Morphology II (Word-Formation Processes, Inflection)

Question 1

Conversion

Answer 1

= the creation of a new word (lexeme) by assigning an already existing word to a new word classs without any change in form
e.g. empty (A) > to empty (V)

• sometimes accompanied by minor phonological changes (“partial conversion”)
  -common stress pattern in verb-noun conversion: increase - íncrease

Question 2

Shortenings - Clipping

Answer 2

the reduction of a polysyllabic
word by omitting one or more
syllables
e.g. lab < laboratory

Question 3

Shortenings - Blend

Answer 3

a new word (and concept) created by melting two words into one
e.g. brunch < breakfast + lunch

Question 4

Initialism

Answer 4

a word formed from the initial letters of the words in a phrase

Question 5

Initialism - Acronym

Answer 5

pronounced as a word
e.g. UNICEF

Question 6

Initialism - Alphabetism

Answer 6

pronounced letter by letter
e.g. UK

→ some abbreviations represent hybrids between acronym and alphabetism, e.g. CD-ROM

Question 6

Back-formation

Answer 6

= removal of an actual or supposed (derivational) affix, leading to a base (or root) that did not exist prior to the longer word
- usually results in a change of word class and meaning
e.g. to babysit from babysitter

Question 7

Coinage

Answer 7

invention of a new word from scratch, often used for product or brand names or in (science) fiction
e.g. Nutella

Question 8

Eponym

Answer 8

a word created from a proper name (of a person or place)
e.g. teddy (bear), after Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

Question 9

Onomatopoeia

Answer 9

• a word that phonetically imitates the sound that it names
  e.g. meow

Question 10

Borrowing - Loan(word)

Answer 10

a word taken (“borrowed”) from a foreign language (the “donor language”) and incorporated into
one’s own language (the “recipient language”)
e.g. wunderkind (German),

Question 11

Borrowing - Calque

Answer 11

a word or phrase borrowed from another language by translating its componentparts
e.g. standpoint < German Standpunkt

Question 12

Inflection

Answer 12

• produces grammatical word forms of a single word/lexeme
• one of its main functions is to establish agreement between words that form a close unit within a sentence

Question 13

inflectional morphemes of English - Noun declension

Answer 13

{Plural -s}
{Possessive/genitive -s}

Question 14

inflectional morphemes of English - Verb conjugation

Answer 14

{3rd p. sg. present indicative -s}
{Past -ed}
{Present participle -ed}
{Past participle -ed}

Question 15

inflectional morphemes of English - Adjective comparison

Answer 15

{Comparative -er}
{Superlative -est}

Question 16

Ways of marking inflection in English - Suffixation

Answer 16

attaching a grammatical affix to
the end of a stem

Question 17

Ways of marking inflection in English - Stem alternation

Answer 17

expressing a grammatical contrast by stem-internal change, i.e. by modifying the phonological
segments of the stem
e.g. {past} in drank (vs. drink),

Question 18

Case in personal pronouns

Answer 18

personal pronouns exhibit a three-way case distinction:

• subject case (historical nominative) e.g. I, he, they
• object case (historical accusative/dative) e.g. me, him, them
• possessive case (historical genitive) e.g. mine, his, theirs

Question 19

Morphological Typology -Synthetic

Answer 19

rich inflectional system→ free word order

Question 20

Morphological Typology - Analytic

Answer 20

poor inflectional system; low morpheme-per-word ratio; periphrastic constructions
(e.g. auxiliary verbs, prepositions); → fixed word order e.g. English, Danish

Question 21

Periphrastic Constructions

Answer 21

expression of grammatical categories by means of analytically formed constructions with free function words, such as auxiliary verbs and prepositions
e.g. English verb phrase

Question 22

Clitics

Answer 22

morphemes that have an intermediate status between free word and affix. you’ve, I’ll, we’d