Morphology Flashcards
(46 cards)
affix
a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form
affixation
a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base
agglutinating language
form words through the combination of smaller morphemes to express compound ideas
allomorph
any of two or more actual representations of a morpheme.
alternation
the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization
ambiguity
a quality of language that makes speech or written text open to multiple interpretations
analytic language
a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of helper words (particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections
bound morpheme
a morpheme that can appear only as part of a larger expression
bound root
a root which cannot occur as a separate word apart from any other morpheme
closed lexical category
the category of function words—that is, parts of speech (or word classes)—that don’t readily accept new members
compounding
morphological operation that—in general—puts together two free forms and gives rise to a new word
conjunction
a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions
content morpheme
a root that forms the semantic core of a major class word
content word
words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur
derivation
the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as un- or -ness
determiner
a nominal syntactic category distinct both from adjectives and nouns
form
describes the physical structure of the material
free morpheme
A morpheme that can carry meaning on its own, and does not require a prefix, suffix, or infix to give it meaning
function morpheme
a morpheme which simply modifies the meaning of a word, rather than supplying the root meaning.
function word
words that exist to explain or create grammatical or structural relationships into which the content words may fit
fusional language
a morphological system in which one morpheme, usually an inflectional affix, expresses several different meanings or grammatical functions
hierarchical structure
suggests the division of compound and derived words into their basic constituents
homophony
the linguistic phenomenon whereby words of different origins become identical in pronunciation.
incorporation
a phenomenon by which a grammatical category, such as a verb, forms a compound with its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function.
