2. Morphology Flashcards
(4-7) (22 cards)
What’s a word? Is it important? Why? Is it, as a concept, complex? Again, why?
It’s a basic unit of the language. It’s difficult in linguistics since the simplest word has many aspects: phonemes, morphemes, etc.
The word is under a focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, psychology, philosophy, etc.
What’s a morpheme? Describe its key characteristics.
A minimal unit of syntax. They’re meaningful, but can’t be used independently.
What’s minimum free form?
It’s about primary forms. For example, the word “demonstrate” can’t be further divided. So it’s a minimal free form.
“A lion” and “alive”. What kinds of words are they?
“A lion” is a word-group, because its elements can be separated and words can be added: “a living lion”, “a dead lion”.
“alive” is a word. It’s indivisible. Morpheme “a” isn’t free.
What can you say about such a term as motivation? What are the types of motivations?
The way a word stands out. There are the following types:
1. Phonetic motivation: buzz, hiss, giggle;
2. Morphological: vitaminize, re-think;
3. Semantic: (compounds) eyewash, heart-breaking;
4. Non-motivational: (regular words) to harvest, etc.;
What’s morpheme?
Smallest linguistic unit possessing a meaning. Cannot function independently.
Define the types of morphemes.
- Free. It’s basically a word;
- Bound. It’s glued to a word and cannot function independently;
- Semi-bound. Can be used as both an affix and a free morpheme: well, half, etc.;
What’s monomorphic and polymorphic?
Monomorphic - root-words (since root is already a morpheme);
Polymorphic - more than 1 morpheme.
What are the types of abbreviations?
Simple: exam, gym, lab, doc;
Compound: BBC, NATO, TV;
What do root-morphemes and affix morphemes share in terms of meanings?
They have lexical, distributional, differential meanings. But affix morphemes also have word classes.
Describe lexical meaning of root-morphemes and affix morphemes.
The lexical meaning of root-morphemes are individual, whereas for affix morphemes it’s general.
What’s differential meaning of root and affix morphemes?
Differs from other words: (-shelf) bookshelf and bookcase.
What’s distributional meaning of affix morphemes?
It’s concerned with the meaning of the order. Found in words with 1+ morphemes. For example, “sing-er”. You can’t put it in other ways like “er-sing” since it won’t make sense.
What are the types of affixes?
Derivational/Functional. Can change word class (part of speech) and makes new words: teach>teacher.
Inflectional. Doesn’t make new words, doesn’t change word class: walk>walked. It just changes the forms of the words (grammatically). It usually happens at the end of a word. They’re used more.
What’s a stem?
It’s a part of the word that remains unchanged.
What’s secondary stem?
With an affix: work-er, luck-y.
Define the types of stems.
Simple. Nothing but a root;
Derived. Consists of 1(+) afixes: hearty-heartier;
Bound. Loan words. Without affixes they make no sense: arrogance (arrog-), clarity (clar-);
Compound. Ex: trade-union;
What’s a paradigm?
A system of grammatical forms.
What’s a principle morpheme?
The root (= simple stem).
What’re productive roots?
Roots capable of producing new words.
What’s infix?
An affix used in the middle of a word: sport-s-man.
What’s a combining form?
Do NOT confuse it with affixes. Those are borrowed words, namely from Latin and Greek, in which they were free forms, separate words. They’re bound. Ex: (kako) cacophony - ill sound, cacoephy - bad pronunciation.
