How we create neologisms
A new word formed from the initial letters of other words
Acronym
The process of attaching a bound morpheme such as un- or-ed added to a word
Affixation
Our mental dictionary; the words that exist in a language
Lexicon
The process which removes a segment of speech from certain phonetic contexts
Deletion
N/A
N/A
The process o freducing a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form
Clipping
The process of combining two (or more) words to form a new word
Compounding
Two (or more) words that are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme in the same position in each word
Minimal Pair
Process that occurs when two sounds that are different become more alike (one segment of a word is influenced by another)
Assimilation
Type of language that relies heavily on word order to convey meaning and grammatical information
Analytic
The process of taking words from other languages
Borrowing
The process of repeating all or part of a word
Reduplication
A unit of sound consisting of a vowel and optional consonants before or after the vowel
Syllable
Process by which the same morpheme is pronounced different ways depending on the context
Alternation
A syllable is made up of these parts
Onset, Nucleus, Coda, Rhyme
A semantic change in which a word is used with a less general meaning
Narrowing (e.g. "mete" = any type of food --> "meat")
The process that occurs when the verb "go" becomes "went"
Suppletion
Restrictions on possible combinations of sounds within a language
Phonotactic constraints
The phonological alternation that describes the inversion of sounds in a word: e.g., why we now say bird rather than brid and horse rather than hros
Metathesis
The first thing or things you should look for when conducting a phonemic analysis
Minimal pairs
The invention of new words
Coinage/coining
The process that occurs when "ride" becomes "rode"
Ablaut
Morphemes that belong to major lexical categories and can be used as roots of more complex words
Lexemes
The process by which a segment is inserted within an existing string of segments
Insertion (Epenthesis)
Significant phonetic features that distinguish phonemes from one another and/or play a crucial role in the statement of phonological rules
Distinctive Features