Chapter 12: Word Formation Flashcards
Internally simple words
Words that cannot be further analyzed into smaller constituent elements.
Morphemes
The smallest identifiable components of a word that carry meaning.
Morphology
The sub-discipline of linguistics which is concerned with the properties of complex words.
Derivation
Vocabulary expansion where a lexical word is connected with a non-lexical element to form a new word.
Inflection
The part of morphology that fits existing words into the grammatical structure of the sentence they are part of.
Stem
The basis of a word to which grammatical elements are added.
Paradigm
The list of forms that a particular stem can take.
Contextual inflection
When the form of words is strictly determined by their grammatical context and the inflection does not contribute independently to the meaning of the sentence in which the words appear.
Inherent inflection
When the form of words contributes to the lexical meaning of the sentence.
Affixes
Attached grammatical elements to words.
Affixation
The process of attaching affixes.
Suffixes
Affixes that are attached to the end of a word.
Prefixes
Affixes that are attached to the front of a word.
Infixes
Affixes that are placed within the stem of the word.
Circumfixes
Affixes that are attached to both the beginning and the end of a word at the same time.
Reduplication
The process whereby a word is repeated.
Conversion
When words change in word category without morphological marking.
Suppletion
When a word does not have one identifiable single stem that is common to all members of the paradigm.
Productivity
How widely and freely a certain morphological process can be applied.
Morphologically complex
When a language mostly had internally structured words.
Morphologically simple
Isolating
When the vocabulary of a language consists predominantly of internally unstructured words.
Agglutinating languages
When many words in a language language consist of little parts that are stuck together but not fused.
Fusional languages
Languages where the individual parts of a word can melt together.
Polysynthetic languages
Languages in which a single word can contain several elements with a concrete meaning.
Internally complex words
When words consist of more than one part.
