chap 2 morphology: the words of L Flashcards
affix
A bound morpheme attached to a stem or root.
back-formation
Creation of a new word by removing an affix from an old word: e.g., donate from donation; or by removing what is mistakenly considered an affix: e.g., edit from editor.
base
Any root or stem to which an affix is attached.
blocked
A derivation that is prevented by a prior application of morphological rules: e.g., when Commun + ist entered the language, words such as Commun + ite (as in Trotsky + ite) or Commun + ian (as in grammar + ian) were not needed and were not formed.
bound morpheme
A morpheme that must be attached to other morphemes: e.g., -ly, -ed, non-. Bound morphemes are prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes, and some roots such as cran in cranberry.
case morphology
The process of inflectional morphemes combining with nouns to indicate the grammatical relation of the noun in its sentence: e.g., in Russian, the inflectional suffix -a added to a noun indicates that the noun is an object.
circumfix
A bound morpheme, parts of which occur in a word both before and after the root: e.g., ge—t in German geliebt, ‘loved,’ from the root lieb
closed class
A category, generally a functional category, that rarely has new words added to it: e.g., prepositions, conjunctions.
compound
word composed of two or more words, which may be written as a single word or as words separated by spaces or hyphens: e.g., dogcatcher, dog biscuit, dog-tired
content words
The nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that constitute the major part of the vocabulary.
derivational affix
A morpheme added to a stem or root to form a new stem or word, possibly, but not necessarily, resulting in a change in syntactic category: e.g., -er added to a verb like kick to give the noun kicker.
derived word
The form that results from the addition of a derivational morpheme: e.g., firmly from firm + ly.
discontinuous morphemes
morpheme with multiple parts that occur in more than one place in a word or sentence: e.g., ge and t in German geliebt, ‘loved.’
form
The phonological or gestural representation of a morpheme or word.
free morpheme
A single morpheme that constitutes a word: e.g., dog.
function word
A word that does not always have a clear lexical meaning but has a grammatical function; function words include conjunctions, prepositions, articles, auxiliaries, complementizers, and pronouns.
grammatical category
Traditionally called “parts of speech”; also called syntactic categories; expressions of the same grammatical category can generally substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality: e.g., noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective, auxiliary verb.
head (of a compound)
The rightmost word: e.g., house in doghouse. It generally indicates the category and general meaning of the compound.
infix
A bound morpheme that is inserted in the middle of another morpheme: e.g., Tagalog sulat ‘writing’ but sumulat ‘to write’ after insertion of the infix um.
inflectional affix
A bound grammatical morpheme that is affixed to a word according to rules of syntax: e.g., third-person singular verbal suffix -s.
lexical gap
A possible but nonoccurring word; a form that obeys the phonotactic constraints of a language yet has no meaning: e.g., blick in English.
linguistic performance
The use of linguistic competence in the production and comprehension of language; behavior as distinguished from linguistic knowledge: e.g., linguistic competence permits one-million-word sentences, but linguistic performance prevents this from happening.
linguistic sign
sound or gesture, typically a morpheme in a spoken language and a sign in a sign language, that has a form bound to a meaning in a single unit: e.g., dog is a linguistic sign whose form is its pronunciation [dag] and whose meaning is Canis familiaris (or however we define “dog”).
meaning
The conceptual or semantic aspect of a sign or utterance that permits us to comprehend the message being conveyed. Expressions in language generally have both form—pronunciation or gesture—and meaning.
monomorphemic word
A word that consists of one morpheme.
morpheme
Smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function: e.g., sheepdogs contains three morphemes, sheep, dog, and the function morpheme for plural, s.
morphological rules
Rules for combining morphemes to form stems and words.
morphology
The study of the structure of words; the component of the grammar that includes the rules of word formation
open class
The class of lexical content words; a category of words that commonly adds new words: e.g., nouns, verbs
orthography
The written form of a language; spelling.
prefix
An affix that is attached to the beginning of a morpheme or stem: e.g., in- in inoperable.
productive
Refers to morphological rules that can be used freely and apply to all forms to create new words: e.g., the addition to an adjective of -ish meaning ‘having somewhat of the quality,’ such as newish, tallish, incredible-ish.
reduplication
A morphological process that repeats or copies all or part of a word to produce a new word: e.g., wishy-washy, teensy-weensy, hurly-burly. Also used in some languages as an inflectional process: e.g., Samoan manao/mananao, ‘he wishes/they wish.’
root
The morpheme that remains when all affixes are stripped from a complex word: e.g., system from un + system + atic + ally.
sign languages
The languages used by deaf people in which linguistic units such as morphemes and words as well as grammatical relations are formed by manual and other body movements.
slip of the tongue
An involuntary deviation of an intended utterance. Also called a speech error.
stem
The base to which an affix is attached to create a more complex form that may be another stem or a word.
suffix
An affix that is attached to the end of a morpheme or stem: e.g., -er in Lew is taller than Bill.
syntactic class
Traditionally called “parts of speech”; also called syntactic categories; expressions of the same grammatical category can generally substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality: e.g., noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective, auxiliary verb.
tree diagram
A graphical representation of the linear and hierarchical structure of a phrase or sentence. A phrase structure tree.
