Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure

Question 1

Morphology

Answer 1

The system of categories and rules involved in word formation and interpretation.

Question 2

Lexicon

Answer 2

A speaker’s mental dictionary, which contains information about the syntactic properties, meaning, and phonological representation of a language’s words.

Question 3

Word

Answer 3

The smallest free form found in language.

Question 4

Free form

Answer 4

An element that can occur in isolation and/or whose position with respect to neighboring elements is not entirely fixed.

Question 5

Morpheme

Answer 5

The smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning or function (e.g., books consists of the two morphemes book ? s).

Question 6

Simple word

Answer 6

A word that consists of a single morpheme (e.g., horse).

Question 7

Complex word

Answer 7

A word that contains two or more morphemes (e.g., theorize, unemployment).

Question 8

Free morpheme

Answer 8

A morpheme that can be a word by itself (e.g., fear).

Question 9

Bound morpheme

Answer 9

A morpheme that must be attached to another element (e.g., the past tense marker -ed).

Question 10

Allomorphs

Answer 10

Variants of a morpheme (e.g., [-s], [-z], and [-?z] are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme).

Question 11

Root (of a word)

Answer 11

In a complex word, the morpheme that remains after all affixes are removed (e.g., mind in unmindfulness).

Question 12

Affix (Af)

Answer 12

A bound morpheme that modifies the meaning and/or syntactic (sub)category of the stem in some way (e.g., un- and -able in unreadable).

Question 13

Lexical category

Answer 13

The word-level syntactic categories noun (N), verb (V), adjective (A), and preposition (P).

Question 14

Tree

Answer 14

A diagram that represents the internal organization of a word, phrase, or sentence.

Question 15

Base

Answer 15

The form to which an affix is added (e.g., book is the base for the affix -s in books, modernize is the base for the affix -ed in modernized).

Question 16

Derivation

Answer 16

In morphology, a wordformation process by which a new word is built from a stem—usually through the addition of an affix—that changes the word class and/or basic meaning of the word.

Question 17

Class 1 affixes

Answer 17

A group of affixes that (in English) often trigger changes in the consonant or vowel segments of the base and may affect the assignment of stress.

Question 18

Class 2 affixes

Answer 18

A group of affixes that tend to be phonologically neutral in English, having no effect on the segmental makeup of the base or on stress assignment.

Question 19

Compounding

Answer 19

Creating a new word by combining two or more existing words (e.g., fire + engine).

Question 20

Compound word

Answer 20

A word made up of two or more words (e.g., greenhouse, pickpocket).

Question 21

Head (of a word)

Answer 21

The morpheme that determines the category of the entire word in a compound (e.g., bird in blackbird).

Question 22

Endocentric compound

Answer 22

A compound word in which one member identifies the general class to which the meaning of the entire word belongs (e.g., dog food is a type of food in English).

Question 23

Exocentric compound

Answer 23

A compound whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of its parts (e.g., redneck, since its referent is not a type of neck).

Question 24

Inflection

Answer 24

The modification of a word’s form to indicate the grammatical subclass to which it belongs (e.g., the -s in books marks the plural subclass).

Question 25

Stem

Answer 25

The base to which an inflectional affix is added (e.g., modification is the stem for -s in the word modifications).

Question 26

Productivity

Answer 26

In morphology, the relative freedom with which affixes can combine with bases of the appropriate category.

Question 27

Case

Answer 27

A morphological category that encodes information about an element’s grammatical role (subject, direct object, and so on) (e.g., the contrast between he and him).

Question 28

Agreement

Answer 28

The result of one category being inflected to mark properties of another (e.g., the verb marked for the person and/or the number of the subject).

Question 29

Internal change

Answer 29

A process that substitutes one nonmorphemic segment for another to mark a grammatical contrast (e.g., sing, sang, sung).

Question 30

Ablaut

Answer 30

A vowel alternation that marks a grammatical contrast (e.g., mouse/mice).

Question 31

Umlaut

Answer 31

The effect that a vowel (or sometimes a glide) in one syllable can have on the vowel of another (usually preceding) syllable.

Question 32

Concatenative (morphology)

Answer 32

A term used for the morphological process that builds word structure by assembling morphemes in an additive, linear fashion.

Question 33

Suppletion

Answer 33

A morphological process that marks a grammatical contrast by replacing a morpheme with an entirely different morpheme (e.g., be/was).

Question 34

Partial suppletion

Answer 34

A morphological process that marks a grammatical contrast by replacing part of a morpheme (e.g., think/thought).

Question 35

Reduplication

Answer 35

A morphological process that repeats all or part of the base to which it is attached.

Question 36

Full reduplication

Answer 36

A morphological process that duplicates the entire word (e.g., in Turkish, t?abuk ‘quickly’/t?abuk t?abuk ‘very quickly’).

Question 37

Partial reduplication

Answer 37

A morphological process in which part of a stem is repeated to form a new word (e.g., in Tagalog, takbuh ‘run’ and tatakbuh ‘will run’).

Question 38

Internal change

Answer 38

A process that substitutes one nonmorphemic segment for another to mark a grammatical contrast (e.g., sing, sang, sung).

Question 39

Suppletion

Answer 39

A morphological process that marks a grammatical contrast by replacing a morpheme with an entirely different morpheme (e.g., be/was).

Question 40

Partial suppletion

Answer 40

A morphological process that marks a grammatical contrast by replacing part of a morpheme (e.g., think/thought).

Question 41

Reduplication

Answer 41

A morphological process that repeats all or part of the base to which it is attached.

Question 42

Partial reduplication

Answer 42

A morphological process in which part of a stem is repeated to form a new word (e.g., in Tagalog, takbuh ‘run’ and tatakbuh ‘will run’).

Question 43

Full reduplication

Answer 43

A morphological process that duplicates the entire word (e.g., in Turkish, t?abuk ‘quickly’/t?abuk t?abuk ‘very quickly’).

Question 44

Cliticization

Answer 44

The process by which a clitic is attached to a word.

Question 45

Clitic

Answer 45

A word that is unable to stand alone as an inde

Question 46

Enclitic

Answer 46

A clitic that attaches to the end of a word.

Question 47

Proclitic

Answer 47

A clitic that attaches to the beginning of a word.

Question 48

Host

Answer 48

The element to which a clitic is attached.

Question 49

Conversion

Answer 49

A word-formation process that assigns an already existing word to a new syntactic category (also called zero derivation) (e.g., nurse [V] from nurse [N]).

Question 50

Clipping

Answer 50

A word-formation process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables (e.g., prof from professor).

Question 51

Blend

Answer 51

A word that is created from parts of two already existing items (e.g., brunch from breakfast and lunch).

Question 52

Backformation

Answer 52

A word-formation process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language (e.g., edit came from editor through the removal of -or).

Question 53

Acronym

Answer 53

A word that is formed by taking the initial letters of (some or all) of the words in a phrase or title and pronouncing them as a word (e.g., NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Question 54

Initialisms

Answer 54

Abbreviations that are pronounced as a series of letters rather than as words (e.g., LA for Los Angeles).

Question 55

Onomatopoeic words

Answer 55

Words that sound like the thing that they name (e.g., plop, hiss).

Question 56

Word manufacture

Answer 56

The creation of a word from scratch, sometimes with the help of a computer (also called coinage) (e.g., Kodak).

Question 57

Eponyms

Answer 57

Words created from names (e.g., quixotic from Don Quixote).

Question 58

Borrowing

Answer 58

A source of language change that involves adopting aspects of one language into another; can include adding new words to a language (e.g., fengshui added to English from Chinese).