UNIT 2 - Morphology Flashcards
the subsystem of grammar/linguistics that studies the internal structure of words and
the processes through which these are created. It studies word structure and word formation, and
deals with the expression of grammatical meaning in different languages.
Morphology
A morphological unit. It’s an abstract sign that is the smallest grammatically independent unit of language
Word
It’s a word in an abstract sense.
Lexeme
The set of word-forms belonging to the same lexeme (always related to inflection)
paradigm
Different lexemes may also be related to each other. It’s always related to derivation
eg: colour, colouring, colourless, etc
word family
They usually denote new concepts that are different from the concept of the corresponding simple lexeme (words with derivation). They are listed separately in the dictionary and
are less predictable than word-forms.
Complex-lexemes
[Morphological relations]
The relationship between word-forms of a lexeme.
Inflection
[Morphological relations]
The relationship between lexemes of a word family.
Derivation
Some complex words belong to two or more word families simultaneously. E.g: the lexeme “firestorm”
belongs to the family of “fire” and to the family of “storm”.
- Name the relation.
Compounding
It is a grammatical morpheme which must be bound to a root or to another one of its kind. It cannot
occur by itself.
affix
The part of a word that an affix is attached to. They can be identified in
inflected word-forms and in derived lexemes.
Base
It is the base that cannot be further analysed into its constituent morphemes. It is always lexical.
Root
They’re the smallest meaningful unit of language that combines the form (the way they sound) and meaning (what they mean)
Morphemes
They’re morphemes that contribute to grammatical information or indicate relationships between the leximes
Grammatical Leximes
They’re morphemes with richer lexical vocabulary meaning. They typically belong to categories (N, V, Adj)
Lexical morphemes
Morphemes that can stand alone (eg: lexemes and grammatical morphemes)
Free lexemes
Lexemes that must be attached to the root or another morpheme (eg: inflectional or derivational affixes)
Bound morpheme
It’s a morphological process, which can be derivational or inflectional. It consists in the addition of a discrete morpheme before or after a root of another affix.
Affixation
It consists in copying some part of the root. (concatenative or non-concatenative).
Reduplication
It’s a partial or total replacement of the root by another different form.
Suppletion (partial or total)
Type of morphology that creates new lexemes from existing ones, with a change in meaning and/or form.
Derivational morphology
Type of morphology that adds grammatical information to the lexeme, in accordance with the particular, syntactic requirements of the language.
Inflectional morphology
Some morphemes behave like words in terms of their meaning and function, but are unable to stand alone as independent forms. They’re called clitics and must be attached to another word called “host”. The morphological process is called …
Cliticization
A process that assigns a new syntactic category to an already existing word. The word changes without suffixes (eg: butter –> to butter the bread)
Conversion
Process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables
clipping
Words that are created from non-morphemic parts (parts extracted from a word that have no meaning by themselves) of two already existing items, usually the first part of one and the final part of the other (eg: brunch = breakfast + lunch)
blending
Process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affiz from another word in a language (eg: television –> televise)
Backformation
They are formed by taking the initial letter of some or all the words in a phrase and pronouncing them as a word (RADAR, LASER, UNICEF, etc)
acronyms
They are pronounced as a series of letter tather than a word (eg: U.S.A, L.A, F.B.I., etc). They’re not words
abbreviations
Words that have been created to sound like the thing they name. Their form can vary from language to language
onomatopoeia
A word may be created from scratch
Word coinage
A variant form of a morpheme, which is the smallest meaningful unit of language. They are different phonetic realizations or variants of the same morpheme. These variations occur due to phonological, morphological, or syntactic conditions.
Allomorphs
