morphemes Flashcards
morpheme
smallest unit of language that contains meaning (makes sense) and cannot be broken down any further
ex) walks
morpheme: walk - s
morphemes can be either
free or bound
free
element that does not need more morphemes to be grammatical
ex) phone
word
free forms that contain multiple morphemes
what kind of morpheme does every word have?
root
core meaning of the word
root
morpheme that contains the core meaning of the word
affixes
may be added to the root morpheme to modify it
are affixes bound or free
bound
3 kinds of affixes:
prefixes (attaches to left of root)
suffixes (attaches to right of root)
infixes (attaches in the middle)
distributional property of nouns
occurs with some/all determiners (articles)
ex) the cat, a race
distributional property of verbs
occurs with some/all auxiliaries (helping verbs)
ex) can help, may want
distributional property of adjectives
occurs with some/all degree words
ex) very bright, too fun
base
form an affix attaches to
**may be bigger than the root
prefixes - word formation rules equation
af + category of base –> category
ex) /de/ + V –> reverses V
de construct –> reverses construct
suffixes - word formation rules equation
category of base + af –> category
ex) N + /s/ –> plural N
words formation types:
derivation
inflection
compounding
derivational affix
builds a word with meaning that differs from base
ex) reduce + ion = reduction
inflectional affix
indicates grammatical info of various sorts
can derivational or inflectional change the category of the word?
derivational (not always)
inflectional affixes: nouns
-s –> plural (plants)
-s –> genitive (Pat’s thing)
inflectional affixes: verbs
-s –> 3rd person present (he works)
-ed –> past tense (he worked)
-en/-ed –> past participle (he has worked)
inflectional affixes: adjectives
-er –> comparative (newer)
-est –> superlative (newest)
do we add derivational or inflectional affixes first?
derivational
ex) re + assess + ed
D + root + I
compounds
combines two free forms and contains multiple roots
exocentric compounds
does not take on either of the combined words
ex) hot dog –> has nothing to do with dog that is hot
endocentric compounds
take on the meaning of 1 of the combined words
ex) horseshoe –> shoe for horse
head of compound
element that determines the category of a compound
english head: rightmost root is head
constituent
groupings that form coherent syntactic units
substitution test
replace by word/short phrase while preserving meaning of og sentence
The bird kicked the cat.
He kicked the cat.
the bird = constituent
movement test
can be moved to beginning or end of sentence while preserving meaning of og sentence
He runs at night –> at night he runs
head
determines the category of the phrase
lexical category
specifier
functional category
complement
another phrase that complements the current one
noun modifiers
adjectives
verb modifiers
describe when/where/how verb is done
