Definitions

Question 1

What is orthography?

Answer 1

Spelling

Question 2

What is a determiner?

Answer 2

A modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has, for example a, the, every.

Question 3

What is a definite article?

Answer 3

The definite article (the) is used before a noun to indicate that the identity of the noun is known to the reader.

Question 4

What is an indefinite article?

Answer 4

The indefinite article (a, an) is used before a noun that is general or when its identity is not known.

Question 5

What is a split infinitive?

Answer 5

An adverb between “to” and the verb itself, e.g. “To suddenly go” or “to quickly eat.”

Question 6

What is an infinitive?

Answer 6

The basic form of a verb - “to eat” or “to love” - without an inflection binding it to a particular subject or tense.

Question 7

What is mental grammar?

Answer 7

The system that all native speakers of a language have in their minds, which allows them to understand each other.

Question 8

What is an affix?

Answer 8

A addition to the base form or stem of a word in order to modify its meaning or create a new word.

Question 9

What is a conjunction?

Answer 9

A word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause (e.g. and, but, if, unless).

Question 10

What is a lexicon?

Answer 10

The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge or in linguistics, the complete set of meaningful units in a language.

Question 11

What is a content word?

Answer 11

A word that has meaning.

Question 12

What is a function word?

Answer 12

A word whose purpose is to contribute to the syntax rather than the meaning of a sentence.

Question 13

Difference between a free and bound morpheme?

Answer 13

A bound morpheme is a morpheme that can appear only as part of a larger expression, while a free morpheme is one that can stand alone.

Question 14

What is a lexical morpheme?

Answer 14

A morpheme that is contentful and can stand on its own to convey meaning.

Question 15

What is a functional morpheme?

Answer 15

A morpheme that just conveys grammatical information, such as tense, grammar or case.

Question 16

Do “lovelier” and “singer” have the same -er morpheme?

Answer 16

No. The meaning of a morpheme must be constant. The morpheme -er in lovelier and singer are two different morphemes, as one means ‘more’ and the other means ‘one who does.’

Question 17

Difference between open class vs. closed class words?

Answer 17

Open class words have had new words added to them recently, such as various verbs and nouns, e.g. “Facebook” or “frack.” Closed class words are ones like “they” or “and” which generally aren’t receptive to the addition of new words.

Question 18

Derivational Morpheme Qualities

Answer 18

Lexical function
May cause word class change
Some meaning change
Never required by rules of grammar
Precede inflectional morphemes in a word
Some productive, many non-productive

Question 19

Inflectional Morpheme Qualities

Answer 19

Grammar function
No word class change
Small or no meaning change
Often required by rules of grammar
Follow derivational morphemes in a word
Productive

Question 20

A derivational morpheme:

Answer 20

Changes the meaning of a word or its word class.

Question 21

An inflectional morpheme:

Answer 21

Only adds grammatical info without changing a word’s meaning or class.

Question 22

Name all 8 inflectional morphemes in the English language:

Answer 22

Plural -s
Possessive ‘s
3rd Person Singular Present Tense -s (it walks)
Progressive -ing
Past participle (I have eaten, driven, chosen)
Past tense -ed
Comparative -er
Superlative -est

Question 23

Name the differences between the two classes of derivational morphemes.

Answer 23

The first class of derivational morphemes affects pronunciation slightly (specific to specificity). The second one does not affect pronunciation when added to a base word (baker, wishful, boyish).
Affixes from the first class cannot be added after affixes from the second class. Affixes from the second class can be added to bases with either class.

Question 24

Inflectional morphemes come before derivational morphemes, true or false?

Answer 24

False. Inflectional morphemes come after derivational morphemes in a word (commit+ment+s but not *commit+s+ment). Inflectional morphemes are productive and apply to nearly every appropriate base, aside from irregular forms like foot, not feet+s.

Question 25

Functional difference between the inflectional affix -s and other derivational affixes?

Answer 25

Most nouns take an -s to become plural, but only some nouns take derivational affixes (idolise but not *pictureise).