“Morphology” Glossary

1) Morphology: The study of the internal structure of words.

2) Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning or function.
3) Content (lexical) words: Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs which carry
concepts such as objects, actions, attributes and ideas.
4) Open class: A class of words that is open to add new words.
5) Function (grammatical) words: Words that does not always have a semantic
meaning but have a grammatical function.
6) Closed class: A class of words that rarely has new words.
7) Monomorphemic word: A word that consists of one morpheme.
8) Free morpheme: A morpheme that can stand alone as a word.
9) Bound morpheme: A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word, and is always
part of word.
10) Affix: A bound morpheme attached to a base.
11) Prefix: The affix that comes before other morphemes.
12) Suffix: The affix that comes after other morphemes.
13) Infix: The affix that comes in the middle of another morpheme.
14) Circumfix: The affix that comes before and after the base morpheme.
15) Root: The morpheme to which other morphemes are attached.
16) Stem: The base to which an affix is attached.
17) Base: Any root or stem to which an affix is attached.
18) Derivational morpheme: A morpheme added to a base to form a new word with
new meaning.
19) Derived word: The word that results from adding a derivational morpheme.
20) Inflectional morpheme: A bound morpheme that has a grammatical function
according to rules of syntax.
21) Productive morpheme: A morpheme that apply freely to every base.
22) Case: The grammatical relation in a sentence.
23) Case morphology: The process of marking a case by the inflectional morpheme.
24) Reduplication: Inflecting a word by repeating all or part of a word.
25) Hierarchical structure: The grouping and subgrouping of morphemes in a word.
26) Tree diagram: A graphic that represents the hierarchical structure of a word.
27) Suppletive forms: Inflected morphemes in which regular rules do not apply.
28) Accidental / lexical gap: A word that is possible but non-occurring.
29) Back-formation: The creation of a word by removing an affix from an old word.
30) Compound: The creation of a word by joining two or more words.
31) Head (of a compound): The rightmost word.
“Syntax” Glossary
1) Syntax: The part of grammar that represents a speaker’s knowledge of structure
of sentences and phrases..
2) Rules of syntax: The rules that determine the correct word order, hierarchical
structure, whether there is structural ambiguity, etc.
3) Head: The central word of a phrase whose lexical category defines the type of
phrase.
4) Complement: The phrasal category that may occur next to a head which
completes the meaning.
5) Specifier: The element preceding the head that is a modifier of it.
6) Adjunct: A phrasal category that is sister to an X` and daughter of a higher X`.
7) C-selection: The classifying of verbs and other lexical items in terms of the
syntactic category of the complements that they accept.
8) S-selection: The classifying of verbs and other lexical items in terms of the
semantic category of the head and complements that they accept.
9) Transitive verb: A verb that must take an NP complement.
10) Intransitive verb: A verb that cannot take an NP complement.
11) Constituent: A syntactic unit in a phrase structure tree.
12) Phrasal category: The class of syntactic categories that comprise the root of an
X-bar structure including NP, VP, AP, PP.
13) Functional category: Words that have grammatical functions rather than
descriptive meanings.
14) Lexical category: The word-level syntactic categories of noun, verb, adjective,
and adverb.
15) Grammatical or syntactic category: Expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality.
16) Grammatical relation: The syntactic relationship between constituents in a
clause or sentence.
17) Small clause: An XP consists of an NP followed by a bar level category.
18) Dominate: The higher node that dominates the categories that can be traced down
the tree beneath it.
19) Immediately dominate: A node that dominates the categories one level below.
20) Node: A point in a tree where branches join.
21) Phrase structure rule: A principle of grammar used as a guide for building trees.
22) Phrase structure tree: A tree diagram with syntactic categories information.
23) X-bar theory (schema): A template that specifies how the phrases are organized.
24) Recursive rule: A phrase structure rule that repeats its own category on its right
side.
25) Move: Relocating elements to different parts of the structure to achieve certain
purposes.
“Syntax” Glossary
26) Transformational rule: A syntactic rule that applies to a phrase structure and
derives a new structure by moving, deleting, or inserting elements.
27) Spell-out rules: Rules that convert inflectional features into their proper
phonological forms.
28) D-structure: The basic syntactic structures of the grammar.
29) S-structure: The structure that results of applying transformation rules to a d-
structure.
30) Structural ambiguity: Same sequence of words that has more than one meaning.
31) Structure dependent: A principle states that the application of transformation
rules is determined by phrase structure properties.
32) Universal Grammar (UG): The natural principles and properties related to the
grammars of all human languages.
33) Parameters: Variations that must be set according to the requirements of the
language.
34) Principles: Statements that are true for all human languages.
35) Declarative sentence: A sentence that makes a statement or states a fact.
36) Yes- no question: An interrogative sentence that expects an answer of “yes” or
“no”.
English Affixes
Noun to adjective:
Affix Example
-ish boyish, bluish
-ous virtuous, dangerous
-an Elizabethan, American
-esque picturesque
-ate affectionate
-ful healthful, colorful
-ic alcoholic, Arabic

Noun to verb:
Affix Example
-ize moralize, criticize
-ate vaccinate
-en hasten
im- imprison
be- befriend
en- enjoy
in- inhabit

Noun to noun:
Affix Example
-ship friendship, relationship
-ity humanity, unity
-dom kingdom
-ite New Jerseyite
-age coverage, package
-ine Pauline
-n American
-arian vegetarian, establishmentarian
mono- monolingual, monotheism, monologue
dis- disadvantage, disbelief, disability
ex- ex-wife, ex-president
auto- automobile, autograph
un- unemployment, unrest

Verb to adjective:
Affix Example
-able lockable, readable, changeable
-ive creative, active
-ory transitory
-y runny
English Affixes
Verb to verb:
Affix Example
un- unlock, undo
re- replace, recover, resolve
dis- disconnect, displace, discharge
auto- autodestruct

Verb to noun:
Affix Example
-al refusal, acquittal
-ance assistance, clearance, appearance
-ation realization, separation
-er singer, writer
-ist conformist
-ion prediction, creation

Adjective to adjective:
Affix Example
-ish pinkish, bluish
-like redlike
a- amoral, aloud
il- illegal, illogical
in- inappropriate, inaccurate
un- unhappy, unlockable, fair
semi- semicolon, semifinal
dis- disagreeable, disappointed
sub- subminimal

Adjective to verb:
Affix Example
en- enslave, enlarge, enrich
-en darken, fasten

Adjective to noun:
Affix Example
-ness tallness, richness, illness, sickness
-ity specificity, sanity, equality
-ism realism, monolingualism
-dom freedom

Adjective to adverb:
Affix Example
-ly quickly, exactly, secondly
Comparisons
Inflectional Morphemes
Grammatical function
No word class change
Small or no meaning change
Often required by rules of grammar
Follow derivational morphemes in a word
Productive
Complement
Sister to the head X
Comes first
We cannot use “one replacement” test with
it
A phrase can have only one complement
The direct object of verb phrase is always
complement
The NP object of PP is complement
The of-completion in AP is a complement,
as in jealous of Harry
Hamad Al-Homidan
2017/12/20
Derivational Morphemes
Lexical function
May cause word class change
Some meaning change
Never required by rules of grammar
Precede inflectional morphemes in a word
Some productive, many nonproductive
Adjunct
Sister to an X` and daughter of a higher X`
Comes next
We can “one replacement” test with it
Multiple adjuncts are allowed
Anything else in a verb phrase is adjunct
-
-