Morphology

Stem alterations

________: nothing is added or subtracted from the word- theres an internal alteration to the root.

Morphology

the study of word formation and meaningful changes in the forms of words

morphemes

smallest meaningful units of words

Simplex / Monomorphic word

word cannot be broken down further and still have meaning

Complex / Polymorphic word

can be broken down further (sunset, background, jumping)

Parse

break down a complex word into its simplest element

Lexical Morpheme

carries syntactic meaning, roots

Grammatical Morpheme

carries syntactic meaning

ex

childish

root

structural center

stems

root that has already been modified by a bound morpheme and is modified by a further morpheme

affixes

any added elements (prefixes, circumfixes, suffixes)

circumfixes

adding both prefix and suffix in order to change the meaning

inflexion

changing conjugate forms of the same word

lexeme

speakers are aware of inflectionally related forms of lexemes

derivation

a new word form is created from an existing word

infixation

morpheme inserted in the middle of a complex root

compounding

the formation of new words through two independent words

reduplication

repetition of all or part of a morpheme to create a new word of a different meaning

zero derivation

shift in lexical class w/out a change in phonological or morphological form

ex

fish (animal) and fish (go fishing)

suppletion

when a morpheme has a completely unrelated root as part of its set of forms