word, conjunction.

Front 7

Content words

Back 7

Words with lexical meaning. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. These words are 'open class' which means that the class accepts new meanings (e.g. text message, blog)

Front 8

Function words

Back 8

Words defined by their use or function; do not have 'contentful' meanings. Include determiners, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions. These words are 'closed class', meaning that new words are not being created in these categories.

Front 9

Free morpheme

Back 9

A morpheme which can stand alone as a word E.g. drink, cat, butter

Front 10

Bound morpheme

Back 10

A morpheme that must attach to another morpheme - it cannot stand alone. E.g. -trans, un-, -ize.

Front 11

Affix

Back 11

Bound morphemes, including prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes

Front 12

Infix

Back 12

An affix that attaches within a word root. In English, expletive infixation to add emphasis is the only type seen. E.g. Eliza Doolittle's 'absobloominlutely'

Front 13

Circumfix

Back 13

Affixes which surround another morpheme. Not widely used in English. Possible example is em---en as in embolden, enlighten

Front 14

Root morpheme

Back 14

A morpheme to which an affix can attach.

Front 15

Bound root morpheme

Back 15

A non-affix morpheme that cannot stand alone. Example: -ceive as in receive, conceive, deceive, perceive. Also cran- in cranberry and luke- in lukewarm.

Front 16

Productive rule

Back 16

A rule that regularly applies in the formation of new words or forms of words.

Front 17

Derivational affix

Back 17

An affix that attaches to other morphemes to form new words that are separate entries in our lexicon.

Front 18

Name the derivational affixes in English

Back 18

-able
-ity
-ment
-ness
-ize
-ly
Note that these affixes can determine the syntactic category of a word.

Front 19

Derivational affix: -able

Back 19

Verb + -able = Adjective

do-able, wash-able, drive-able

Front 20

Derivational affix: -ity

Back 20

Adjective + -ity = Noun

seren(e)-ity, divin(e)-ity

Front 21

Derivational affix: -ment

Back 21

Verb + -ment = Noun

discern-ment, conceal-ment

Front 22

Derivational affix: - ness

Back 22

Adjective + -ness = Noun

dark-ness, thankful-ness

Front 23

Derivational affix: -ize

Back 23

Adjective + -ize = Verb

standard-ize, personal-ize

Front 24

Derivational affix: -ly

Back 24

Adjective + -ly = Adverb

quick-ly, slow-ly

Front 25

Derivational prefixes

Back 25

Include un-, dis- and semi-. Attachment of a derivational prefix usually results in a word of the same category, but the meaning is different.

Front 26

Hierarchical structure

Back 26

Property of structure of words (and phrases) that are constructed in levels. Complex words such as 'disengagement' have an internal hierarchical structure which reflects the order in which affixes attach.

Front 27

Inflectional affix

Back 27

An affix that adds grammatical information (about case, tense, aspect, number, person) but does not change the word's syntactic category or lexical meaning

Front 28

8 inflectional affixes in English

Back 28

- s (to indicate possessive, plural, 3p sing)
- ed (to indicate simple past)
- ing (present participle)
- ed (or -en, past participle)
- er (comparative)
- est (superlative)

Front 29

How does English indicate number?

Back 29

Usually by -s, but may also be a Latin plural (media), a mutated vowel (goose/ geese), a zero affix (deer/deer, fish/fish), or -en (brother/brethren, child/children)

Front 30

Case

Back 30

Expresses grammatical function of a noun phrase as a subject (nominative), object (accusative), indirect object (dative) or possessor (genitive)

Front 31

What are the two ways in which English expresses case distinctions?

Back 31

1. On pronouns
2. In possessive (genitive) noun phrases.

Front 32

Infinitive

Back 32

The base form of the verb, preceeded by 'to' in English

Front 33

Strong verb

Back 33

A verb that expresses inflection through vowel mutation (sing/sang/sung, bite/bit/bitten)

Front 34

Weak verb

Back 34

Verb that expresse inflection through regular affixation and sometimes vowel mutation

Front 35

Participle

Back 35

Form of the verb that follows an auxiliary verb (have or be)

Front 36

Suppletion

Back 36

Process of change whereby one form of a word has no phonological similarity to a related form of that word (go/went, good/better/best, is/was)