§05 AFFIXATION (MORPHOLOGY Part 2)
R. David Zorc
McNeil Tech., LRC

morphology – the study of the makeup of words and the parts of words (partials) across the world's languages (affixation, derivation, inflection, declension, conjugation, etc.)
Why study morphology? Of what value is it to your work. Dictionary, Reader, Textbook.

morphological level of linguistic analysis – studying how a given language forms words

morpheme – the smallest individually meaningful element in a language

morph – a single morpheme

allomorph – an alternate form of the same morph, e.g., -s, -z, -əz {plural allomorphs}

homomorph – a word unit or partial that accidentally sounds the same as another but has a completely different meaning, e.g., -er (1) {kin}, (2) {more}, (3) {doer}; ear (1) of corn, (2) auditory organ

nonce or nonsense morph – a meaningless element in a compound, e.g., cobweb, cranberry, window [ < Old Norse vindauga, vindr 'air, wind' + auga 'eye']

order of morphs AKA morphotactics – the usual position that a given morph takes, e.g., care/less/ness, en/clos/ed, bright/en/ed [see also: phonotactics, word order]

productive (morph) –a word part that is used a lot in a language, e.g., English -s {plural} [contrast: unproductive]

unproductive (morph) – a word part that is rarely used in a language, e.g., English -en {plural} limited to oxen, brethren, children [contrast: productive]

unique morph – forms that do not occur again and again in the same language (strawberry = straw is related to strew) [See also: nonce or nonsense morph]

compound – a word that contains two or more roots, e.g., blackbird, blueberry, headache

word family – the full collection of all derived forms in a language (friend (friends = inflection), friendly, friendliness, unfriendly, unfriendliness, friendship, befriend (befriended & befriending = inflection)

affix – any morph added to a root [see: prefix, circumfix (simulfix), infix, and suffix]

prefix – small word part or morpheme that comes before or in front of a root or stem, e.g., English un-, pre-, co-, etc.

suffix – small word part or morpheme that comes after a root or stem, as English -ed or -ing

circumfix AKA simulfix – the combination of two or more affix types that co-occur with a single root in a language [e.g., prefix + suffix, infix + suffix; English unfriendly, Tagalog kasulatan 'writings' = sulat + ka- -an]

first order (suffix or prefix) – when two or more affixes occur on a word, the first of the series, e.g., uncooperative

second order (suffix or prefix) – when two or more affixes occur onn a word, the second of the series, e.g., uncooperative

infix – small word part that breaks up a word, i.e., it is inserted after the first part of the word, e.g., English abso-bloody-lutley, Tagalog sulat 'write,' sinulat 'was written,' sumulat 'wrote'

inner-layer suffix AKA pre-suffix – an affix that comes after the root, but before any other suffixes are added, e.g., kind-li-ness

free (morph) – can occur independently or in isolation, e.g., truck [contrast: bound]

bound (morph) – only occurs affixed or compounded with other morphs, e.g., truck/er [contrast: free]

discontinuous morph – forms that go together but do not directly follow one another (English perfect progressive = I have be/en work/ing)

empty morph – a word part that has no meaning (only morphological or grammatical function, e.g., therm/o/meter, phon/o/graph, like to eat, want to go, have to stay)

phonological conditioning – the change of shape of a word based on the sound, e.g., English –s {plural} or –ed {past}, or in- {negative}

morphological conditioning – the change of shape of a word based on the shape, e.g., English {negative} un-, non-, a-

lexical conditioning – the change of shape of a word based upon the idiom of a language's vocabulary (e,g., English white, black, red take –en {cause}, but green, blue, yellow do not)

Xhi-o-Xlo – mixture of level (higher level term is put first followed by -o- and then lower level), e.g., morphophoneme, textomorpheme

= = = REVIEW!
morphophoneme – a sound that will vary depending on how the word is formed and what kind of sound it is next to

morphophonemic changes – sporadic changes in the form of a word [see also: sound changes]

morphotactics [see: order of morphs]

ablaut – the vowel change involved internal to some English roots, e.g., sing – sang, run – ran, etc.

accent shift – the movement of accent away from the pattern of the root word, e.g., térritory – territórial, enígma – enigmatic

regular – following the normal pattern of a given language

irregular – not following the normal pattern of a given language (e.g., suppletion, zero)

sandhi – sound changes that occur across word boundaries, e.g., Did you eat? > [dya-iyt], do not > don’t

suppletion – a form that involves a complete change of root, such as English good – better (not gooder), one – first (not oneth), mine ( = I + possessive)

vowel change – the change in a root vowel’s quality when a different part of speech is formed, e.g., food – fodder, grass – graze, sign – signature, etc.

vowel harmony – the change of one vowel to match another; not common in English, but it yielded many cases of ablaut historically; this is the reason why strong became strengthen (the -o- harmonized with the -e- of the Old English suffix -yen)

word class – See: part of speech

word formation – simple term for morphology

zero affix AKA zero morph = Ø – the lack of a suffix or affix in a paradigm where one might be expected, such as He bet-Ø $5 (not bett-ed), fish-Ø (not usually fishes), sheep-Ø (not sheeps), cost-Ø (not costed), hit-Ø (not hitted), etc.