morphology terms

a word

is a unit of meaning that is identified in discourse (writing, speech) as a unit of form between pauses (spaces in writing). In other words, word is a combination of vocal sounds or one such sound used in a language to denote an idea, and which constitutes the minimal element of speech, having a meaning as such. Each occurrence of a graphic/spoken form is a word token, which naturally corresponds to a word type; it is a unit of form with which speakers of a language identify a specific meaning, this is how words are stored in our mental lexicon, and also in traditional dictionaries, where we look for the meaning as well as the form of a given word; the perfect example of a word is a correlation of meaning with a minimal unit of speech

multiword lexical items

units of meaning larger than words (consisting of words); idioms, fixed expressions

phonological criteria

words should have one primary stress, words can be preceded and followed by pauses in speech, certain phonological rules operate within words, other across word boundaries

orthographic words

sequences of letters between pauses, a matter of convention

prototypical words

are associated with relatively stable meanings, are relatively free with regard to the items to which they can be adjacent

listemes

words or ultimate minimal meaningful units in a language

morphemes

abstract units and they are represented by morphs in utterances; not only the smallest units of grammatical structure they are the smallest meaningful units of language as a system

monomorphemic

phonological words which contain only one morpheme; bimorphemic – two, polymorphemic – more than two

free morphemes

morphemes that can stand on their own as lexical items; not to be confused with roots, stems, bases

bound morphemes

morphemes that have to co-occur with other morphemes

cranberry morphemes or cran-morphemes

morphemes which do not occur outside specific compounds; units of form without any corresponding meaning; empty morphemes; competitive, kongijski

zero morphemes

a unit of meaning with no physical form to go with it; kobieta (genitive)

Latinate formations

words felt polymorphemic classified as indivisible units revive, revise, survive, deserve, preserve, infer, induce, invoke etc. We cannot systematically assign meanings to their so-called parts.

roots

most important semantically, contentful morphemes; other are affixes, prefixes, suffixes, these are always bound but roots can also be bound (audi- in auditory, audience, audition)

polymorphemic words

may consist of ether one free or bound root or more than one free root; compounds – two or three free roots in English (toothbrush, forget-me-not); rarely and of foreign origin – two bound roots (electrolysis, microscope)

combining forms

bound roots in compounds

phonologically conditioned allomorphs

conditioned by the phonological environment; the plural and the past simple morphemes

lexically conditioned allomorphs

conditioned by specific lexical items and grammar of these items; wife and loaf which select the voiced allomorph before the plural ending

allomorphy

the occurrence of different allomorphs in different environments

inflectional morphology

studies the word-forms dependent on the grammatical context

derivational morphology

studies the forms whose presence in sentences or other complex syntactic contexts is not conditioned by the latter and which contribute independently to the semantics of the sentence in which they occur

inflection

the morphological marking of grammatical properties on a lexeme; a set of grammatical forms forming an inflectional paradigm

morphosyntactic forms

grammatical forms; can be differentiated on the basis of their grammatical function; sb rows vs multiple rows

dictionaries

do not list regular allomorphs, but do list irregular allomorphs

suppletion

go and went are different roots and different morphemes, not allomorphs

suppletive forms

good/better, człowiek/ludzie

vowel mutation

when plural forms differ in constituent vowels (tooth, man)

binary nouns

pluralia tantum; occurring exclusively in the plural form (pants, scissors)

zero suffix/zero allomorph

when plurality is not marked

clitics

normally bound morphemes, like affixes, but different to them, which are attached to independent words (called anchors or hosts); may be attached to the beginning (proclitics l’ami) or the end (enclitics Mary’s); many clitics may be written as separate words such as articles in Italian or French (l’homme= *le homme); cannot stand on their own and are unselective of their hosts

simple clitics

represent the same word class as their independent equivalents and behave syntactically like the latter (they are unaccented variants of free forms)

special clitics

those which have no independent equivalents, such as the English Saxon genitive -’s.

syncretism

when the paradigm shows forms that are identical morphologically; syncretized forms

defective paradigms

e.g. modal, auxiliary have and be

irregular paradigms

e. g. pending, beware – only one form in the paradigm

the paradigm of adjectives

gradation; positive, comparative and superlative; suffixation or analytical

classes to which inflection applies

primarily open but also pronouns and determiners

derivational morphology

studies the relations which obtain between lexemes which are derived from each other. And which form what we can call derivational paradigms.

base

this part of the lexemes to which we attach a derivational suffix; can be simple (built out of one root; free or bound) or complex (containing more than one morpheme)

Simple word

are monomorphemic (no inflection, no derivation) move, go, stay, car, nice.

