Linguistics: Understanding Words and Morphemes

Words that can be broken down into smaller meaningful units (morphemes).

Words that cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful units.

Words that function as a single unit but consist of a verb and a particle.

A combination of words that functions as a unit within a sentence. They don't necessarily have to be broken down into morphemes.

Smallest meaningful unit of language that can be broken down from a complex word.

Morphemes that carry meaning like nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Morphemes that indicate grammatical functions like plurals, tenses, and possession.

The study of how words are formed.

A unit of expression that native speakers recognize intuitively in both spoken and written forms. Example: "cat", "run", "happy".

A linguistic unit that can be spoken meaningfully on its own.

An element of speech with meaning, used grammatically, and understood by a community.

Difficult to define and identify consistently, due to issues with word boundaries, status, and imprecise concepts like 'idea'.

A unit of writing, marked by spaces, that corresponds to one or more sounds in speech. Example: 'washing-machine'.

A unit of speech, often identified by pauses or other phonetic features.

A general term encompassing both orthographic and phonological words.

An abstract unit representing a set of variant forms. Example: 'walk' represents 'walk', 'walks', 'walking', 'walked'.

A morpheme added to the beginning of a word that changes its meaning. Examples include "un-", "dis-", and "pre-".

A morpheme added to the end of a word that changes its meaning or grammatical function. Examples include "-ing", "-ly", and "-ment".

A morpheme that can stand alone as a word. Examples include "cat", "run", and "happy".

A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word. Examples include "-ing", "-ly", and "-ment".

A morpheme added to a word that creates a new word with a different meaning. Examples include "-er", "-ness", and "-ment".

A morpheme added to a word that changes its grammatical function. Examples include "-s", "-ed", and "-ing".

The part of a word that can stand alone as a word. Examples include "cat", "run", and "happy".