Morphology and Syntax

Flashcards focusing on key vocabulary and concepts related to morphology and syntax in linguistics.

Morphology

The study of the structure of words and the processes that create new words.

Morpheme

The minimal, indivisible unit of meaning which words are made of.

Free morpheme

A morpheme that can stand on its own as a separate word, e.g., teach, farm.

Bound morpheme

A morpheme that cannot stand on its own as a word; it must attach to another form, e.g., teach-er.

Coinage

The invention of totally new terms, e.g., aspirin, nylon.

Borrowing

Taking over words from other languages, e.g., piano from Italian.

Compounding

Joining two separate words to produce a single form, e.g., fingerprint.

Blending

Taking the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of another, e.g., brunch.

Clipping

Reducing a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form, e.g., ad from advertisement.

Backformation

Reducing a word of one type to form a word of another type, e.g., donate from donation.

Conversion

A change in the function of a word, e.g., the noun 'bottle' used as a verb.

Acronyms

New words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words, e.g., NASA.

Derivation

The use of affixes to form new words, e.g., unhappy.

Syntax

The study of how words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Parts of speech

Categories of words used to build sentences, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Lexical category

Categories that include open classes of words like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Functional category

Closed classes of words which include prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners.

Morphological distribution

Categorization of words based on the types of affixes that occur on them.

Syntactic distribution

Categorization of words based on their position relative to other words.