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Questions and Answers
Which of the following best describes function words?
Which of the following best describes function words?
What characterizes inflectional morphemes?
What characterizes inflectional morphemes?
What is the primary function of bound morphemes?
What is the primary function of bound morphemes?
Which of the following best defines a suppletive form?
Which of the following best defines a suppletive form?
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What is the term for the process of changing the vowel of a stem to indicate grammatical information?
What is the term for the process of changing the vowel of a stem to indicate grammatical information?
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Which of the following examples illustrates the characteristics of inflectional morphemes?
Which of the following examples illustrates the characteristics of inflectional morphemes?
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Which statement accurately describes derivational morphemes?
Which statement accurately describes derivational morphemes?
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In the context of morphemes, what does a root refer to?
In the context of morphemes, what does a root refer to?
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Which of the following statements about morphemes is incorrect?
Which of the following statements about morphemes is incorrect?
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What is one challenge that arises from the definition of morphemes?
What is one challenge that arises from the definition of morphemes?
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Study Notes
Morphology
- Morphology is the study of word formation
- A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language
- The word "tourists" contains three morphemes: tour, -ist, and -s
- Grammar needs a list of morphemes to understand how words are formed
- A lexicon lists morphemes (not words), along with their information
Two Classifications of Morphemes
1.1 Classification Based on Form
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Free morphemes: Stand alone as single words (e.g., system, kill, pretty, badly)
- Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
- Represent concepts, actions, attributes, and ideas
- Function words (articles, prepositions, conjunctions): show grammatical relations, little semantic meaning
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Bound morphemes: Must attach to other morphemes (e.g., im- in impossible)
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Inflectional morphemes: Change grammatical properties (tense, number, person) of words, without changing the word class
- Examples in English: -s (plural), -ed (past tense), -ing (present participle)
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Derivational morphemes: Change the word class (e.g., -ist changes tour to tourists, making it into a noun)
- Can change the grammatical category
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Inflectional morphemes: Change grammatical properties (tense, number, person) of words, without changing the word class
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Example - English: Adding -s (suffix) makes the word plural
Morphology continued
- Clitic is a morpheme which has syntactic properties of a word, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase
- Clitics can be attached to a host
- Example: Contractions (I'm, we've)
1.2 Classification Based on Meaning
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Lexical morphemes: Directly convey meanings
- Concrete meanings (verbs, adjectives)
- High frequency (infrequent in individual words compared to grammatical morphemes)
- Open word class
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Grammatical morphemes: Show grammatical relations between words
- Abstract meanings
- High frequency
- Closed word class
Derivation
- Creates new words from existing ones
- Allows new words to enter language
- More efficient for expressing phrases
Inflection
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Adds grammatical information to a word, based on the context
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Marks properties like singular/plural, past tense etc
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Example: marking the tense of a verb
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Examples of inflectional contrasts: Person, Number, Gender, Case
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Description
Test your understanding of morphology, the study of word formation, in this informative quiz. Explore different types of morphemes, their classifications, and the roles they play in language. Dive into concepts like free and bound morphemes and their significance in grammar.
