Morphology Fırat Hoca

Morpheme
the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning
or function

free morpheme
a morpheme that can be a word by itself, also called a lexical
morpheme

bound morpheme
a morpheme that must be attached to another element

morphology
the study of the system of categories and rules involved in word
formation and interpretation

lexicon
a speaker’s mental dictionary, which contains information about the
syntactic properties, meaning, and phonological representation of a
language’s words. it is distributed in brain, not a dictionary

root
base form of a word which cannot undergo further analysis without
loss of the word’s identity, the part left when “deaffixed” may be free

affix
a bound morpheme that modifies the meaning/syntactic (sub)category
of the stem in some way.

• prefix: beginning (re-, pre-, anti-)
• infix: middle (-freakin-)
• suffix: end (-tion, -ism)
• circumfix: both ends (en- -en as in enlighten)

derivational morpheme
morphemes that

• change the meaning or
• change the part of speech involve word formation rules of change

inflectional morpheme
never creates a new word, but a different form of the same word; it
refines, gives extra grammatical information

zero derivation (conversion)
a word formation process that assigns an already existing word to a
new syntactic category

allomorph
variants of a morpheme (e.g. -s and -z are allomorphs of the English
plural morpheme)

morphophonemics
rules that account for alternations among allomorphs

affixation
words formed by the combination of bound affixes and free
morphemes. it is the process that attaches an affix to
the base.

compounding
words formed by the combination of two or more independent words
(e.g. bluebird)

reduplication
words formed by doubling an entire word or part of the word (e.g.
hocus-pocus)

ablaut
irregular forms by a vowel change, that marks a grammatical contrast
(e.g. sing/sang)

suppletion
irregular forms by substitutions, a morphological process that marks a
grammatical contrast by replacing a morpheme with an entirely
different morpheme (e.g. am/was)

blends
a word that is created from parts of two already existing forms (e.g.
smoke + fog → smog)

ellipsis/clipping (abbreviations)
removal of (redundant) parts (e.g. motor car → car)

back-formation
subtracting an affix, a word formation process that creates a
new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in
the language (e.g. peddler → peddle)

folk etymology
changes based on people’s conception of certain words, or how the
world works (e.g. “eggcorns”)

hypercorrection
an attribution of some form to a particular social group and stats, or
articulating the sound to a degree past the prestige form

acronyms
words derived from the initials of several words (e.g. NASA)

eponyms
a word that comes from someone’s name (e.g. Mackintosh)

borrowing
make another language’s word your own, often because of need and
prestige (e.g. chocolate (Nahuatl))

grammaticalization
a content word becomes a functional word and perhaps a bound affix

• weakening of meaning (semantic bleaching)
• weakening of sound shape (phonological reduction)

phoneme
cover symbols for sets of distinctive features

phonology
the study of the elements and principles that determine how sounds
pattern in a language

phone
any sound used in human language

allophone
variants of a phoneme

contrastive distribution
when sounds occur in the same position and environment in a
string of sounds

minimal pair
two forms with distinct meaning that differ by only one segment
found in the same position in each form

environment
the phonetic context in which a sound occurs

free variation
the free alternation of allophones and/or phonemes in a given
environment

complementary distribution
the distribution of allophones in their respective phonetic
environments such that one never appears in the same phonetic
context as the other

natural class
groups of phonemes unified by one or more distinctive features

major class features
phonological features that represent the classes consonant, obstruent,
nasal, liquid, glide, and vowel

distinctive feature
a feature that distinguishes one phoneme from another

syllable
a unit of linguistic structure that consists of a syllabic element and any
segments that are associated with it

deletion
a process that removes a segment from certain phonetic contexts

assimilation
the influence of one segment on another, resulting in a sound
becoming more like a nearby sound in terms of one or more of its
phonetic characteristics (e.g. vowels become nasal if followed by a
nasal consonant)

dissimilation

a process whereby one segment becomes less like another segment in
its environment (e.g. anma (Latin) → alma (Spanish))

metathesis
a process that reorders a sequence of segments (e.g. in child language,
pronouncing spaghetti as pasghetti)

Written Questions

variants of a phoneme

irregular forms by a vowel change, that marks a grammatical contrast (e.g. sing/sang)

morphemes that

change the meaning or

change the part of speech involve word formation rules of change

an attribution of some form to a particular social group and stats, or articulating the
sound to a degree past the prestige form

the study of the system of categories and rules involved in word formation and
interpretation
5 Matching Questions
1.

minimal pair

2.

lexicon

3.

compounding

4.

affix

5.

folk etymology

a words formed by the combination of two or more independent words (e.g. bluebird)

b two forms with distinct meaning that differ by only one segment found in the same
position in each form

c changes based on people’s conception of certain words, or how the world works (e.g.
“eggcorns”)

d a speaker’s mental dictionary, which contains information about the syntactic
properties, meaning, and phonological representation of a language’s words. it is
distributed in brain, not a dictionary

e a bound morpheme that modifies the meaning/syntactic (sub)category of the stem in
some way.

prefix: beginning (re-, pre-, anti-)

infix: middle (-freakin-)

suffix: end (-tion, -ism)

circumfix: both ends (en- -en as in enlighten)
5 Multiple Choice Questions

a morpheme that must be attached to another element

bound morpheme

morpheme

free morpheme

allomorph

the free alternation of allophones and/or phonemes in a given environment

free morpheme

free variation

back-formation

reduplication

a word that comes from someone’s name (e.g. Mackintosh)

eponyms

acronyms

phoneme

phone

removal of (redundant) parts (e.g. motor car → car)

dissimilation

ellipsis/clipping (abbreviations)

free variation

assimilation

the phonetic context in which a sound occurs

phone

environment

borrowing

lexicon
5 True/False Questions

acronyms → words derived from the initials of several words (e.g. NASA)
True        False

syllable → a unit of linguistic structure that consists of a syllabic element and any
segments that are associated with it
True        False

allomorph → variants of a morpheme (e.g. -s and -z are allomorphs of the English
plural morpheme)
True        False

grammaticalization → the free alternation of allophones and/or phonemes in a given
environment
True        False

distinctive feature → a feature that distinguishes one phoneme from another
True        False