morfologia

ablaut

systematic change in the vowel sound of a word to indicate grammatical features such as tense, mood, or number (e.g. sing, sang, sung)

absolutive (case)

used to mark the subject of an intransitive verb, as well as the object of a transitive verb

acronym

formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term

affix

a letter or group of letters with a particular meaning added to the beginning or end of a word to make a new word

affixation

the process of adding an affix

agreement/concord (abbreviated agr)

occurs when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates (e.g. zielony mężczyzna, zielona kobieta)

allomorph

a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning (-ed in different words has different pronunciations)

arbitrariness

there is no natural link between a word's sound and its meaning, different languages have unique conventions, making it hard to guess word meanings in a new language

backformation

the process of forming a new word (a neologism) by removing actual or supposed affixes from another word

base

a form to which an affix may be adjoined

blend (portmanteau)

a word formed by combining the meanings and parts of the sounds of two or more words

bound morpheme

a word element that cannot stand alone as a word, including both prefixes and suffixes

case

a grammatical category determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun

category change

the shift from one word class to another

class 1

class 1 derivational affixes are the ones that change the form of the base (e.g. sane, sanity)

class 2

class 2 derivational affixes don't change the pronunciation of their base form (e.g. -ness, -less, -ful)

clipping

the process of forming a new word by dropping one or more syllables from a polysyllabic word

clitic/cliticization

a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase (e.g. ‘ve, ‘re)

coinage

using the name brand for the general item (e.g. to google instead of to look up in a search engine)

complex words

made of more than one syllable

compounding

the act of combining two lexemes to make a new word (e.g. surf and board)

conjugation

the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (the verb break can be conjugated into break, breaks and broke)

conversion

changes a word into a new part of speech without altering its form

declension

the changes that a noun or pronoun or adjective undergoes to indicate its role in a sentence

derivation

derives a new word from an existing word by adding, changing, or removing an non-inflectional affix

enclitic

a clitic that is phonologically joined at the end of a preceding word to form a single unit (at the end of the word e.g. can't)

endocentric compound

those where the overall meaning can be traced back to one of their components, typically the head noun, like 'doghouse,' which clearly refers to a house for dogs

ergative

those where the overall meaning can be traced back to one of their components, typically the head noun, like 'doghouse,' which clearly refers to a house for dogs

exocentric compound

a compound word that doesn't rely on a main word for its meaning

free forms

a linguistic form that can occur by itself, as fire, book, or run

free morpheme

can carry semantic meaning on its own and does not require a prefix or suffix to give it meaning

full reduplication

involves the exact repetition of a sound or word

gender

grammatical gender is a way to categorize nouns

head

the head or nucleus of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic category of that phrase

incorporation

the compounding of a word (typically a verb or preposition) with another element (typically a noun, pronoun, or adverb), the compound serves the combined syntactic function of both elements

infix

an affix inserted inside a word stem

inflection

process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness

internal change

the natural evolution of a language that occurs from within, rather than as a result of external influences such as contact with other languages

intransitive verb

a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object

lexicon

a vocabulary of a particular language, group, or field in which specialized words and phrases enable effective communication among group members

morph

a phonological string (of phonemes) that cannot be broken down into smaller constituents that have a lexicogrammatical function

morpheme

a meaningful linguistic unit that can't be divided into smaller meaningful parts

morphology

the internal structure of words

nominal paradigm

a theoretical framework in linguistics and philosophy that emphasizes the role of names and nominal expressions in the construction of meaning

noun class

a particular category of nouns

number

the category through which languages express information about the individuality, numerosity, and part structure of what we speak about

onomatopoeia

a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes

partial reduplication

partial reduplication is defined as the repetition of part of the word such as "flip-flop", “criss-cross” in English

partial suppletion

Only a portion of the form is replaced in partial suppletion. As an example, the th- of think (or though-t) remains unaltered, while -ink is affected

person

grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event

plural

a word that refers to more than one person, place, or thing

prefix

an affix which is placed before the stem of a word

proclitic

a clitic that precedes the word to which it is phonologically joined (e.g. t-shirt)

productivity

the degree to which speakers of a language use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation

reduplication

a word formation process in which some part of a base (a segment, syllable, morpheme) is repeated, either to the left, or to the right of the word or, occasionally, within the middle of the word

root

the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements

simple words

one syllable words

singular

of or relating to a separate person or thing

stem

the form of a word before any inflectional affixes are added

suffix

an affix which is placed after the stem of a word

suppletion

the replacement of one stem with another, resulting in an allomorph of a morpheme which has no phonological similarity to the other allomorphs

tense

the grammatical category that locates a situation in time, indicating when an action or event occurs

transitive verb

when the action of the verb passes from the subject to the direct object

tree structures

a visual representation used in linguistics to illustrate the hierarchical organization of syntactic categories and their constituents within a sentence

umlaut

a sound change in which a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel (foot feet)

verbal paradigm

the complete set of related word-forms for a single verb, organized to show how it changes to express different grammatical features like tense, mood, and voice

word

a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes

word manufacture

the mental processes involved in generating and articulating words during speech

zero derivation

the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form