Lecture 12 - Words and lexemes Flashcards
What is morphology?
the study of word structure
What is observational morphology?
- Word formation on a lexical level
- new words may belong to a new word category
e.g institute (N) - institutionalise (v)
the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix
What is inflectional morphology?
word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness.
EG. Walk - Walks - Walked (all verbs)
What is the semantic definition of a word?
A linguistic unit with a single meaning
What is the root of a word?
the central part of the word that cannot be broken down any futher
What is the base of a word?
The unit onto wich an affix is attatched
What are the 3 types of affixes?
Prefix -before
Sufix - after
infix - in the middle
What is a lexeme?
A lexeme is a theoretical construct that stands for the unitary meaning and shared syntactic properties of a group of word forms. A lexeme is stripped of any inflectional endings.
Thus play, plays, played, and playing are all inflected forms of the lexeme play
What is a type?
Type: one word form or realisation
speak and speaker are 2 types of the lexeme speak
What is a token?
each instance of a given type
What is a moprohologically complex word?
a word that can be broken down into base and affix
