Morphology

Question 1

What is morphology?

Answer 1

The study of the smallest units of meaning

The study of the structures of words

Question 2

Morpheme?

Answer 2

The smallest unit of meaning

Every word has at least 1 morpheme

Question 3

Forms vs meanings of words and morphemes

Answer 3

Forms: the sounds that make up the words
Meanings: the concepts they express

Question 4

Allomorphs

Answer 4

variant pronunciations of a morpheme
based on the phonological context
Ex: English plural morpheme -s /z/ has 3 allomorphs
([z], [əz], [s]):
cat /kæt + z/ [kæts] devoicing after voiceless non-sibilant consonant
fox /fɑks + z/ [fɑksəz] schwa-insertion after sibilants
dog /dɑg+ z/ [dɑgz] [z] elsewhere

Question 5

Surface realization comes about via what 4 steps?

Answer 5

1. Lexical entries
2. Morphological rules (of plural formation)
3. Phonological rules
4. Allophonic (phonetic) variation

Question 6

Mono-morphemic vs multi-morphemic

Answer 6

Mono-morphemic:
– words that cannot be broken down into
meaningful parts
• tree, black, think
Multi-morphemic:
– words that are morphologically complex
• tree-s, black-board, un-think-able

Question 7

Free vs. bound morphemes

Answer 7

• Free: a morpheme that can stand as an
independent word (i.e. can be free-standing)
e.g. tree, black, board, think
• Bound: a morpheme that can’t stand alone
e.g. -s, -un, -able

Question 8

Analytic languages vs Synthetic languages

Answer 8

Analytic languages have mostly free morphemes

Synthetic languages have mostly bound morphemes

Question 9

What is a root?

Answer 9

The morpheme in a word that carries the
major component of meaning
In English, mainly free rarely bound but do exist (eg. kempt)

Question 10

What is an affix?

Answer 10

no lexical category*, always bound

Question 11

Pre vs suf vs in

Answer 11

Front of base, back of base, within base

Question 12

Root vs. Base

Answer 12

Root: The one morpheme that carries the
major component of meaning
Base: one or more morphemes
– form to which any affix is attached

Question 13

What is a compound?

Answer 13

Compounds contain two or more roots

Question 14

Rightheaded?

Answer 14

the right root is usually the head (the morpheme that
determines the lexical category of the entire
compound)

Question 15

2 ways to represent compounds

Answer 15

Trees and bracketing

Question 16

Constituent?

Answer 16

constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure.

Question 17

Tests for compound words

Answer 17

1. Stress
   black board = compound (a chalkboard)
   black board = phrase (a board that is black)
   • primary stress is usually not placed on heads
   of compounds
2. Placement of regular inflection
   • tense and plural markers can’t go inside
   compounds
3. Must stay together
4. Semantic drift
   Meaning doesn’t have to be a combination of the parts

Question 18

Derivational vs. Inflectional

Answer 18

Derivational affixes change the meaning of the word
– Some change syntactic category of the word
Inflectional affixes
– mark things like tense and number
– don’t change the syntactic category of the word
– adjust meaning slightly

Question 19

Noun inflection: What is case?

Answer 19

provides information about the role that a
noun plays in a sentence
Nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, ablative

Question 20

Noun inflection: What is grammatical gender?

Answer 20

= traditional name for a kind of noun class
system in languages like French, German,
Russian, …

Question 21

Noun inflection: What is Noun class?

Answer 21

Classes may be partly semantically defined:
people, animals, inanimate things, body parts, etc.
– Grammatical gender = one kind of noun class
system

Question 22

Types of Inflection

Answer 22

– case, gender, noun class, number on nouns

– tense and aspect on verbs

Question 23

Noun inflection: What is numbers?

Answer 23

Common system: plural vs. singular

Question 24

Verb inflection: Tense

Answer 24

Indicates the point in time, relative to the
time of speaking that an event took place
Temporally when

Question 25

Verbs inflection: Aspect

Answer 25

Expresses the duration or time of
completion of an event
temporally how

Question 26

Category change: Inflection vs. Derivation

Answer 26

Inflectional affix: does not change the grammatical
category
• Derivational affix: often* changes the grammatical
category of the base

Question 27

Ordering: Inflection vs. Derivation

Answer 27

Inflectional affixes always follow derivational affixes

when both are present

Question 28

Semantic Composition: Inflection vs. Derivation

Answer 28

• Meaning of inflected
complex word:
– Sum of its parts i.e.
compositional
meaning
• Meaning of a derived
complex word:
– Sum of parts OR
meaning may have
drifted

Question 29

Productivity: Inflection vs. Derivation

Answer 29

• Inflectional affixes:
– are more productive than derivational affixes
– attach to virtually* all instances of the category
• Derivational affixes:
– often attach to only a restricted set of bases

Question 30

English has 8 inflectional affixes

Answer 30

1. plural: “cats”
2. possessive/genitive case: “the cat’s paw”
3. 3rd person sg. agreement: “the cat jumps a lot”
4. past tense: “the cat jumped off the couch”
5. progressive aspect: “the cat is jumping”
6. perfective aspect: “the cat has jumped”
7. comparative: “this cat is fluffier”
8. superlative: “this cat is the fluffiest”

Question 31

Root internal changes

Answer 31

changes inside the root can mark grammatical

change

Question 32

Suppletion

Answer 32

change in entire morpheme, eg. is ~ was

Only in high frequency words

Question 33

Reduplication

Answer 33

copy some part of the root and add it to the

root

Question 34

Conversion

Answer 34

A new word is created by assigning an existing word to a new category (noun, verb, adj, etc.)

Question 35

Clipping

Answer 35

Creating a new word by shortening an existing

multisyllabic word