From Morphemes to Semantics & Syntax - Chapter 8

Question 1

Morphemes

Answer 1

• The smallest meaningful units of a language
• About 50,000 morphemes
  in English – includes root
  words, prefixes, and
  suffixes
  
  • Productivity

Question 2

Semantics

Answer 2

Often words are ambiguous and their meaning needs to be considered in the context of how they are being used (e.g., crash/accident vs crash/sound)

Question 3

Syntax: The Language Recipe

Answer 3

The rules for combining words and morphemes into meaningful phrases and
sentences

Question 4

Garden Path Sentences

Answer 4

• Sentence syntax evaluated on a word-by-word basis rather than once all the information is available
• Garden path sentences lead you to one misleading or unintended interpretation based on early words in the sentence
  
  • ‘The old man the boats’
  • ‘Since Jay always jogs a
    mile seems like a short
    distance