Chapter 2 Morphology: the words of language Flashcards
Morphology
Study of internal structure of words and how they are formed
Morphemes
The minimal unit of linguistic meaning or grammatical function
Derivational morphemes
new meaning is derived
(happy –> unhappy)
inflectional morpheme
never change the syntactic category, gives grammar info
(sails, sailing, sailed, sail)
root
Lexical content morpheme: can’t be analyzed in smaller parts
word
know its form (sound) + its meaning = arbitrary
stem
word before inflectional
Root or affix root
Prefixes
Affix before
suffixes
affix after
infixes
affix middle
circumfixes
affix around stems or root
Free root
word that has 1 morpheme
Works alone
Car, cat, red
bound root
Cannot stand alone, meaning combined with another morpheme
ex: (per)ceive
ex: huckle(berry)
Bound affixes (affixes are always bound)
They can’t stand alone
ex: (lead)er = er can’t be alone
ex: (Sad)ly = ly can’t be alone
Content words
denotes concepts (objects, actions, attributes, ideas)
Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs
Function words
grammatical function
conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, aux verbs
Content words are closed or open class?
open class: (add new words to this class)
Function words are open or closed class?
closed: we can’t add new words
By which processes the formations of words can occur (10)?
1- Compounding
2- Conversion
3- blending
4-Clipping
5- False etymology
6- Word coining
7- Semantic shifts
8- Acronyms
9- Borrowing
10- back-formation
1-Compounding
Put two words together=create a new word
ex: black + board = blackboard
2-conversion
Change of grammatical function without altering its form
ex: to run (verb) run (noun)
3-blending
Merging two parts of a word
ex: brunch = breakfast + lunch
4-clipping
Shortening of words to reduce it
ex: mathematics = math
ex: gasoline = gas
5-False etymology
Words misanalyzed
ex: Hamburger
6-Word coining
Inventions
ex: granola, google, zap, jell-O, Kleenex
7-Semantic shifts
Meaning is radically different from the original use
ex: gay before: joyous, happy today: sexual orientation
8- Acronyms
Combine first letter of words to create a word
ex: FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out
ex: ASAP: As Soon As Possible
ex: UNESCO, UNICEF
9- Borrowing
Words from another language
ex: Prairie, croissant
10- Back-formation
reverse process is applied to create a new word or convert nouns to verbs
ex: teacher = teach
ex: edit = editor
ex: butter (the bread), ship (the package)
