Week 2 (Morphemes and Word Formation Processes) Flashcards
What is morphology?
The study of morphemes (i.e. building elements used to form composite words or grammatical units).
What are morphemes?
The smallest meaningful elements in a language.
A morpheme can be:
(two possibilities)
- A simple word, which are independent (free morpheme)
- An affix, which cannot occur on its own (bound morpheme)
What does compounding imply?
The combination of two free morphemes (e.g. fruit juice, bus stop).
Depending on their function, bound morphemes are classified into:
- Inflectional: grammatical markers. Do not change grammatical category nor meaning of the word (e.g. volunteers)
- Derivational: transform the word into a different one of a different grammatical category and with a different meaning (e.g. involuntary)
Word formation processes:
(there are seven main ones)
- Affixation
- Compounding
- Blending
- Clipping
- Conversion
- Backderivation
- Acronyms
Word formation process by which a new word is created by cutting off a part of a word.
Clipping
Word formation process in which a word is created using the first letter or syllable of a series of words they are derived from.
Acronym
A word formation process by which a word that belongs to one word category is used as a word from a different word category.
Conversion
A word formation process by which two words are combined to make a new one.
Compounding
Word formation process that uses affixes to create new words
Affixation
A word formation process by which a word with a complex structure is converted into a word of a different category and with a simpler structure.
Backderitavion
Word formation process by which two words are blended to make a new one.
Blending
If an affix is attached to a free morpheme, then it is attached to a…
Root
If an affix is attached to a word (free morpheme + bound morpheme) then it is attached to a…
Stem
