CHAPTER 3 || Structure of Words: Morphology Flashcards
AFFIX
Suffixes, prefixes and infixes.
A bound morpheme attached to a root or stem, modifying its meaning in some way forming a lexical or grammatical word with it.
Ex. dis- and -ed in displaced. (place is the root)
ALLOPMORPH
One of the alternative phonemic forms of morpheme.
Ex. The prefix in- in English has allomorphs /ɪn/, /ɪm/ and /ɪŋ/ depending on the first segment of the root to which it is attached, as in _in_explicable, _im_plausible, and _in_credible.
BOUND MORPHEME
A morpheme that cannot occur as a seperate word by itself, but must be attached to another item (the root).
Ex. The English morphemes -ly, and -ed.
Bound morphemes must be attached to a root (all morphemes are either free or bound).
The following are bound morphemes underlined:
- mangoe_s_
- _huckle_berry
- hott_est_
- water_er_
- _dis_establish
- (she) run_s_
- Chomsky_ite_
These morphemes do carry meaning (-s for example, tells us that there’s more than one mango), but none of these morphemes can be used on their own. You cannot simply say er, or dis (without changing the meaning to the verb diss), which is how they differ from free morphemes.
CASE
A morphological category of nouns and/or pronouns that indicates the grammatical role of a noun phrase in a clause or another noun phrase.
Ex. Us is the accusative form of the first person plural pronoun, used when it serves in the object role, as in They saw us.
CLITIC
A grammatical morpheme that behaves like an independent word, and at best loosely related to the word it is attached to.
It does not give rise to a new form of a lexical item (like an inflectional affix), or a new lexical item (like a derivational affix).
Ex. The contraction of the morpheme is, as in What’s going on?
Ex. The possessive marker ’s, as in The man in the black coat’s book.
COMPLEX WORDS
“The farmer kills the duckling.”
Complex words: farmer, kills, duckling.
Complex words DO have internal structure.
Complex words can be divided into smaller meaningful pieces:
- farmer ⇒ farm and -er
- kills ⇒ kill and -s
- duckling ⇒ duck and -ling
These pieces (farm, -er, kill, -s, duck, -ling) cannot be divided into smaller meaningful pieces.
These pieces are called morphemes.
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEME
A bound morpheme added to a root or stem to form a new stem.
Ex. The suffix -er in English is used to transform the verb bake into the noun baker.
Ex. The morpheme -ly changes the adjective quick into the adverb quickly.
Ex. We can change adjectives such as happy into nouns such as happiness by using the derivational morpheme -ness.
Other common suffixes include -ism, -tion, -able, -ment and -al. Derivational morphemes can also be prefixes, such as un-, in-, pre- and a-.
ENCLITIC
A type of clitic that is attached to the end of the word.
FREE MORPHEME
“The farmer kills the duckling.”
Free morpheme: the, farm, kill, duck.
A single linguistic unit which carries meaning (the definition of a morpheme) and can be used on its own as a word. Other examples:
- mango
- berry
- hot
- water
- establish
- (to) run
- Chomsky
What makes them single morphemes is that they cannot be divided further into meaningful units.
Mango, for example, has no internal meaning of man or go; it is a single morpheme that means, roughly, “a tropical ovoid fruit, which grows on a tree of the same name, is orange when ripe, etc.”
What makes these morphemes free is the fact that they may be used as stand-alone words.
INFIX
A bound morpheme that is inserted WITHIN a root.
Ex. “Abso-Bleedin’-Lutely”
Ex. “Well, I can guaran-damn-tee ya. Dannie’s not playin’.”
Tagalog uses a lot of infixes to portray past tense.
INFLECTION
A change in the form of a word (typically the ending) to express a grammatical function or attribute such as tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender.
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME
A bound grammatical morpheme that gives rise to a form of a word expressing a certain grammatical category, such as past tense as in walked, or plural number as in dogs.
LEXEME or LEXICAL ITEM
A basic lexical unit of a language, consisting of one word or several words, considered as an abstract unit, and applied to a family of words related by form or meaning.
A lexeme is the smallest or minimal unit of lexicon in a language that bears some “meaning.”
Ex. The lexeme play can take up many forms like play, playing, plays, and played. All of these word forms have the same basic meaning (which is denoted by an action) and, hence, will be categorized under the same lexeme.
MORPH
Any minimal meaningful form in a language, including morphemes and allomorphs.
Some morphs are grouped together as allomorphs of a morpheme.
MORPHEME
The smallest linguistic signs. These signs (or pieces) CANNOT be broken down into smaller signs.
Ex. Unlikely consists of three morphemes: un, like and -ly.
Ex. Unladylike consists of three morphemes: un, lady, and like.
Ex. Repaired consists of two morphemes: repair and -ed.
Ex. Dogs consists of two morphemes: dog and -s.
English words are generally made up of relatively few morphemes.
