Morphology: Understanding Word Structure

Study Notes

Morphology

Morphology is the study of word structure, including how words are built from smaller parts and how languages indicate grammatical relationships.
A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit with meaning or grammatical function.
Morphemes can be free, meaning they can stand alone as words (e.g., "boy", "in"), or bound, meaning they must be attached to other morphemes (e.g., "-ish", "-ness").
Bound morphemes are also called affixes, which can be prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes, or roots.
Prefixes are attached to the beginning of a word (e.g., "un-", "bi-").
Suffixes are attached to the end of a word (e.g., "-er", "-ing").
Infixes are inserted within a word (e.g., Tagalog).
Circumfixes are attached to both the beginning and end of a word (e.g., German, Chickasaw).
Root morphemes are the base of a word and provide its core meaning (e.g., "deceive", "lukewarm").
Derivational morphemes change the meaning or grammatical class of a word (e.g., “un-” in “unhappy” changes the meaning of “happy”).
Inflectional morphemes mark grammatical distinctions like tense, number, and case (e.g., "-ing" in "walking" indicates present participle).
Back-formation is the creation of a new word by removing an affix (e.g., "donate" from "donation") or a mistakenly perceived affix (e.g., "edit" from "editor").
Compounds are words formed from two or more independent words (e.g., "blackboard", "firefighter").
The head of a compound is the rightmost word, which determines its meaning and grammatical category.
Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are called open class words because new words can be added to these categories.
Function words (prepositions, conjunctions, articles) are called closed class words because new words are rarely added.

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words.
The average English speaker knows about 20,000-40,000 words.
More English words begin with the letter "s" than any other letter.

Mental Lexicon

Words are stored in our mental lexicon, where we associate sounds with their meaning.
Some brain-damaged patients and individuals with specific language impairments may have difficulty with function words compared to content words.

Description

This quiz explores the concept of morphology, focusing on the structure and formation of words. You will learn about different types of morphemes, including free and bound morphemes, and their functions in language. Test your knowledge of affixes, prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and root morphemes.