LING323: Exam 1

Question 1

Morpheme

Answer 1

Minimal unit of a word with an independent meaning (approximately)

Question 2

Grammatical function (of a morpheme)

Answer 2

The abstract meaning of a morpheme that can only be described in the context of a larger grammatical function
Ex: person categories (first second etc)
Number
Tense 
Subj/obj
Case 
Aspect (nom, erg, dat, etc)

Question 3

Bound vs free morpheme

Answer 3

Bound morpheme: morpheme that occurs only as part of a polymorphemic award

Free morpheme: morpheme that may occur as a monomorphemic word

Question 4

Stem1 (standard) vs stem2 (inflection)

Answer 4

Stem1: standard, a polymorphemic base

Stem2: inflection, word minus inflectional endings

Question 5

Root

Answer 5

Polymorphemic base

Usually provides the basic meaning of a word

Question 6

Affix

Answer 6

Bound morpheme that attaches to a root or stem to form a complex word

Question 7

The four different types of affix

Answer 7

Prefix: attaches before the base

Suffix: attaches directly after a base

Infix: inserted inside a base

Circumfix: two part affix that appears on both sides of base

Question 8

The two types of morphology

Answer 8

Derivational morphology: significantly changes the meaning of a word

Inflectional morphology: makes subtle changes in grammatical function, is relevant for syntax, and is semantically regular

Question 9

Concatenation

Answer 9

Morphological process that involves combining morphemes

Question 10

Affixation

Answer 10

Morpho process involving the attachment of an affix

Question 11

Compounding

Answer 11

Morpho process involving the concatenation of two roots or two stems
Ex: houseboat
Show dog

Question 12

Infixation

Answer 12

Insertion of a morpheme inside the phonological make-up of another morpheme (not simply the middle morpheme)

Question 13

Nonconcatenative morphology

Answer 13

When a morphological process that doesn’t involve addition of morphemes to the base is used to mark morphological distinctions

Question 14

Base modification or alternations

Answer 14

(Aka process based morphology)
Nonconcatentive
Process that involves a systematic modification of the sound structure of the base
Ex: lengthening, shortening, tonal changes, vowel changes, etc)

Question 15

Reduplication

Answer 15

Nonconcatenative
Process that involves copying part of the base and attaching it as an affix
Make sure to include how much is copied and where it appears in relation to base in description

Question 16

Transfixation (aka root and pattern morphology)

Answer 16

Process that involves the interspersing of consonants and vowels within a specified CV template

Question 17

Subtractive morphology

Answer 17

Process that involves the systematic deletion of a defined portion of the base

Question 18

Truncation

Answer 18

Process that involves deleting part of the base in order to conform to a defined template

Question 19

Conversion

Answer 19

Process that only involves changing the word class of the base

Question 20

Allomorph

Answer 20

Suffixes that have the same meaning and occur in diff enviros in complimentary distribution
Can be about diffs in pronunciation

Question 21

What are the two types of allomorphs?

Answer 21

Phonological allomorph
Suppletive allomorph (weak and strong)

Question 22

Phonological allomorphy

Answer 22

When the form of the allomorph can be predicted by regular phonological rules (usually independently motivated in the language)
Ex: English plural s z iz

Question 23

Suppletive allomorphy

Answer 23

When an allomorph’s form cannot be predicted by regular phonology, and must therefore be listed in the lexicon

Question 24

Weak vs strong suppletion

Answer 24

Weak suppletion: a kind of allomorphy where allomorphs of the same morpheme are not radically different phonologically, but there is no regular phono rule in the language that relates them
Ex: English buy/bought, catch/caught

Strong suppletion: where allomorphs of the same morpheme are very different phonologically, they appear to be two different stems
Ex: English good/bett-

Question 25

Conditioning and its three types

Answer 25

Conditioning=dimension of allomorphy; conditions under which different allomorphs are selected

Phonological conditioning
Morphological conditioning
Lexical conditioning

Question 26

Phonological conditioning

Answer 26

Choice of allomorphs depends on phonological context

Ex: English plural depends on final sound in stem

Question 27

Morphological conditioning

Answer 27

Choice of allomorphs depends on morphological context (grammatical function like verb tense)
Ex: Spanish ir -> va- or fu- depending on tense

Question 28

Lexical conditioning

Answer 28

Choice of allomorphs depends on individual lexical item

Ex: English past participle -en/-ed is unpredictable and depends on individual verb