Simplex words

are simple words to which we assign inflection; moved, stays, cars, nicer.

Complex words

consist of one free morpheme (lexical) and derivation morpheme(s); mover, staying, teacher. Inflection does not change the word classification (teacher and teachers are both complex words).

Compound words

consist of at least two bases (usually free bases, free morphemes); car driver, movie theatre, itgirl.

Compound-complex words

are compounds which have undergone derivation; ex-car driver, pseudo-it-girl. Inflection does not change the word classification; ex-car driver and ex-car drivers are both compound-complex words.

zero derivation and conversion

when word class changes, a new lexeme is derived, but the form stays the same

derivation of adverbs

suffixes like from adjectives; -ly, from nouns; -wise, -wards or monomorphemic such as seldom, soon never

derivation of nouns

from nouns; suffixes like -let, -ette, -ess, -er, -an, -ship, -hood, -ist, -an, from adjectives; -ity, -ness, -ism, from verbs; -ance, -ment, -ing, -ation, -al

derivation of adjectives

from adjectives; un-, in-, sub-, pre-, anti-, -ish; from verbs; interesting, drunk, damaged; from nouns; -ful, -less, -al, -ish

derivation of verbs

from verbs; de-, re-, un-, dis-; from nouns and adjectives; de-, en-, -ify, -ise, conversion

Infixation

In English it is possible to insert free forms like bloody into the form like albloodymighty, air conbloodyditioner; common

Interfixation

an interfix is an element the follows one root and precedes another one; śrub-o-kręt, dw-u-kropek; common

Circumfixation

German; gefragt, gesagt; rare

Transfixation

In Semitic languages consonantal skeletons may be filled in with different vowels to render different lexemes; k-t-b (write) serves to form kátab (write), kitáab ( book), kútub (books), káatib (clerk), kátaba (clerks); rare

Prefixal-suffixal derivation

the prefix and suffix are applied simultaneously as in Polish; podłużny, pagórek, etc. In English; embolden, enliven; rare

Suprafixation

common in English, superfix changes the word category of the base; permit, produce, protest, transport

prefixation

combinations of free morphemes (lexical) with bound lexical morphemes (prefixes); modify the base; class-maintaining and carry the secondary stress in complex lexemes; can have adjectival role (ex-minister), adverbial role (rebuild), locative and temporal meaning (extracellular, pre-existing)

Synthetic prefixes

those which are attached to non-existing English lexemes; undoubted.

Pseudo-prefixes

prefixes which do not modify the whole lexeme, but only part of it; post-Freudian

Suffixation

is the mirror image of prefixation; a bound morpheme is attached to the end of a base; the morpheme should be also transitional and relatively productive; class-changing; bring about base allomorphy

Infixation

bound morphemes that are inserted into a word to form a new lexeme; English has no infixes

concatenative processes

operations involving putting together two or more meaningful elements; affixation, compounding/composition

nonconcatenative processes

operations involving modification of the internal structure of a given lexeme

prototypical compounds

two bases (bound roots), modifier specifying the head, modifier does not take inflection, pronounced as a unit, spelt solidly or with a hyphen, meaning cannot be easily derived form to components, undergo lexicalisation, are institutionalised, treated as lexemes

compound stress rule

phrases tend to be stressed phrase-finally, that is, on the last word, compounds tend to be stressed on the first element; has exceptions such as apricot crumble

endocentric compounds

determinative compounds; typical compounds in which heads are specified by other elements

exocentric compounds

are not subordinate to the head (paperback is not a type of back); the head and the meaning of the lexeme are not to be found in such compounds, they lie outside of the compound, so to speak; paleface, highbrow, they show a high degree of figurativeness; based on the metonymic relationship between the salient feature and the person (thing); also called possessive compounds; bahuvrihi

Copulative compounds

those in which neither element is the head, the meaning obtains through the conjunction of both; actor-director, actor-manager, Japanese-American; dvandva

appositional compound

poet-translator–the compound describes one and the same person

coordinative compound

nature-nurture–the compound refers to two separate items juxtaposed

Genitive compounds

very simple type characterized by the use of the possessive construction; driver’s seat, beginner’s luck, ladies’ room.

