Morphology Flashcards
affix
an additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root, stem, or word, or in the body of a word, to modify its meaning
affixation
the process of adding affixes to roots or bases in order to vary function, modify meaning
agglutinating language
is a language which has a morphological system in which words as a rule are polymorphemic and where each morpheme corresponds to a single lexical meaning
allomorph
a variant phonological form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound or spelling without changing the meaning
alternation
Its the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant. The variation may be conditioned by the phonological, morphological, and/or syntactic environment in which the morpheme finds itself
ambiguity
quality of language that makes speech or written text open to multiple interpretations
analytic language
is a language that primarily conveys relationships between words in sentences by way of helper words and word order, as opposed to utilizing inflections
bound morpheme
is a word element that cannot stand alone as a word, including both prefixes and suffixes
bound root
A bound root is a root which cannot occur as a separate word apart from any other morpheme.
closed lexical category
refers to the category of function words—that is, parts of speech (or word classes)—that don’t readily accept new members. The closed classes in English include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions.
conjunction
elements that link two or more words, phrases, clauses, or sentences within a larger unit, in such a way that a specific semantic relation is established between them
content morpheme
A content morpheme or contentive morpheme is a root that forms the semantic core of a major class word. Content morphemes have lexical denotations that are not dependent on the context or on other morphemes
content word
content words are words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur.
derivation
the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as un- or -ness
determiner
is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context
form
a meaningful unit of speech
free morpheme
a free morpheme is one that can stand alone
function morpheme
s a morpheme which simply modifies the meaning of a word, rather than supplying the root meaning
function word
words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood words that have little lexical meanin
fusional language
a language in which one form of a morpheme can simultaneously encode several meanings
hierarchical structure
ways in which human culture requires an overarching structure to relate to in order to communicate.
homophony
is when a set of words are pronounced identically, but have different meanings
incorporation
a phenomenon by which a grammatical category, such as a verb, forms a compound with its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function
infix
affix inserted inside a word stem. It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem such as a prefix or suffix
inflection
is a suffix that’s added to a word (a noun, verb, adjective or an adverb) to assign a particular grammatical property to that word, such as its tense, number, possession, or comparison
input
the exposure learners have to authentic language in use. This can be from various sources, including the teacher, other learners, and the environment around the learners
lexical category
is open if the new word and the original word belong to the same category
lexicon
A lexicon is the knowledge that a native speaker has about a language. This includes information about
the form and meanings of words and phrases
lexical categorization
the appropriate usage of words and phrases
relationships between words and phrases, and
categories of words and phrases.
morpheme
meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided
morphology
the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language
open lexical category
A lexical category is open if the new word and the original word belong to the same category.
output
is the language they produce, either in speaking or writing
partial reduplication
s a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change
polysynthetic language
highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes
prefix
an affix which is placed before the stem of a word
preposition
must always be followed by a noun or pronoun in a sentence. It can never be followed by a verb.
productive
the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. It compares grammatical processes that are in frequent use to less frequently used ones that tend towards lexicalization.
pronoun
is a word that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. It is a particular case of a pro-form.
reduplicant
is a word-formation process in which meaning is expressed by repeating all or part of a word
reduplication
is a word-formation process in which meaning is expressed by repeating all or part of a word
root
A root is a word that does not have a prefix in front of the word or a suffix at the end of the word. The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents
simultaneous affix
An affix is articulated at the same time as some other affix or affixes in a word’s stem; exists only in visual-gestural languages
stem
part of a word used with slightly different meanings and would depend on the morphology of the language in question
suffix
an affix which is placed after the stem of a word
suppletion
the occurrence of an unrelated form to fill a gap in a conjugation
