Morphology Flashcards
morph
phonological (‘surface’) realisation of a morpheme
morpheme
most fundamental unit of meaning in a language
bound morpheme
requires other morphemes to make sense (e.g. grammatical endings)
free morpheme
can stand alone and carry meaning (e.g. nouns, infinitives)
analytic languages
words are composed mostly of one morpheme (e.g. Chinese)
synthetic languages
words regularly contain multiple morphemes (e.g. Latin, French)
morphological processes: derivation
deriving new meanings from a root word plus bound or unbound morphemes
morphological processes: inflection
the modification of a word to establish different grammatical categories
word formation: affixation
suffixes and prefixes
word formation: compounding
hyphens or blends
word formation: cumulation
consecutive morphemes in one form
word formation: suppletion
the presence of irregulars but still within the same paradigm
word formation: fusion
modifying morphemes and compounding them (e.g. brunch)
