Final: Morphology

Question 1

Internal Change

Answer 1

An inflectional process. A process that changes one or more non-morphemic segments into another, changing the meaning of the word (though still similar). Example: have to had.

Question 2

Ablaut

Answer 2

An inflectional process. An internal change that involves a vowel alternation, marking a grammatical contrast. Example: run to ran.

Question 3

Umlaut

Answer 3

An inflectional process. An internal change that involves a vowel alternation, with the vowel moving forward. In other words, the vowel changes to one that is more forward in placement. Example: foot to feet.

Question 4

Full Suppletion

Answer 4

An inflectional process. A morpheme that is replaced by an entirely different one. Example: “go” and “went”, “am” and “was”.

Question 5

Partial Suppletion

Answer 5

An inflectional process. A morpheme that is replaced by almost an entirely different one, sharing a small bit of the morpheme. Example: “think” and “thought”, “shall” and “should”

Question 6

Full Reduplication

Answer 6

An inflectional process. Grammatical or semantic contrast is marked by repeating all of the base. Example: 好 good 好好 very good.

Question 7

Partial Reduplication

Answer 7

An inflectional process. Grammatical or semantic contrast is marked by repeating part of a base. Example: in Tagalog, “bili” = buy, “bibili” = will buy.

Question 8

Clitic

Answer 8

An inflectional process. A morpheme that is like a word in terms of its meaning and function, but is unable to stand alone, for phonological reasons. Example: “-‘ve”, “-‘s”. Not the same as prefixes/suffixes.

Question 9

Enclitic

Answer 9

A clitic that attaches to the end of the host word.

Question 10

Proclitc

Answer 10

A clitic that attaches to the front of the host word.

Question 11

Conversion/Zero Derivation

Answer 11

Word Formation. A process that assigns an already existing word to a new syntactic category. Verbs become nouns, nouns become verbs, nouns may become adjectives.

Question 12

Clipping

Answer 12

Word Formation. A process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables. Example: “laboratory” to “lab”.

Question 13

Blends

Answer 13

Word Formation. Words that are already created from non-morphemic parts of two already existing words, usually the first part of one and the final part of the other. Example: “Smoke” and “Fog” makes “Smog”

Question 14

Backformation

Answer 14

Word Formation. New word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language. Example: “Editor” to “Edit”, “Television” to “Televise”

Question 15

Acronyms

Answer 15

Word Formation. Words by taking the initial letter of (some or all) the words in a phrase or title and pronouncing them as a word. Example: Scuba.

Question 16

Initialism

Answer 16

Word Formation. An abbreviation created by pronouncing a series of letters. Example: FBI

Question 17

Onomatopoeia

Answer 17

Word Formation. Words have been created to sound like the thing that they name. Example: Vroom.

Question 18

Coinage

Answer 18

Word Formation. The creation of a word from scratch. Often created for a new product.

Question 19

Eponym

Answer 19

Word Formation. New word created from an individual’s name. Example: a Watt.

Question 20

Borrowing

Answer 20

Word Formation. The absorption of new words from other languages. Often involves phonological changes to better fit the language doing the borrowing. Example: Saki.

Question 21

Allomorphs

Answer 21

Variants of a morpheme. Selection of a certain allomorph depends on sounds within the root/base/stem morpheme.