Particle compounds

formations which contain grammatical morphemes; breakdown, takeoff, setback, bypass, overcoat, underground; with figurative meanings; may be also analysed as nominalizations of phrasal verbs or prefixations

Neo-classical compounds

compounds which contain combining forms of Greek and Latin origin; microscopic, melodramatic, photographic, archaeological, theological; often contain the element “o” (of Greek origin) and are used in specialized terminology

Phrasal compounds

comprise syntactic phrases which may be shortened; used very often as modifiers in noun phrases; one-to-one, law and order, ground-to air, bread-and-butter, forget-me-not, pepper-and-salt

Non-concatenative processes

involve some modification of the structure of the existing lexeme(s); prototypical process comprises those whereby lexemes change their shape; backformation, clipping, conversion, reduplication, acronymy, blending

back-formation

back-derivation; found in derivation and not in inflection; the formation of anew lexeme by the deletion of a suffix, or supposed suffix, from an apparently complex form by analogy with other instances where the suffixed and non-suffixed forms are both lexemes; laser > to lase where laser comes from an acronym, also preemptive > preempt

Clipping

a polysyllabic lexeme is shortened in a more or less arbitrary fashion; three major types; back clipping (advertisement > ad, fanatic > fan), fore-clipping (hamburger > burger, violoncello > cello, telephone > phone), mixed clipping (influenza > flu, refrigerator > fridge); belong to the same part of speech, they have the same referential meaning, they are considered less formal

Conversion

a word-class exchange BUT the derivations (a) pilot – (to) pilot, (to) cook – (a) cook, empty (to) empty are methods of word coinage! It is just modification of function but not of form; conversion can be made to look like affixation

supramorpheme/supermorpheme

a phonetic pattern (morpheme) that changes with the word class change

Reduplication

(repetition/copying) Malay orang ‘man’, orang-orang ‘men’); relatively common in onomatopoeic expressions e.g. ćwir ćwir, gę gę, hau hau; full (one word repeated unchanged); ablaut (a word repeated with a different vowel – hip-hop), rhyme (a word is repeated with a different consonant – boogie-woogie)

acronymy

acronymisation; a word-manufacturing, usually used with names of new scientific discoveries, trade names, organization names, offices; joining together initial letter/ (rarely syllables) of the components of a longer phrase; AIDS = Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, UNESCO, VIP, VAT, RADAR, SCUBA; initialisms/abbreviations type (pronounced as letters – BBC, UK), acronym proper type (pronounced like a word – NATO)

Blending

(contamination) phonetic fragments of two or more words are put together to make a single lexeme; a combination of clipping and compounding; smog = smoke and fog, brunch = breakfast and lunch

generality

refers to the use of a derivational or inflectional process which is predictable on the basis of the formal characteristics of the bases and applied universally to all the adjectives of that type

regularity

refers only to the application of a certain process to a well-defined category of words, which however does not imply that all words of a certain type will take the suffix

productivity

defined in terms of generality and regularity

general formal productivity

if all the words of a formal pattern undergo a specific word-formation or inflection

limited formal productivity

when not all words can be changed in this way

fossils

those which cannot be described in terms of formal regularity; unproductive regularly

semantic regularity

a derivation process is semantically regular when the contribution that it makes to the meaning of the lexemes it produces is uniform and consistent

semantic blocking

the morphological derivation of a word meaning is inhibited by its existing counterpart with exactly the same. Cf. the examples of curiosity and glory and the non-existence of cury or curiousness or gloriosness.

Reanalysis

called also resegmentation, refers to a situation in which once monomorphemic forms are perceived and analysed as bimorphemic (multimorphemic); linked with folk etymology (popular etymology), that is remotivation of morphological structure, semantically opaque forms are reinterpreted as if they were transparent for speakers, cf. for example; penthouse, hamburger (also –ness a result of popular etymology)

Grammaticalisation

refers to all those processes in which a lexical element becomes more and more grammatically functionalized; becomes grammatical in nature, or a less grammatical element becomes more grammatical, or when a derivative element becomes inflectional, for example (the suffixes in words such as childhood, cupful, kingdom, manly were once words on their own; in words like childlike, the element (-)like is undergoing the process of grammaticalisation.

Analogy

is a process whereby one morphological form changes under the influence of another (a class of others)

analogical levelling or analogical extension

exceptions are lost, the regular pattern (productive) of adding -ed to verbs to form Past Tense forms influences the inflection of some verbs with irregular inflection, for example cleave and strive; an extra allomorph is created/added – ring – ringed – rang

analogical spreading

when a given pattern is extended over some other classes of words, for example in inflection. Cf. in Common Scandinavian the use of the genitive marker –s has spread to all classes of nouns