Morphology

Question 1

What is morphology?

Answer 1

The study of how words are formed and structured within a language.
The way elements are combined in word formation

Question 2

How are morphemes categorised?
criteria

Answer 2

According to:
-autonomy (free vs bound)
- meaning/function (lexical vs grammatical)
- position (prefix, suffix)

Question 3

what are allomorphs?

Answer 3

Variations of a morpheme.
Can be:
- phonologically (days and horses)
- morphologically (a grammatical rule triggers a change)
- lexically conditioned (mouse-mice; child-children)

Question 4

Lexemes vs word forms

Answer 4

Lexeme: basic unit of meaning in semantics
Word form: inflected form of a lexeme (singer, sing, sung, singing)

Question 5

Types of words (2)

Answer 5

Monomorphemic
polymorphemic

Question 6

What is the base or stem of a word

Answer 6

The element to which a bound
morpheme is attached

Question 7

Free grammatical morphemes

Answer 7

auxiliaries, articles,
demonstratives, conjunctions,
prepositions, pronouns;
(indicating aspect, modality,
proximity, etc.)

Question 8

types of existing affixes

Answer 8

prefixes
suffixes
infixes
circumfixes

Question 9

what are unique morphemes

Answer 9

morphemes which can’t be assigned a meaning nor a grammatical function (cranberry, boysenberry, huckleberry, etc)

Question 10

which are the bound grammatical morphemes

Answer 10

past tense -ed
plurality (-s)
progressive aspect (-ing)
etc

Question 11

which are the inflections in English

Answer 11

Plural
possessive
past tense
past participle
3rd person singular
progressive
comparative
superlative