Basic syntactical/morphological terms

Question 1

Lexeme

Answer 1

An abstract notion of a word

Question 2

Word Forms

Answer 2

The different realizations of a word, which are not included in the dictionary

Question 3

Word Classes/ Syntactic Categories

Answer 3

1. Nouns 2. Determiners 3. Adjectives 4. Adverbs

5. Verbs 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Interjections

Question 4

Morpheme

Answer 4

The smallest component of a word that contributes to its meaning.

Question 5

Discreteness

Answer 5

A fundamental property of human language, that is composed of sets of distinct sounds and distinct morphemes.

Question 6

Affixes

Answer 6

Morphemes, with semantic and grammatical information, that cannot be further decomposed.

Question 7

Free Morphemes

Answer 7

Morphemes that can stand alone

Question 8

`Bound Morphemes

Answer 8

Morphemes that cannot stand alone, and must be attached to other morphemes.

Question 9

Prefixes

Answer 9

Bound Morphemes that attach to the beginning of a stem/root

Question 10

Suffixes

Answer 10

Bound Morphemes that attach to the end of a stem/root

Question 11

Infixes

Answer 11

Morphemes that are inserted inside a root.

Question 12

Circumfixes

Answer 12

Affixes that attach to both the beginning and end of a stem/root

Question 13

Neo-Classical Compounds

Answer 13

Roots of Greek or Latin origin with meaning, called combining form since they cannot occur as words.

Question 14

Derivational Affixes

Answer 14

Bound morphemes of semantic content that belong to specific classes and may change the class of the root/ stem they are attached to.

Question 15

Inflectional Affixes

Answer 15

Bound morphemes that express a grammatical function and they cannot change the category of the stem/root they attach to.

Question 16

Morph

Answer 16

The actual representation (in writing or sound) of a morpheme (meaning).

Question 17

Allomorph

Answer 17

The variant forms of a given morpheme.

Question 18

Concatenation

Answer 18

Results in complex words

Question 19

Pallet Surprises

Answer 19

Making a wrong guess about the meaning of unknown words.

Question 20

Compounding

Answer 20

Any combination of two words can result in a new one.

Question 21

Endocentric Compounds

Answer 21

Head/modifier, where the latter attributes a property to the head

Question 22

Exocentric Compounds

Answer 22

Lacks a headword

Question 23

Coordinate Compounds

Answer 23

Lexemes that have the same state

Question 24

Head-dependency

Answer 24

The head will normally be of the same category as the compound.

Question 25

Conversion

Answer 25

Extending a morpheme from a syntactic category to another.

Question 26

Clipping

Answer 26

Shortening of existing words.

Question 27

Abbreviation

Answer 27

A short form of a word or a phrase (e.g. B.C.= Before Christ)

Question 28

Calques/Loan translations

Answer 28

Phrases borrowed from another language

Question 29

Coinage

Answer 29

A new word or phrase in a language from a specific reference to a more generalized one.

Question 30

Eponym

Answer 30

A personal name is used as a common noun.

Question 31

Arbitrariness

Answer 31

The relationship between a combination of sounds/signs into meaningful units.

Question 32

Redundancy

Answer 32

Rules which dictate the merging categories make learning each separate lexeme redundant.

Question 33

Creativity

Answer 33

The ability to produce and understand new (novel) sentences.

Question 34

Syntax

Answer 34

A finite set of rules that we can apply repeatedly to build phrases and sentences.

Question 35

Mental Grammar/Lexicon

Answer 35

The subconscious knowledge of syntax.

Question 36

Constituents

Answer 36

Mental representations of sentences seen as complex structures with an internal organization.

Question 37

Phrase Structure Rules (PS Rules)

Answer 37

The patterns of lexical grouping can be expressed through PS Rules.

Question 38

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 38

When a sentence has more than one meaning.

Question 39

Structural Ambiguity

Answer 39

When a sentence has more than one tree diagram.

Question 40

Constituency Tests

Answer 40

1. “Stand-alone” 2. “Replacement by a pronoun” 3. “Move as a unit”