Morphology Flashcards
What types of words are considered open class items?
Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
What information do open class items carry?
They carry the main semantic content of sentence
What can open class items sometimes be called?
Content words or content morphemes
What types of words are considered closed class items?
-Pronouns, prepositions, articles, conjunctions and other grammatical or function morphemes
-Inflectional and derivational affixes are also
considered closed class morphemes
T/F: Closed class items outweigh the number of closed class items in a lexicon
False; there are more open class than closed class items
Define morphology.
The study of the structure of words
What are meaningful subparts of words called?
Morphemes
Define the categories of morphemes
Affixes, Roots and Bases
Define the function of roots
Roots are morphemes that serve as the core of words
They provide the primary meaning of words
Define the function of affixes
Affixes are added to roots/bases and modify the meaning and/or function of a root
Define base
Base refers to a form that an affix is added to
T/F: Roots and bases are the same
False; a base may consist of a root plus an affix(es) whereas a root is simply the initial morpheme that gives its meaning to the word
Name the types of affixes
Derivational and Inflectional
Define derivational affixes
D.A.’s form words that differ from the base in meaning and/or function.
– Example: ‘un’ reverses the meaning of ‘happy’
Define inflectional affixes
I.A.’s function to indicate syntactic or semantic relations between words in sentences
– Example: agreement between:
* subject and verb: he eats
T/F: There can only be one derivational affix per root
False; words can be derived in layers and there can often be multiple D.A.’s in a word
T/F: All languages have similar amounts of inflectional affixes
False; Languages with relatively few inflections fulfill the
functions expressed by inflections in other ways by using function words as prepositions
T/F: There are only inflectional suffixes in English
True; There are no inflectional prefixes, infiexes or circumfixes in English
However, there are in other languages
T/F: Inflectional affixes can change the fundamental meaning or part of speech of a word
False; the roots classification will stay the same (ie dog and dogs are both adjectives; strong, stronger and strongest are all adjectives)
Explain the relationship between productivity and inflectional affixes
Despite some irregular forms (such as ‘go-went’), one inflection (with possible allomorphs ) will usually fulfill a designated grammatical function in the language.
* Think about how few exceptions there are to adding some form of the plural affix ‘s’ to nouns.
* New words in English generally receive regular inflection.
T/F: When there are both inflectional and derivational affixes added to the word, IA’s will occur at the outer margins (end) of the word
True; This is because obligatory grammatical occasions are often dictated by sentence structure, after a word has been retrieved with its derivational affixes
T/F: Morphemes are always stand-alone words
False; morphemes are not necessarily words on their own
What are single mopheme words called?
Monomorphemic or simple words
T/F: Morphemes are not equivalent to syllables
True
Define morpheme
As a recurring sequence of segments with a constant meaning and/or function
What are allomorphs?
Alternative pronounciations of a morpheme (ie [s] [z] [əz] )
T/F: Morphemes are always spelled the same regardless of affixes
False; morphemes can have two or more spellings in English (ie rise and “ris” in rising)
T/F: If a morpheme has multiple spellings, it is automatically an allomorph
False; if pronounciation remains the same, they are not considered allomorphs
Define free morphemes
Morphemes that can stand alone as simple words
Define the different categories of morphemes
Bound and Free
Define bound morphemes
Morphemes that cannot stand alone as words as they must be attached to at least one other morpheme before they can occur in an actual utterance
* Examples: -English plural ‘s’ and
-past tense ‘ed
List the types of positional affixes
- Prefixes
- Suffixes
- Infixes (and Trilateral Roots)
- Circumfixes
Define prefixes and provide examples
An affix occuring in front of the root (ie “un”happy)
Define suffixes and provide examples
An affix occurring after the root (ie read”er”)
Define infixes and provide examples
An affix inserted into the body of the root (ie b”um”ili in Tagalog)
T/F: English does not have infixes
True
Define Trilateral Roots
TR’s consist of three consonants to which other elements (mostly vowels) are added or infixed
Which languages are trilateral roots most commonly present in?
Semitic languages such as Arabic or Hebrew
Define circumfixes
An affix added both before and after the root
Also called discontinuous morpheme
(ie chokma to ikchokmo in Chickasaw)
T/F: English has circumfixes
False
T/F: when expanding the lexicon, closed class items are regularly expanded
False; open class is regularly expanded while closed class remains relatively stable over time
Define the ways in which the lexicon can be expanded
- Through derivational affixes
- Through compounding
Define compounding
A morphological process that occurs by combining two or more free, usually open class, morphemes to create a new word
T/F: The meaning of a compound may not be directly
discernible from the meanings of the individual
morphemes
True
Which part of a compound determines the part of speech of a compound?
