Morphology Flashcards
(50 cards)
Morpheme
Most basic unit of linguistics that holds meaning (ex. unbuttoned has 3 morphemes)
Prefixes
Morphemes at the beginning of the word (ex. anti-, re-, un-)
Suffixes
Morphemes at the end of a word (ex. -ing, -able, -s)
Infixes
Morphemes in the middle of the word (ex. -fucking- (abso-fucking-lutely)
Inflectional
Adds more grammatical information to the word without changing meaning (number, case ,etc.)
Derivational
Alters the meaning of a word (ex. wrap vs unwrap)
Can be done through other methods, not just suffix, infix, prefix (Ex. cringe (verb) vs. cringe (adjective))
Free Morpheme
A morpheme that can stand alone (ex. cat)
Bound Morpheme
A morpheme that cannot stand alone and needs to “bound” to another to have a proper meaning (ex. CATS: cat - free, s - bound)
Possessor
Morpheme that indicates the possession of something
Root
The core of the world, dictates the meaning of the word
(Ex. happiness - happy)
Affix
The bound morphemes that attach to the root
(Ex. happiness - ness)
Base (Stem)
The part of the word that affixes are added to
(Ex. Happiness - happi)
Concatenative
The morpheme are added beside the root word
(Ex. un-writt-en)
Non-Concatenative
The morphemes are added within the root word
(Ex. (Arabic root word for written - ktb turns into “unwritten” - kutib (imbedding u and i))
Cautionary Note
Sometimes words with prefix, suffix, or infix don’t have root words
(Ex. submit, receive - these are all 1 morpheme)
Noun
Entities - places, things, people, etc.
Verb
Actions, doing something
Adjective
Qualities/characteristics of nouns, descriptive words
Adverb
qualities/characteristics that describe verbs
Apposition
Express spatial/temporal relations
(Ex. on, at , when, for, by, over, under, while, during)
Class 1 Derivational Class
Triggers phonemic change
(Ex. the second c in critic changed from a [k] to a [s] in criticize)
Class 2 Derivational Class
Phonologically neutral, there is no effect on the phonemic makeup of the word or its stress placement
(Ex. fear - fearless)
Compounding
Combining free morphemes (full words) to create a new word
(Ex. binge+watch = bingewatch, hand+watch = handwatch)
- Stress is usually on the first word
- Tense and plural morphemes can only be added to the second word.
(Ex. dropped kick is wrong but drop kicked is right)
- Its category (verb, noun, adjective) determined by the right most word in the compound
(Ex. watch determines compound - noun and verb in this specific case)
Endocentric Compound
The meaning of the compound comes from the actual words, its obvious what it means
(Ex. blue-bird, drop-kick)
