lesson 4: morphology

Question 1

define: morphology

Answer 1

the study of words and the rules for word formation in a language

Question 2

define: word

Answer 2

a meaningful unit of language that can stand on its own

Question 3

define: morpheme

Answer 3

the smallest meaningful unit of language

Question 4

define: free morpheme

Answer 4

can occur as an independent word

Question 5

define: bound morpheme

Answer 5

cannot stand alone; must be attached to other morphemes; may be roots or affixes

Question 6

define: root

Answer 6

base to which affixes attach; cannot be analyzed into smaller parts

Question 7

roots can be free or bound. provide an example of each.

Answer 7

cat -> cats, catty, catlike.

struct -> construct, structure, instruct.

Question 8

define: affix

Answer 8

morphemes that attach to a root (or stem).

Question 9

true or false: all affixes are bound.

Answer 9

true

Question 10

define: prefix

Answer 10

attaches to the beginning of a word

Question 11

define: suffix

Answer 11

attaches to the end of a word

Question 12

define: infix

Answer 12

inserted in the middle of a word

Question 13

define: circumfix

Answer 13

attached around a word (at both ends)

Question 14

english has no __ or __. (prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes)

Answer 14

infixes; circumfixes

Question 15

define: derivational affix

Answer 15

make or derive new words with new meanings; may change lexical category.

Question 16

define: inflectional affix

Answer 16

indicates grammatical roles; never changes the lexical category; doesn’t change basic meaning of word

Question 17

how do we know which affixes attach first in affix trees?

Answer 17

derivational affixes are constrained in which lexical categories they attach to

Question 18

define: content morphemes

Answer 18

has some kind of semantic content of its own; includes derivational affixes

Question 19

define: function morphemes

Answer 19

do not have substantial semantic content; provide grammatical function info by relating words of a sentence; includes inflectional affixes, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries

Question 20

define: reduplication

Answer 20

forming new words by doubling a whole morpheme (total_ or part of it (partial); e.g., bye-bye, peepee

Question 21

define: alternation

Answer 21

morphological distinctions that are marked by morpheme-internal changes (e.g., plurals: man–men, goose–geese; verb tense: ring–rang–rung; derivation: strife (n.), strive (v.)

Question 22

define: suppletion

Answer 22

when morphological inflection is indicated with phonetically unrelated forms

Question 23

define: compound

Answer 23

combination of 2 or more independent words to form a new word (e.g., redhot, blackboard, dryclean, whiteboard)

Question 24

define: blend

Answer 24

combine parts of two words (e.g., brunch)

Question 25

define: clipping

Answer 25

delete syllables (e.g., zoo: zoological park)

Question 26

define: acronym

Answer 26

take the initial letters of each phrase/title (e.g., Husky Union Building = HUB)

Question 27

define: conversion

Answer 27

derive new words in new lexical category without form changes (e.g., Googling (v.) from Google (n.)

Question 28

define: allomorph

Answer 28

different phonetic realizations for the same morpheme