The rightmost or “head” morpheme
Examples:
adjective + noun = ‘hotdog’ (noun)
noun + verb = steamroll (verb)
Define reduplication
A morphological process that involves copying or repeating a specified syllable of the root (partial reduplication) or the entire root (full reduplication)
Example:
rumah (house) becomes rumahrumah (houses) in Indonesian
Define internal change/alteration
A morphological process where the remaining parts of the morpheme do not recur elsewhere in the language
Example:
s”i”ng becomes s”a”ng
s-ng is not a morpheme in English
T/F: Infixing and Internal Change are the same morphological process
False
Explain the difference between infixing and internal change
With internal change, the inserted sounds do not carry specific grammatical meaning elsewhere in the language while infixes do carry the same meaning throughout many words
Define suppletion
A morphological process in which the root morpheme is complete relaced
Examples:
go becomes went
T/F: Internal change and suppletion sometimes overlap
True; some linguists use the term partial suppletion
to deal with these cases
Example:
think becomes thought
T/F: All morphological processes are predictable and can be done if the speaker understands the rules of the language
False; Morphological rules do not predict: suppletive forms or forms produced through internal change
Thus, these forms must be stored as separate items in the speaker’s mental lexicon
List the classifications of languages based on morphological process
- Analytic (isolating) languages
- Synthetic Languages
Define analytic languages and provide examples
AL use individual free morphemes to convey meaning and content as opposed to affixes
Examples:
Chinese
Define synthetic languages
Synthetic Languages use bound morphemes (affixes) attached to other morphemes (roots/stems) to convey meaning and content
Examples:
Hungarian, English
Define the categories of synthetic languages
- aggulating languages
- fusional languages
- polysynthetic languages
Define an aggulating language
Language which consists of morphemes are stuck together loosely, with boundaries fairly easy to identify. Morphemes do not change
Example:
Swahili
Define a fusional language
A language in which morphemes are stuck together but boundaries may not be easy to identify. Morphemes change (allomorphs).
Examples:
Spanish, Russian
Define a polysynthetic language
A language in which morphemes (1+ root + 1+affix) are combined into complex words. Morphemes may change (allomorphs)
Examples:
Sora (India)
List the seven question to draw a tree diagram for a multi-affixated word
- What is the root?
- What lexical category is the root?
- What affix is added to the root?
- What word does this yield?
- What is its lexical category?
- Does it serve as the base for another affix?
- What is the lexical category of the word resulting from the addition of this other affix?
How many inflectional affixes are there in English?
7
Define the following inflectional affix: -s
Function: 3rd person singular present
Attaches to: verbs
Example:
wait becomes waits
Define the following inflectional affix: -ed
Function: past tense
Attaches to: verbs
Example:
wait becomes waited
Define the following inflectional affix: -ing
Function: progressive aspect
Attaches to: verbs
Example:
wait becomes waiting
Define the following inflectional affix: -en, -ed
Function: past participle
Attaches to: verbs
Example:
taste becomes tasted
eat becomes eaten
Define the following inflectional affix: -s
Function: plural
Attaches to: nouns
Example:
chair becomes chair
Define the following inflectional affix: -er
Function: plural
Attaches to: adjectives and adverbs
Example:
tall becomes taller
fast becomes faster
Define the following inflectional affix: -est
Function: superlative
Attaches to: adjectives and adverbs
Example:
tall becomes tallest
fast becomes fastest
T/F: The longer the word, the more amount of morphemes within it
False; morphemes do not equate to syllabi
Example of lengthy single morphemes:
Madagascar and pumpernickel
Examples of short, multiple morphemes:
ads (two) and unused (three)
List the morphological processes found in English
- dervitational affixes
- inflectional suffixes
- compounding
- alternations/internal change
- suppletion
Define ambiguous morphemes
Words that are associated with more than one meaning (ie unlockable)
T/F: All affix morphemes can only attach to one lexical category of words
False; some affixes can attach to multiple lexical categories
Which morphemes can attach to multiple lexical categories?
In English, the morpheme suffix pre- can attach to multiple lexical categories and alter the root’s lexical categories
Example:
pre-exist (attaches to a verb that stays a verb)
pre-season (attaches to a noun and becomes a adjective)
pre-frontal (attaches to a adjective that stays an adjective)
