Derivational processes and types of languages

Question 1

Conversion definition and examples

Answer 1

(zero derivation): Deriving a new word by changing the lexical category of the existing word without changing its phonological form. all morphological in nature.
ex. Message  (N-V)
text (N-V)
Friend (N-V)
hammer (N-V)
Weather (N-V)

Question 2

Stress shift

Answer 2

the stress is shifted from one syllable to the other. With the stress shift comes a change in category.

1. Increase (N-V)
2. Default (N-V)
3. Extract (N-V)
4. Insult (N-V)
5. Rewrite (N-V)

Question 3

Affixation

Answer 3

Affixation: the morphological process whereby a derivational or inflectional affix is attached to a root or stem.The units are all morphological in nature.

• speaker
• beautiful
• ownage
• international
• celebration

Question 4

Blending

Answer 4

Non-morphemic parts of two existing words are put together to form a new word. all phonological in nature.

• bromance
• skort
• chunnel
• smize
• fooby
• cronut

Question 5

Acronyms

Answer 5

are formed from initial letters of a string of words and are pronounced as a word. The units used are all phonological in nature.

• NATO, AIDS, CIDA
• BAE, YOLO, FOMO, LOL, ROFL

Question 6

Abbreviations:

Answer 6

Formed from the initial letters of a string of words but do NOT form a pronounceable word
- FBI, TTYL, CIA, TBT, MCM

Question 7

Brand Names

Answer 7

Used as generic words for all members of that category. all morphological in nature.

• kleenex
• google
• xerox
• burks
• advil
• Q-tip

Question 8

Backformation

Answer 8

Creating new words by taking off derivational affixes

• emote
• Conversate
• imaginate
• pronunciate
• enthuse

Question 9

Folk Etymology

Answer 9

Naïve (i.e. WRONG) interpretation of borrowed or complex words. morphological in nature.

• per say → per se
• I would off done → I would have done ???
• Pre-Madonna → prima+dona
• Tow the line → toe the line
• Doggie dog world → dog eats dog world

Question 10

Onomatopoeia

Answer 10

Words that sound like the sound they name or the entity which produces the sound. all morphological in nature.
– it’s meaning can be derived from it’s form (signifier)

Question 11

Borrowing

Answer 11

a word is taken from another language and sometimes adapted to the phonological system of the host language. all morphological in nature.

• sushi
• shmuck
• macho
• über

Question 12

Reduplication

Answer 12

either part of the base/stem or the entire stem is copied and attached to the original stem.

• be → be-be [big → somewhat big]
• hafa → hafa-hafa [ different → somewhat different]
• there is also partial reduplication (ie. du-duhp [be diving] )

Question 13

Define ANALYTIC (‘isolating’) languages

Answer 13

• a low ratio of morphemes to words;
• sentences consist of independent root morphemes.
• grammatical relations are expressed by separate words rather than affixes.
• no (little) morphological change in words: no (very little) inflection.
• grammatical categories are indicated by word order.
• Individual words (roots) carry a general meaning (root concept);
• Semantic/grammatical nuances are expressed by other words.

Question 14

What are dome analytic languages

Answer 14

• East Asian languages: Chinese, and Vietnamese;
• English is moderately analytic;
• Afrikaans is considered the most analytic of all Indo-European languages.

Question 15

Define Synthetic languages

Answer 15

• Words are formed by affixing dependent morphemes to a root morpheme.
• The morphemes may/may not be separable from the root
• fused with the root or with each other or separate units
• There is often a high degree of concordance (agreement across the sentence)
• Word order is less important
• morphology is more important than syntax.
• Most Indo-European languages are moderately synthetic.

Question 16

What are the 3 subtypes?

Answer 16

• Agglutinative
• fusional
• polysynthetic

Question 17

Define agglutinative languages

Answer 17

• words contain several morphemes that are always clearly differentiable.
• each morpheme represents only one grammatical meaning.
• the boundaries are easily demarcated;
• there is a high number of morphemes per word.
• the morphology is highly regular.
• root/stem does not change
• affixes do NOT fuse together

Question 18

examples of agglutinative languages

Answer 18

Finnish, Korean, Hungarian, Turkish, and Japanese

Question 19

define Fusional languages

Answer 19

• Morphemes are not readily distinguishable from the root or among themselves.
• Several grammatical functions may be fused into one affix.
• Morphemes may also be expressed by internal phonological changes in the root.

Question 20

examples of fusional languages

Answer 20

• Ex. Many Indo-European languages (Romance, Slavic or Germanic) are fusional to a varying degree
- greek, russian, french

Question 21

Define polysythetic languages

Answer 21

• a very very HIGH morpheme-to-word ratio.
• a highly regular morphology
• a tendency for verb forms to include morphemes that refer to several arguments besides the subject (polypersonalism).
• words that are equivalent to whole sentences in other languages.

Question 22

Examples of polysynthetic languages

Answer 22

Many Amerindian languages are considered polysynthetic.

- Inuktitut: tavvakiqutiqarpiit = “Do you have any tobacco for sale?”

Question 23

clipping

Answer 23

a word formation process that involves the shortening of a word to make a new word form that shares the same semantic category as the longer word. The units used in this process are all phonological in nature.

Question 24

compounding

Answer 24

he formation of a new word that is made up of more than one lexeme stem. The units used in this process are all morphological in nature.