Some Questions about Morphology What is a morpheme

Some Questions about Morphology

What is a morpheme? The smallest linguistic unit of meaning n Can not be analyzed further n ept, mit, luke, ceive are problematic examples yet they are morphemes n

What is a derivational morpheme? n Adding a morpheme to a root to give a new word…often results in change in syntactic category

What is an inflectional morpheme? n Bound grammatical morphemes that are affixed to a word

Can you write down the eight inflectional morphemes in English -s, -ed, -ing, -en, -s, ’s, -er, -est n This makes English a very poorly inflected language but highly analytic language n Historical reason was the shift in word stress n

What is a free morpheme? n Constitute words themselves; can stand on their own

Which is a more productive morpheme…un or able is more productive because it can be added to any verb but un has limitations n Often there is a lexical gap: u Unsad and ept n

What is an infix? n An affix inserted in the middle of the word.

Word Formation

What is a compound Joining two or more words to form a new word n Meaning may not always be inferred from the two morphemes and must be stored separately in the brain u flatfoot, egghead n

What is a back-formation? words that came into existence from elimination of some affix…often this is done by mistake n editor, hawker, stoker, hawker are all examples of back formations n My daughter’s example of razor n Some examples such as donation just show a normal morphological process n

What is an acronym? Words derived from initials n Question: when do you use an article? u FBI, CIA, CDC u NAFTA, AIDS, OPEC n But…UGA, KSU, IBM, NBC n

What is the OED? n Oxford English Dictionary

Who was Dr. Samuel Johnson? n Lexicographer; published Dictionary of the English Language in 1755

Two additional concepts Idioms n Metaphors n