Morphology Flashcards
morpheme
the smallest linguistic element with a meaning or grammatical function
free morpheme
can occur as an independent word
bound morpheme
cannot occur as an independent word
cranberry morpheme
bound morphemes occuring in only one word in a language
e.g. cran-berry, in-ert, in-ane
affixes
- bound morphemes
- have one or more identifiable semantic or grammatical functions/meanings
- occur in more than one word in the language
base
the morpheme(s) to which an affix is attached
root
base consisting of a single morpheme
stem
base for inflectional affixes, possibly consisting of more than one morpheme
prefix
affix before base
suffix
affix after base
infix
affix inside base
circumfix
affix consisting of both a prefix and a suffix
portmanteau morpheme
single indivisible morpheme realising more than one feature
she = 3rd person, singular, feminine, subject
were = BE + past
clitics
a cross between an affix and a word. They are phonologically so short they can’t be pronounced alone and need to join other words, sometimes short forms of larger words
e.g. he’s, I’m
allomorph
variant in pronunciation of a morpheme
e.g. receive/reception
compounding
creating a word (a compound) by combining two words; either or both of these words might itself be a compound
conversion (zero derivation)
change of syntactic category of a word without adding affixes. It may involve a stress change or other minor changes in the base
e.g.
N>V: access (a file)
V>N: a look
A>V: slow (the tempo)
clipping
shortening a word by deleting phonological material (not necessarily morphemes)
e.g. prof(essor)
blending
merging to words in which at least one of them undergoes clipping
e.g. infotainment
backformation
the formation of a new word by removing affixes, change in meaning and often change in syntactic category
e.g. self-destruct (from self-desruction)
ablaut
creation of a new (form of a) word by changing vowel in the base word
e.g. sing/sang
acronymy
words formed by taking the initial letters from the words in a compound or phrase and pronouncing the word spelled by them
e.g. NATO
abbreviation
are like acronyms, but the names of the leters are pronounced
e.g. BBC
reduplication
repetition of part of a word
e.g. chit-chat, splish-splash
derivation
the use of morphologial processes to create new words; changes the meaning of a word
e.g. kill -> killer
inflection
morphological operations changing the form of a word in response to syntactic requirements; only changes meaning with regard to a feature which is part of the grammar rather than the vocabulary of the language
e.g. dog -> dogs
endocentric compounds
AB is an instance of B; the final element is the head and the other elements provide additional information about the head
e.g. strawberry jam
exocentric compounds
AB is neither A nor B; the head is not in the compound
e.g. sabretooth
copulative compound
AB is A and B
e.g. singer-songwriter
head
the element that determines the semantic and grammatical characteristics of the whole word; the head of a word is on the right in English
Productivity
the ability of an affix or process to form new (forms of) words
productive processes in English: compounding & conversion
unproductive process: ablaut
productive affixes
-er; -wise; -ful
unproductive affixes
-th (no new formations possible)
blocking
the formation of new words can be blocked by existing words with same meaning
phonological constraints
an affix/process might require or disallow bases with particular phonological properties
Example: The comparative morpheme -er disallows bases of more than one syllable
excepting bisyllabic bases ending in syllabic [n], [l] or [i]
