Morphemes Flashcards
(30 cards)
What is a lexicon
words stored in the mind. Mental dictionary of speaker. It stores meaning and phonological form. It’s maximally efficient.
What is a morpheme.
smallest unit of language that carries meaning.
Where is a morpheme stored
In the mental lexicon
What is a heavy and light syllable
Heavy; vowel + consonant or glide
Light: Only vowel or syllabic consonant.
What is the most important component of word structure
morpheme
What is the difference between simple and complex words.
Simple: single morpheme (train)
complex: words contain multiple morphemes. (trains)
What is a free morpheme
Words can be by itself.
What is a bound morpheme
Morpheme that needs to be attached to another element. Affix
What is a root
semantic core of complex word. In English, usually free.
What alters the meaning (syntactic category) and is a bound
Affix.
Does an affix belong to syntactic category
No.
What is a base
A landing site for affix.
What do Roots belong to
Syntactic categories (noun,verb,adj,prep)
T or F, every affix has a base
True
T or F : Roots of complex words are always bases
True
T or F: Bases are always roots
False
What is Compositionality
Meaning of words can be derived from meaning of the parts and order.
Are complex words compositional
Yes. Meaning of entire word can be deduced from assembling the parts.
What does a morphological tree capture
Morpheme relations. (Binary branching)
Is the -en in blacken an infix
No, its a suffix that combines to adjective black to give the verb blacken.
What is a syntactic category
Group of word that shares morphological and syntactic properties. (n,v,adj,adv)
Affix -ness only attaches to what
state of being. adjectives
Un (not) attaches to what
Adjectives
Un- reverse action attaches to what
Verbs
