Morphology & Lexicon(24/9/10)

1. Morphology & Lexicon(24/9/10) 1.The ability to use any word in a sentence requires knowledge of its lexical category. 2.Lexical Categories mean Parts of Speech. 3.Parts of speech-eg.nouns,verbs,adjectives,pronouns,prepositions,adverbs,etc. 4.Morphemes are word parts that carry meaning.eg.true is a morpheme and untrue contains 2 morphemes.

2. Free & Bound Morphemes • Some morphemes can stand alone eg.dog,man,mother,apple,etc.These are called Free Morphemes. • Bound morphemes function as a word part,eg.un…tele…and…er…etc • Some morphemes are called suffixes,eg.girls,commitment,etc. • Others are prefixes,eg.unhappy,disappear,etc • Prefixes and suffixes are called affixes.

3. How does a language increase its Vocabulary? • 3 ways : • a)New words can be formed from existing words and word parts. • b)Words can be ‘borrowed’ from another language. • c)New words can be made up,or created from scratch.

4. Open/Closed classes • Nouns,adjectives,verbs are called open class words. • Prepositions,pronouns,determiners are called closed class. • Affixes are added to words to create new words.eg.premix,preplan,cyberspace,etc

5. Compound Words & Shortenings • Words are put together to create new words.This process is called compounding and the words are called compound words.eg.break up,pay phone,cover-up,etc. • Words are shortened to create new words.eg.indie(independent films),jet(jet air plane),etc • Other kinds of shortenings include acronyms and blends.

6. Acronyms & Blends • Acronyms are shortenings to which the initial letters of an expression are joined and pronounced as a word.eg.UNESCO,NATO,NASA,etc • Blends are words created by combining parts of existing words.eg.smog(smoke and fog),biotech(biology and technology),etc

7. Borrowed Words/Inventing Words • English has borrowed many words from other languages,eg.French,Latin,Greek,Indian,Japanese,Arabic,Spanish,Portuguese,etc • Inventing words from scratch is very common.eg.Kodak,granola,nerd,etc