Morphology 1 Flashcards
List the 11 word formation processes.
Coinage, Eponyms, Borrowing, Blending, Clipping, Backformation, Compounding, Conversion, Acronyms, Initialisms, and Onomatopoeia
What is coinage?
Words created out of thin air (accidentally or deliberately) without reference to any existing words -> Kodak, Exxon.
Words can be generated from: products and concepts -> Google, commercial products/trade name extensions -> Kleenex, Band-Aid.
What are Eponyms?
These are words based on the name of a person, place, invention or activity.
-> diesel, braille, saxophone, watt, Fahrenheit, volt, Scrooge, Romeo
What is Borrowing?
The act of using words from another language.
Includes Calques (these are direct word by word translations of a borrowed word).
Borrowing -> beauty from beau, cafeteria from cafetería, etc…
Calque -> it goes without saying — cela va sans dire
What is Blending?
This is the process of taking 2 or more words, clipping their parts and recombining them to create a new word containing meaning from both parts.
-> brunch (breakfast + lunch), romcom, workaholic, e-mail
What does Clipping mean?
The creation of a word by shortening a polysyllabic word -> gas(-oline), (tele-)phone, bike, prof, Ben, Josh, Nev.
Define Reduplication
When you emphasize a particular word by repeating it: do you like him, or do you like like him?
What does Backformation mean?
The creation of a word (usually a verb) by reducing another word (usually a noun).
Television -> televise, Donation -> donate, Orientation -> orientate.
What is Compounding?
The joining of two separate words, which can function independently, to create a new word with new meaning.
Bookcase, doorknob —nouns
Good-looking —adjectives
Full-time, fast-food —adjective + noun
Sleepwalk —verbs
Rainbow
Part-time
School bus
What is Conversion?
The change in grammatical function. Adding a word to a new syntactic category.
Adjective to a noun (the poor)
Adjective to a verb (to dirty one’s hands)
Preposition to a verb (to down a drink)
Noun to a verb (to button a shirt)
Verb + preposition to a noun (a dropout)
What are Acronyms?
They are formed by taking the initial sounds or letters of the words of a name, title or phrase, stringing them together, and making a separate pronounceable word.
-> NATO, Laser, MADD, NASA, UNICEF, Radar, LOL, FAQ
What are Initialisms?
Each letter taken from a title or name is individually named, rather than pronounced as a whole.
-> FBI, CIA, PEI
Describe Onomatopoeia.
These are words created to represent sounds.
-> Zipper, Pow, Meow, Boom
What are free morphemes?
Morphemes that can stand alone as words -> (re)open, tour(ists).
They are the nouns, verbs and adjectives of a language.
Free morphemes are the stems when used with bound morphemes.
What are bound morphemes, and which two types of morphemes make up bound morphemes?
Morphemes that cannot stand alone as words -> re(open)ed, (tour)ists (-ist & -s).
Also known as affixes, which are all prefixes and suffixes.
Types: Derivational and Inflectional
