Morphology and Lexicology

English Language Lexicology

What is the lexical field?

The specific group or category that a group of lexemes belong to.

EXAMPLE: cholera, typhoid fever and measles all belong to the same lexical field of diseases. (the lexemes do not need to have the same meaning, but are about the same topic)

What are content words?

Words with a clearly definable meaning. Includes nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

What are function words?

Words that serve a grammatical purpose. Include pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and determiners.

What are the word classes?

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, interjections

What is a noun?

Words that name people, places, things, qualities or actions.

Common nouns: general name for the item. Can be concrete or abstract. Can also be count nouns (can be counted) or non count nouns.

Proper nouns: always capitalised, the names of specific things

Collective nouns: refer to groups of animals, people or things

Plural nouns: can be regular (suffix -s) or irregular (geese, feet, etc)

What is a verb?

Words that denote actions, states or processes. Can be regular (past tense -ed) or irregular.

Main verbs: express the meaning in a verb phrase. (the frog leaped, the girls danced)

What is an adjective?

Lexemes that describe the qualities and attributes of nouns, and are usually gradable. May also describe other adjectives. (example, most handsome).

Can refer to qualities (red, round), size (small, big), judgements (wicked, attractive), degree of comparison (faster)

What is an adverb?

Lexemes the modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and sentences.

Time: soon, later
Frequency: always, occasionally, never
Manner: unconvincingly, slowly
Place: around, everywhere, here, there
Degree: completely, totally, very, somewhat

ask: HOW? WHEN? HOW OFTEN? WHERE WHY?

What is a pronoun?

Used in place of nouns, noun phrases or noun clauses.

Personal pronouns: used in place of the subject or object. (X left > he left, give the book to X. > give it to her)

Possessive pronouns: used to show possession of something. (it is my book > it is mine. this is your book > it is yours)

Demonstrative pronouns: used to point to the relationship between the speaker and a person/thing. Only four: these, that, those, this. (I enjoyed THESE CDs)

Relative pronouns: directly follow the nouns they describe and introduce relative clauses. Only five: that, which, who, whom, whose. (the artwork that was hanging in the foyer was stolen)

What are prepositions?

Words that describe the relationship between element in a sentence. Describe place, direction, comparison, time, source, and purpose.

EXAMPLE: he went INTO the room, and placed his bag ON the table.

What is a conjunction?

Words that join other lexemes, phrases, or clauses together.

Coordinating conjunctions: joins lexical units of equal value (FANBOYS)

Subordinating conjunction: joins a subordinate clause to a main clause. (ALTHOUGH I had a test, I stayed at home BECAUSE I was sick)

What is a determiner?

Words (such as articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and numbers) that provide clarification about a noun.

Articles: a, an, the
Possessive adjectives: my, your, our
Demonstrative: this, that
Indefinite: each, every, all, some
Cardinals: one, two
Ordinals: first, second

What is an interjection?

Lexemes that express emotion and are capable of standing alone. Interjections in writing personalises the piece and contributes to informal register.

EXAMPLE: wow! look! oh no!

What is a neologisms?

A newly formed lexeme.

EXAMPLE: yeet ??

What is blending?

The act of composing a word out of parts of different words.

EXAMPLE: guess + estimate = guesstimate. Gigantic + enormous = ginormous

What is an acronym?

A word formed from the first letters of a string of words, that is pronounced as it is spelt.

EXAMPLE: scuba, swat

What is initialism?

When a string of words is shortened by pronouncing the first letters.

EXAMPLE: RSPCA, USB.

The presence of jargonistic initialisms such as 'ASX' (line 1) and 'FX' (line 3) contribute to the formal register of the text, making it less accessible since these abbreviations rely on the readers' ability to infer.

What is a shortening?

The act of dropping off one or more syllables from a word to create a shorter word with the same meaning.

EXAMPLE: telephone > phone, examination > exam

What is compounding?

The process of combining two lexemes to create a new lexeme.

EXAMPLE: bed + room = bedroom

What is commonisation?

The process whereby proper nouns become common nouns.

EXAMPLE: coke, esky

What is conversion?

The act of changing a word into a different word class WITHOUT the use of affixes.

EXAMPLE: just GOOGLE it if you don't know the answer.

What is borrowing?

The act of using words from other languages.

EXAMPLE: pizza (Italy), kimono (Japan), shampoo (India)

What are collocations?

Words within phrases that are so closely associated with one another that when we hear one we almost automatically provide the other.

EXAMPLE: safe and sound

What is an archaism?

Words that are no longer used in every life.

EXAMPLE: thy, thee

What is an auxiliary verb?

Supporting verbs for non-finite main verbs, add information about tense, person and number. (to be, to have, to do)

What is a modal verb?

Modal verbs: convey a range of attitudes and moods about the likelihood of an event taking place, or permission. (can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must)

What is a morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest written unit that still has meaning as a whole.

What is a root morpheme?

Single lexical morphemes (which have meaning and are usually free), they are the core in which affixes may attach

EXAMPLE: cat, jump, red, stup (stupid, stupefy, stupendous, stupor)

What is a stem morpheme?

May be roots, or a root with affixes. Stems are different from roots because they must have lexical meaning on their own.

EXAMPLE: cat, jump and red are all roots AND stems (because they have meaning on their own). Stup is NOT a stem because it does not have meaning on it's own. Instead, stupid, stupefy and stupendous are the stems.

What is a free morpheme?

The smallest meaningful unit of language that can stand on its own

EXAMPLE: cat, jump

What is a bound morpheme?

A morpheme that can only occur when attached to another morpheme.

EXAMPLE: '-ing' and "-ed"

What is a derivational morpheme?

Morphemes that change the word class or meaning of a lexeme.

EXAMPLE: the derivational suffix '-er' changes the verb 'run' to the noun 'runner'. The prefix 'un-' in 'unhappy' changes the meaning of 'happy' to a negative one.

What are inflectional morphemes?

Morphemes that serve grammatical information, do not change the word class. In English, they are all suffixes.

EXAMPLE: adding '-s' to cats makes it plural, but does not change its word class.

What is affixation?

The process of adding bound morphemes to word stems.

What is a prefix?

An affix that comes before the root.

EXAMPLE: 'im-' 'un-' 'ir-'

What is an infix?

An affix that occurs inside the root. (In English, they are non-standard intensifiers.)

EXAMPLE: abso-bloody-lutely.

What is a sufix?

An affix that comes after the root.

EXAMPLE: '-ed' '-ing' '-s'

What is a diminutive/hypocorism?

A suffix added to a common or proper noun that indicates smallness or affection. They are prominent features of Australian English, where the endings are usually ‘-o’ or ‘-y/ie’. Diminutives and hypocorisms reflect cherished Australian ideals of friendliness and casualness.

EXAMPLE: barbie, Salvos, Jackie, Tassie, prezzies, Christie

What is morphological patterning?

Creative word formations:

Initialisms, shortenings, contractions, blends, acronyms, collocations, neologisms, affixation, compounding

What is a contraction?

When two words are squeezed into one, the apostrophe signifies that part of a word is missing

EXAMPLE: I’ll, we’ll

What is lexical choice?

Synonymy, antonymy, hyponomy, collocation

What is complex lexical patterning?

Words and any forms created through affixation

EXAMPLE: category, categorise, categorical

What is simple lexical patterning?

Repetition of a word in its identical form or with simple changes

EXAMPLE: sing, sings