Morphology

Question 1

morphology

Answer 1

The study of the structure of words.

Question 2

morpheme

Answer 2

The smallest meaningful unit of language.
E.g. cat-s (2), friend-ship (2), hospital (1)

Question 3

free morpheme

Answer 3

can stand alone and are considered words in their own right. They make sense by themselves.

E.g. cat

Question 4

bound morpheme

Answer 4

cannot stand independently as a word as they would not make sense. They must be attached to a free morpheme.
E.g. –s (indicating plurality)

Question 5

Inflectional morpheme

Answer 5

Do not change meaning or word class; they simply provide additional grammatical information such as plurality, possession or tense.
e.g. –s, -’s, -ed

Question 6

Derivational morpheme

Answer 6

Change the meaning of words, create new words and can sometimes change the word class.
E.g. un- dis- -tion

Question 7

eight inflectional morphemes

Answer 7

-s Plural (N)
-‘s possessive (N)
-er comparative (A)
-est superlative
-s 3rd person singular person tense (V)
-ed past tense (V)
-ing progressive (V)
-en past participle (V)

Question 8

root word (Also called the root morpheme)

Answer 8

This is the semantic base or centre of meaning of a word; a root word is the smallest unit around which we build new words. It may be free or bound.

Question 9

affixation

Answer 9

The process of adding affixes to words.

Question 10

Prefix

Answer 10

Morphemes that are attached to the beginnings of words.

Question 11

Suffix

Answer 11

Morphemes attached to the ends of words. All inflectional morphemes are suffixes.

Question 12

Infix

Answer 12

Morphemes that can be added in the middle of the word.
Not common in English except in informal language (i.e. abso-bloody-lutely)