morphology and linguistic sign
study of form and structures of words in a language; inflection, derivation and formation of compounds
LS: form + meaning
morphemes
indivisible and meaningful units in a given language
morph and allomorph
m: concrete realisation of morpheme
a: variant forms of an identical morpheme
cranberry morph vs. empty morph
CM: we know one part of a word but not the other (Mon-day)
EM: used for linking 2 or more words together (CzechOslovakia)
inflection
changes made in the form of a word to express their relations to the other words in a sentence = conjugation and declension
word classes (Quirk)
closed classes: articles, pronouns, prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, content words
open classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
lesser categories, words of unique functions
nouns
determine: case (vocative, possessive), gender (masculine, feminine, neutral), number (sg./pl.)
verbs
determine: tense (past, present, future), aspect (simple, conti., perfect, perfect conti.), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (sg./pl.), mood (indicative and imperative), voice (active/passive)
inflectional vs. derivational morphemes:
I: always attached last, indicate grammatical property (gender and number)
D: change word class - create new words
suppletion
phonological change - occurs in the inflectional
word formation processes
- compounding: process of combining 2 words to create new word (language + teacher = language teacher)
- affixation: formation of words by attaching affixes to different types of basis - prefix/suffix (INcapable, happiNESS)
- conversion: creating verbs from nouns w/o changing the form and vice versa (book -> to book)
- blending: blending 2 words together (smog=smoke+fog)
- back-formation: shortened word (to baby sit->babysitter)
- shortenings: 1) acronyms (FBI, NYPD), 2) clippings (celeb, math) - removing 2nd half of the word
