Morphology is Fun!

I

100

What is a morpheme?

1.1. morpheme is the smallest unit of morphology

1.2. the minimal unit of a language which has a meaning (lexical or grammatical) and cannot be further divided into further smaller units

200

How would you characterize free morphemes?

Free morphemes can stand alone as words and they carry meaning independetly

300

How would you characterize bound morphemes?

Bound morphemes cannot stand alone as words, they must be attached to free morphemes to convey meaning

400

Which of the following are BOUND morphemes?

a) derivational and inflectional

b) content words and function words

c) derivational morphemes and content words

d) inflectional morphemes and function words

a) inflectional and derivational morphemes

500

Which of the following are FREE morphemes?

a) derivational and inflectional

b) content words and function words

c) derivational morphemes and content words

d) inflectional morphemes and function words

b) content words and function words

II

100

What is affixation?

Affixation is the process of adding prefixes, infixes or suffixes to a base word.

200

Name at least 5 prefixes in English

e.g. un-, dis-, pre-, anti-, sub-, im-, over-, re-, inter-, post-, in-, semi-, ...

300

Name at least 5 suffixes in English

e.g. -able, -ity, -ize, -less, -ist, -ism, -ion, -ify, -ic, -hood, -ful, -ation

400

Which morphemes carry the main meaning of a word and contribute to its lexical category?

lexical morphemes

500

Which morphemes indicate grammatical relationship between words and sentences?

grammatical morphemes

III

100

Content words (free lexical morphemes) are typically open class words. Name at least 2 open word classes.

I. nouns

II. adjectives

III. verbs

IV. adverbs

200

Function verbs (free grammatical morphemes) are typically closed class words. Name at least 2 closed classes.

I. determiners

II. pronouns

III. prepositions

IV. conjunctions

300

What are auxiliary verbs? + name at least 4 of them

Auxiliary verbs (auxiliaries) are verbs used in combination with main verbs to express tense, aspect, mood, voice or emphasis.

e.g. be, do, have, shall, must, need, can, may, will

400

What does the bound grammatical morpheme -S indicate?

Morpheme -S indicates the plurality of nouns

500

What is an ablaut? + example

Ablaut is a systematic vowel change within a word's root to indicate grammatical distinction such as tense, aspect or plurality

e.g. sing-sang-sung

       woman-women

       foot-feet

IV

100

Analyze the word UNBELIEVABLE

prefix:

root/base:

suffix:

prefix: un-

root/base: believ(e)

suffix: -able

200

Analyze the word REPLAY

prefix:

root/base:

suffix:

prefix: re-

root/base: play

suffix: 

300

Analyze the word MISUNDERSTAND

prefix:

root/base:

suffix:

prefix: mis-

root/base: understand

suffix:

400

Analyze the word OVERACHIEVER

prefix:

root/base:

suffix:

prefix: over-

root/base: achiev(e)

suffix: -er

500

Analyze the word PRECAUTIONARY

prefix:

root/base:

suffix:

prefix: pre-

root/base: caution

suffix: -ary