Morphemes, roots, affixes and allomorphy

what is morphology?

Morphology studies the forms and structures of words. it interfaces with phonology, semantics and syntax

what is syntax?

the context in which things occur

what is phonology?

the sounds of words

what is semantics?

the meaning

what is a morpheme?

units that recur and contribute to the meaning of a lexical item

• Morpheme- reccurs (we find it in more than one word e.g kindness, madness)

• Recurs- we find it more than one word, rather than in only one lexical item

• Words that can be broken down into meaningful units- words that have a meaning, grammatical factor

• Recur in groups of words

• We don’t find it in one single word but multiple groups of words

• 'kind' also reccr e.g kindly, kindness

• These are all words that can be broken down into meaningful untis

what is a lexicon?

The vocabulary that a person knows, or the mental dictionary in their brain.

your mental dictionary containing vocabulary.

• A lexicon is the collection of words and expressions that a person knows, or that exist in a language -> think of it as a dictionary inside your brain

• Your lexicon also contains information about words, such as how to pronounce them and how to use them in sentences.

• University, Beautiful, Give up, Ice cream -> all these words are part of my lexicon because I know what they mean

what are lexical items?

• a lexical item = an individual vocabulary recorded in the dictionary.

• a lexical item = a word or vocabulary unit that exists in our mental dictionary that represents a word or meaning, rather than just one specific form of a word.

• A lexical item is a word or expression that has a meaning. e.g dog, love, cup of tea (expressions os several words have a meaning)

• Lexical item e.g Ice cream — two words, but one lexical item expressing a particular type of food.

• Think of a lexical item as one piece of vocabulary that has a meaning.

different types of lexical items

lexical items can be unanalysable ( a single unit so can’t be broken down) e.g forest, character

lexical items can also be analysable → they can be broken down into meaningful units e.g kind-ness, beauti-ful-ly

what is accidental homophony?

• Its an association of sound and meaning

• All start iwht the same sequence of sound but are broken down into different meanings and sound/ into same morphemes

• These words don’t contribute the same meaning or function

• They do not all begin with the same morpheme- don’t contribute the same meaning or function

• Duality of patterning

e.g character, caramel, caravan

morpheme example

• examples → mad-ness, kind-ly, talk-s, sing-s

• All of these are morphemes

• 'sing' and 's' are both morphemes as they recur

what does monomorphemic mean?

they are formed just by one morpheme

e.g forest, cheap, character

what does polymorphemic mean?

they are formed by more than one morpheme

e.g kind-ness, cheap-ly, un-safe

(kind, cheap, safe)

what are morphemes?

• morphemes = smallest meaningful linguistic unit that recurs and contributes to the meaning of a word

• they are a sound meaning association

• Morphemes are units of sound and meaning that recur

• Some moprhemes that sound the same can have different meaning

• Can have several realisations

• Morphemes do have grammatical function but can have different types of realisation

however consider, conduce, convoke

Con doesn’t have its own meaning as a single unit of sound and meaning so it’s not a morpheme

what are cranberry morphemes?

It does not occur on its own outside of the word cranberry and doesn’t have its own meaning, they occur nowhere else

what is a morph?

a morph = a realisation of a morpheme

e,g mice → the plural form of the word is realized by a vowel change but not by a seperate unit

spoke and brought → it is the past tense that is not expressed by a single morpheme

what is the difference between bound and free morphemes?

free morphemes are words that make sence on its own whereas bound morphemes don’t make sence on there own

what are all the different types of morphemes?

bound

free

affix (prefix and suffix)

root

compound

what are compounds?

compounds = lexcial items that have two free root

they are two elements that both give the core meaning of the word

e.g screw-driver, ice cream, driveway

what are roots and what are the types of roots?

types of root → free and bound

free root → a root that can stand alone as a word

free root examples → de-nation-alisation, unfore-see-able, book, teach

bound root → can not appear independently and only occurs within larger words

e.g ‘-mit’ in ‘permit’ or ‘-cieve’ in ‘recieve’

what are affixes?

affixes are bound by definition, they cannot stand alone

what are suffixes?

suffixes = come after the formation of the word

e.g talked-ed, shoe-s, quick-ly, kind-ness

what are prefixes?

Prefixes = come before the word

e.g pre-school, en-large, de-tox

what is an allomorph?

an allomorph = a different form of a morpheme that varies in sound or spelling but not in meaning.

e.g in English the plural ‘-s’ has three allomorphs → ‘s’, ‘z’ and

each form represents the same pluralisation but is pronounced differently based on the proceeding sound

what is suppletion?

suppletion = when the realisation of a root morpheme within a lexeme are not similar in sound

weak suppletion → catch + caught (similar)

strong suppletion → go + went (completely different)