CH. 2: Words and Their Parts (Lexicon and Morphology)

Question 0

phonological

Answer 0

a word’s sound and sequencing

Question 1

what 4 kinds of information does using a word require?

Answer 1

phonological, semantic, syntactic, morphological

Question 2

semantic

Answer 2

a word’s meaning

Question 3

syntactic

Answer 3

a word’s category and how to use it in a sentence

Question 4

morphological

Answer 4

how related words such as the plural and past tense are formed

Question 5

mental lexicon

Answer 5

information stored in the brain’s dictionary

Question 6

mental v. desk dictionary

Answer 6

a mental lexicon doesn’t normally contain etymological, illustrative, or spelling information

Question 7

3 ways to identify lexical categories

Answer 7

1. ) words with parallel forms belong to the same category - e.g. spoon and spoons (noun) v. older and oldest (adjective)
2. ) words and categories that can occur together in phrases - e.g. nouns can be preceded by ‘the’ and ‘a’ and adjectives can be preceded by ‘very’ or ‘too’
3. ) relying on meaning

Question 8

verbs (2)

Answer 8

• base form (without any endings) can be preceded by ‘can’ or ‘will’
• some require a noun, some don’t (transitive/intransitive)

Question 9

nouns (2)

Answer 9

• nearly all English nouns have distinct singular/plural forms (a few exceptions… deer and sheep) - called number
• inflections at end of nouns represents info about ‘number’

Question 10

adjectives (5)

Answer 10

• recognized by pattern of related forms (endings -er and -est except basic forms containing more than 2 syllables)
• can be preceded by ‘very’ or ‘too’
• can precede nouns
• can fit into ‘it seems____’
• some suffixes may be helpful in identifying adjectives (-able, -ful)

Question 11

pronouns and 5 types (2)

Answer 11

• function independently, taking place of noun phrases

- 5 types: personal, interrogative, relative, indefinite, demonstrative

Question 12

personal pronouns (and person)

Answer 12

• distinguished from one another by representing different parties to a conversation or other social interaction
  1. ) first person–speaker: I, me, mine, we, us, ours
  2. ) second person–addressee: you, yours
  3. ) third person–spoken about: she, her, hers, he, him

Question 13

interrogative pronouns

Answer 13

used to ask questions (who, what)

Question 14

relative pronouns (2)

Answer 14

• resemble other pronouns but used differently

- are related to some preceding noun phrase

Question 15

indefinite pronouns

Answer 15

pronouns whose referents can’t be specifically identified (somebody, someone, anyone, nothing, everything, etc.)

Question 16

demonstrative pronouns

Answer 16

• used to refer to things when the referent can be identified by pointing or from the context of a discussion
• only when used independently of a noun

Question 17

determiners (3)

Answer 17

• determiners precede nouns
• do not have endings
• introduce nouns or noun phrases

Question 18

prepositions (3)

Answer 18

• invariant in form (no endings)
• typically precede a noun phrase (at a concert, on Tuesday, etc)
• indicate semantic relationship between other entities

Question 19

postpositions

Answer 19

like a preposition but follow the noun phrase instead of preceding it

Question 20

adverbs (5)

Answer 20

• can’t be identified solely by form; don’t generally have related forms
• many are derived from adjectives by adding ‘-ly’
• can identify by patterns of distribution in sentences (where and with which categories)
• often indicate something about action of the verb (when - now, then, often; where - here, there)
• can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and even whole sentences

Question 21

conjunctions (2 types)

Answer 21

two kinds: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions

Question 22

coordinating conjunctions (coordinators)

Answer 22

serve to conjoin expressions of the same category or status (e.g. noun phrases verbs, adjectives, similar clauses)

Question 23

subordinating conjunctions (subordinators)

Answer 23

link one clause to another in a noncoordinate role

Question 24

morphemes (def.+2)

Answer 24

the meaningful elements in a word - not equated with syllables - some have lexical meaning (look, kite, tall), some represent a grammatical category or semantic notion (past tense, plural, comparative degree)

Question 25

monomorphemic

Answer 25

a single morpheme (Connecticut, hippopotamus)

Question 26

free morphemes

Answer 26

morphemes that can stand alone

Question 27

bound morphemes

Answer 27

morphemes that cannot stand alone

Question 28

derivational morphemes (2)

Answer 28

- morphemes that produce new words from existing words | - how? by changing the meaning of a word or by changing a word's lexical category

Question 29

inflectional morphemes

Answer 29

change the form of a word but not its lexical category or its central meaning; create variant forms of a word to conform to different roles in a sentence or in discourse

Question 30

affixes

Answer 30

suffixes (follow the stems), prefixes (in of a stem) | -derivational morphemes can be prefixes, but generally inflectional morphemes are added to the outermost parts of words

Question 31

infixes

Answer 31

morpheme inserted within another morpheme

Question 32

nonconcatenative

Answer 32

discontinuous morphology

Question 33

circumfixes

Answer 33

combine a prefix and a suffix into a morpheme that occurs in two parts, one on each side of a stem

Question 34

interweaving morphemes

Answer 34

e.g. arabic (all the nouns in verbs in 2.1 contain the same KTB root, with other morphemes interwoven)

Question 35

portmanteau

Answer 35

joining several morphemes in such a way that the sounds in the word cannot be tidily assigned to each of its morphemes (smog)

Question 36

morphemes are layered within words

Answer 36

true >truth >truthful >untruthful

Question 37

how does a language increase its vocabulary? (3 ways)

Answer 37

1. ) new words can be formed from existing words (adding morphemes to a word, duplicating morphemes, creating compounds, shortening, back formation, functional shift, semantic shift) 2. ) words can be borrowed from another language (most have been nouns; sooner or later conform to the pronunciation pattern and gram. rules of borrowing languages) 3. ) new words can be made up, created from scratch (not common, used as trademarks for products/companies)

Question 38

functional shift

Answer 38

a word belonging to one category can be converted to another category without any changes to the form of the word (e.g. update as a verb or noun)

Question 39

semantic shift

Answer 39

words can take on new meanings by extending or shrinking scope of their reference

Question 40

blends

Answer 40

first sounds of one word are mixed with final sounds of another (smog); often serve as trade names

Question 41

initialisms

Answer 41

resemble acronyms but are pronounced as a sequence of letters

Question 42

acronyms

Answer 42

initial letters are joined and pronounced as a word

Question 43

back formation

Answer 43

pronunciation>pronunciate (pronounce) or well established ones like typewrite, baby-sit, spectate