Lecture 2 Morphology and Word Formation

Question 1

Open Class Words

Answer 1

Definition: These are words that belong to categories that can easily accept new members. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
Examples: “Dog,” “run,” “beautiful,” “quickly.

Question 2

Closed Class Words

Answer 2

Definition: These are words that belong to categories that do not readily accept new members. They include prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and pronouns.
Examples: “and,” “but,” “the,” “in.”

Question 3

Morpheme

Answer 3

Definition: The smallest grammatical unit in a language. A morpheme cannot be further divided without losing its meaning.
Types: Morphemes can be free (can stand alone) or bound (must attach to other morphemes).

Question 4

Free Morphemes

Answer 4

Definition: Morphemes that can stand alone as words and have meaning by themselves.
Examples: “Book,” “happy,” “cat.”

Question 5

Bound Morphemes

Answer 5

Definition: Morphemes that cannot stand alone and must attach to other morphemes to convey meaning.
Examples: Prefixes like “un-“ in “unhappy,” or suffixes like “-s” in “cats.”

Question 6

Root Morphemes

Answer 6

Definition: The core part of a word that carries the main meaning, to which affixes can be added.
Examples: In “unhappiness,” “happy” is the root morpheme.

Question 7

Bound Root Morphemes

Answer 7

Definition: Roots that cannot stand alone and must be attached to other morphemes.
Examples: The root “ject” in “inject” or “eject,” which cannot function independently.

Question 8

Affixes

Answer 8

Definition: Morphemes that are added to a root word to modify its meaning. Affixes can be prefixes, suffixes, infixes, etc.
Examples: “un-“ (prefix), “-ing” (suffix).

Question 9

Prefixes

Answer 9

Definition: Affixes added to the beginning of a root word to change its meaning.
Examples: “re-“ in “redo,” “dis-“ in “dislike.”

Question 10

Suffixes

Answer 10

Definition: Affixes added to the end of a root word to change its meaning or grammatical function.
Examples: “-ly” in “quickly,” “-ed” in “walked.”

Question 11

Infixes

Answer 11

Definition: Affixes inserted within a root word, often used in certain languages to modify meaning.
Examples: Common in languages like Tagalog (e.g., “sulat” becomes “sumulat” to mean “to write”).

Question 12

Derivational Morphemes

Answer 12

Definition: Morphemes that are added to a root word to create a new word with a new meaning or grammatical category.
Examples: Adding “-ness” to “happy” to form “happiness.”

Question 13

Inflectional Morphemes

Answer 13

Definition: Morphemes added to a word to indicate grammatical features such as tense, number, or case, without changing the word’s category.
Examples: “-s” for plural (cats), “-ed” for past tense (walked).

Question 14

Allomorph

Answer 14

Definition: Variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation or form but have the same grammatical function.
Examples: The plural morpheme can be represented as “s” in “cats,” “es” in “dogs,” and “en” in “oxen.”

Question 15

Word Coinage

Answer 15

Definition: The process of creating entirely new words that may not be derived from existing words or morphemes.
Examples: “Kleenex” (a brand name that has become synonymous with facial tissue).

Question 16

Derivation

Answer 16

Definition: The process of forming a new word by adding affixes to a base or root word, often changing its meaning or part of speech.
Examples: “Happy” to “unhappy” (prefix derivation) or “teach” to “teacher” (suffix derivation).

Question 17

Compounding

Answer 17

Definition: The process of combining two or more free morphemes to create a new word.
Examples: “Toothbrush,” “notebook,” “blackboard.”

Question 18

Acronyms

Answer 18

Definition: Words formed from the initial letters of a series of words, pronounced as a new word.
Examples: “NASA” (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), “scuba” (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).

Question 19

Blends

Answer 19

Definition: Words formed by blending parts of two different words together.
Examples: “Brunch” (breakfast + lunch), “smog” (smoke

Question 20

Backformation

Answer 20

Definition: The process of creating a new word by removing an actual or supposed affix from an existing word.
Examples: “Edit” from “editor,” “burgle” from “burglar.”

Question 21

Conversion (also called Zero-Derivation or Functional Shift)

Answer 21

Definition: The process of changing the grammatical category of a word without changing its form. The word keeps the same spelling but shifts its use.
Examples: “Noun to verb” as in “Google” (from a company name to the verb “to Google something”), “to email” (from “email” as a noun).

Question 22

Zero-Derivation

Answer 22

Definition: A type of conversion where a new word is created without adding any affixes, simply changing the word’s grammatical function (i.e., noun to verb, adjective to noun, etc.).
Examples: “To bottle” (from the noun “bottle”), “to hammer” (from the noun “hammer”).

Question 23

Functional Shift

Answer 23

Definition: Another term for conversion or zero-derivation. It describes when a word shifts from one part of speech to another (e.g., from a noun to a verb) without a change in form.
Examples: “To run” (verb) becomes “a run” (noun), “an email” (noun) becomes “to email” (verb).

Question 24

Clipping

Answer 24

Definition: The process of creating a new word by shortening a longer word, often by cutting off parts from the beginning or end.
Examples: “Phone” from “telephone,” “ad” from “advertisement,” “lab” from “laboratory.”

Question 25

Semantic Shift

Answer 25

Definition: The process by which a word’s meaning changes over time, either expanding, narrowing, or evolving in a new direction.
Examples: “Mouse” (originally referring to the animal, now also refers to a computer input device), “awful” (originally meaning “full of awe,” now meaning “terrible”).

Question 26

Eponyms

Answer 26

Definition: Words that are derived from the names of people or places, often after individuals who invented or popularized something.
Examples: “Sandwich” (from the Earl of Sandwich), “diesel” (from Rudolf Diesel), “Freudian” (from Sigmund Freud).

Question 27

Borrowing

Answer 27

efinition: The process of adopting words from one language into another. Borrowed words may retain their original form or be adapted to the borrowing language’s phonetic or grammatical system.
Examples: “Café” (from French), “piano” (from Italian), “safari” (from Swahili).