Morphology and semantics

Question 1

Morpheme

Answer 1

the smallest, basic unit of meaning or grammatical function

Question 2

Types of morphemes according to Yule

Answer 2

free (functional and lexical), bound (derivational and inflectional)

Question 3

Free functional morpheme

Answer 3

words that carry functions in the sentence, rather than meaning – a, the

Question 4

Free lexical morpheme

Answer 4

morphemes that constitute words with meaning; cat

Question 5

Bound derivational morpheme

Answer 5

bound forms used to make new words/words of a different grammatical category from the stem; flush-able

Question 6

Bound inflectional morpheme

Answer 6

bound forms used not to produce new words, but to indicate grammatical function; cats, boy’s, loud¬est

Question 7

Suffixation

Answer 7

adding an affix to a stem

Question 8

Compounding

Answer 8

putting two separate lexical items together.

Question 9

Conversion

Answer 9

change of word class, to google

Question 10

Backformation

Answer 10

removal of affixes to create new meaning

Question 11

Eponymy

Answer 11

proper names becoming lexical items

Question 12

Blending

Answer 12

Combining parts of two words to form a new one

Question 13

Abbreviation

Answer 13

a shortened form of a word or phrase

Question 14

Acronym

Answer 14

Initial letters are used to create a new word with the meaning of all the words within a phrase combined; initialisms – ID, acronyms - scuba

Question 15

Clipping

Answer 15

shortening of the written form of the word, without necessarily changing the meaning

Question 16

Borrowing

Answer 16

a word from another language

Question 17

Classification of compounds

Answer 17

endocentric, exocentric, appositive, dvandva

Question 18

Endocentic compound

Answer 18

(head + modifier) pipe tobacco – one of the part is dominant, the other is subordinate

Question 19

Exocentric compound

Answer 19

Exocentric (no head) pickpocket – no semantic head; composite expression; the construction is not semantically or grammatically equivalent to any of its parts

Question 20

Appositive compound

Answer 20

both elements contribute to the meaning of the whole – man doctor

Question 21

Dvandva compound

Answer 21

coordinate relation- Austria-Hungary

Question 22

Sense relations between lexemes

Answer 22

synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, homophones, homography, polysemy

Question 23

Synonymy

Answer 23

words which, when substituting each other, can retain the meaning of the sentence; beautiful and pretty

Question 24

Antonymy

Answer 24

opposite meanings on the axis of meaning; gradable (bad-good), complementary (dead alive), converse pairs (differing in direction: father – son)

Question 25

Hyponymy

Answer 25

(hyperonym vs hyponym) – dog - chihuahua; hyponym is a kind/type of hyperonym

Question 26

Meronymy

Answer 26

(meronym vs holonym) face – eye; holonym is a part of a meronym

Question 27

Homophones

Answer 27

words that have the same pronunciation (regardless of spelling)

Question 28

Homographs

Answer 28

words that have the same spelling (regardless of pronunciation)

Question 29

Homonyms

Answer 29

homographs, homophones or both

Question 30

Polysemy

Answer 30

same form, related meanings, eg. play (sports, a game, music)

Question 31

Reference

Answer 31

the entity that the expression refers to.

Question 31

How can we account for lexical meaning?

Answer 31

Lexical items refer to concepts, encapsulating the experience of the world (whether referential (denotation) or attitudinal (connotative)). But they’re mostly arbitrary, not inherent, with the exception of onomatopoeias. Mostly conceptual, but also associative, affective, stylistic or connotative. In semantics, conceptual meaning is the literal or core sense of a word. There is nothing read into the term, no subtext; it’s just the straightforward, literal, dictionary definition of the word.

Question 32

Sense

Answer 32

the idea or cognitive significance of the expression, the idea of what the word represents.

Question 33

Main tenets of cognitive approach to semantic analysis

Answer 33

That grammar manifests a conception of the world held in a culture;
That knowledge of language is acquired and contextual;
That the ability to use language draws upon general cognitive resources and not a special language module