Morphology Basics Quiz

Morphology

• Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
• Free Morpheme: Can stand alone as a word (e.g., "cat", "run", "happy").
• Bound Morpheme: Cannot stand alone and must be attached to a free morpheme (e.g., "un-", "-ing", "-ly").
• Root/Base: The core of a word to which affixes are added.
• Affix: A bound morpheme that is added to a root/base to modify its meaning or grammatical function.
• Prefix: An affix that is added to the beginning of a word (e.g., "un-", "re-", "pre-").
• Suffix: An affix that is added to the end of a word (e.g., "-ing", "-ed", "-ly").
• Inflectional Morpheme: An affix that changes the grammatical function of a word (e.g., "-s" for plural, "-ed" for past tense).
• Derivational Morpheme: An affix that creates a new word with a different meaning or category (e.g., "-ness", "-ly", "-er").
• Allomorph: Variations of a morpheme that have the same function but different sounds (e.g., the plural marker "-s", "-es", or "-ies").
• Zero Morpheme: A morpheme that has no sound but contributes to the meaning of a word.
• Empty Morpheme: A morpheme that has no meaning or function beyond indicating the existence of a word (e.g., the "o" in "tomato").
• Compound Words: Words formed by combining two or more words (e.g., "blackboard", "sunlight").
• Phrasal Verbs: Verbs combined with prepositions (e.g., "look up", "give up").
• Clitics: Words that are phonologically dependent on another word and have no meaning or function outside of it (e.g., "n't" in "don't").
• Suppletion: When unrelated words are used for different forms of a word (e.g., "go, went, gone").

Feminine Forms

• Forming feminine words often involves adding suffixes like "-ess" (actress), "-enne" (patronne), or "-ine" (heroine).
• Some feminine forms are irregular and require memorization (e.g., "lioness", "aviatrix").

Word Formation

• Word Formation: The process of creating new words.
• Affixation: Adding affixes to a root/base.
• Compounding: Combining two or more words.
• Conversion: Changing the grammatical category of a word without adding an affix (e.g., "run" as a verb and "run" as a noun).

Other Concepts

• Phonology: The study of sound systems in a language.
• Syntax: The study of sentence structure.
• Pragmatics: The study of meaning in context.

Additional Information

• Multiple suffixes (affixes) can be attached to a single word, but the order can affect the resulting meaning.
• Compound words can behave grammatically as single words.
• Some words may not have an obvious morphological structure but are still considered words (e.g., "receive").