UO LING 150-Terminology

Assimilation

(of which there are several types) is probably the most frequent type of predictable allomorphy. The other frequent types of predictable allomorphy involve insertion of sounds or the deletion of sounds.

Degeneration

(or pejoration) A word with a positive or neutral meaning can take on a negative meaning. In fact, meanings are much more likely to change for the worse than to improve!

Vocal Cords

(vocal folds) Membranes that are capable of closing the glottis.

Inflectional Suffix

* add only grammatical information * never change the part of speech. English has only eight inflectional suffixes

Derivational Suffix

* make a new word with a new meaning * usually change the part of speech

Great Vowel Shift

A change in the pronunciation of the long vowels of English, which happened in the centuries around 1500. Most long vowels were raised, but the high vowels became diphthongs.

Labiodental

A consonant produced by bringing the lower lip to the upper teeth.

Folk Etymology

A morphological reanalysis that leads to a new word.

Blend

A new word formed by combining parts of other words.

Approximate

A sonorant consonant produced with a relatively wide opening between the oral articulators.

Weakening

A sound change whereby vowels become higher and therefore less sonorous, in less prominent positions in the world.

Lateral

A sound made in such a way that air flows around the sides of the tongue.

Vowel

A sound made with air passing through a relatively unobstructed mouth.

Bilabial

A sound produced by bringing the two lips together.

Stop

A sound whose production entails the complete stopping of the airflow through the mouth.

Consonant

A speech sound made with significant narrowing or obstruction in the vocal tract.

Grimm's Law

A statement of how obstruent consonants in the Germanic languages correspond to consonants in other Indo-European languages.

Comparative Method

A technique for discovering what languages are related to each other and what their prehistoric ancestor languages sounded like. (Sound changes are Regular and Systematic)

Voicing

A type of phonation in which the vocal folds are held close together and vibrate rapidly, producing a buzzing sound.

Amelioration

A word with an unpleasant meaning can come to have a neutral or even positive meaning. Also a neutral word can become very positive over time.

Ablaut

An Indo-European morphological pattern whereby roots change their vowel in different contexts.

Interfix

An affix that is only attached between two other morphological constituents as the i in pedicure.

Acronym

An initialism where the letters are read off as a spelling of a word.

Fricative

An obstruent consonant produced by forcing air to pass through the mouth through a narrow opening, creating a rasping sound.

Affricate

An oral stop produced with a slow release of airflow.

Articulator

An organ in the vocal tract, such as the tongue or lips, that forms different speech sounds by manipulating the air flow through the vocal tract.

Semantic Shift

Change in meaning

Assimilation

If X becomes more similar to sound Y, we say that X assimilates to Y.

Allomorph

If two morphs are forms of the same morpheme, we say that those morphs are allomorphs of each other.

Norman Conquest

Normans were French-speaking descendants of Vikings who lived in Normandy. Their successful invasion of England in 1066 is called the Norman Conquest.

4 Steps of Analyzing a Word

Parse Gloss Give a literal meaning Give a dictionary definition

Narrowing

Restricting the meaning of a word to a subset of what it formerly represented.

Back Formation

Reversing imputed derivational processes to make a simpler word that did not actually exist previously.

Velar

Sounds made at the soft palate or Velum

Nasal

Sounds made with air passing through the nose.

Larynx

The Adam's apple, or voicebox.

Hellenic

The branch of Indo-European that consists of the Greek language.

Germanic

The branch of Indo-European to which English belongs. It consists of East, North, and West Germanic languages.

Italic

The branch of Indo-European to which belong Latin and all the Romance languages.

Celtic

The branch of Indo-European to which belong Welsh, Irish, Scots, Gaelic, and other languages.

Palatal

The hard plate is the bony part of the roof of your mouth. The soft plate, or velum, is the soft part behind it.

Etymology

The history of a word.

Glottis

The hole in the larynx through which air can pass through, past the vocal cords.

P.I.E.

The reconstructed proto-language from which most modern European languages descended is called Proto-Indo-European or P.I.E.

Morpheme

The smallest form which is paired with a particular meaning

Alveolar

The sockets the teeth are set in.

Morphology

The systematic study of word structure.

Sound Symbolism

The unusual situation in which a sound bears some natural connection to the object it names.

Latin/Greek Doublets

There are several regular correspondence between the sounds in Latin morphemes and those in Greek. One example is Latin s which corresponds to Greek h.

Widening

Using a word to refer to a broader concept that properly includes its former ranger of usage.

Metaphor

Using a word to refer to something that is similar in some way to the thing the word represents previously or more basically.

Metonymy

Using a word to represent something that is associated with the same thing more basically named by that word.

Analogy

When a word is formed by correlating form and function with one or more other words.

Diphthong

When two vowels are pronounced in succession in the same syllable.

Cognate

Words and word elements are cognate if they descend from the same word in the common ancestor language. Cognates and meanings are different things.

Homonym

Words that are unrelated in origin and meaning but have the same form.

Exotic Words

are borrowed from hundreds of different languages.

Affix

are morphemes which attach to roots or a combination of roots and other affixes. Their main use is to modify the meaning conveyed by the root or roots. (always bound to root)

Free Root

are roots that can occur alone as whole words.

Compounds

are words constructed from two or more roots. They may or may not have affixes.

Borrowed Words

can be further subdivided into words borrowed from the Classical languages, Latin and Greek; and, words borrowed from languages other than Latin and Greek.

Native Words

can be traced back to Old English (OE) or Anglo-Saxon (AS) and have been a part of English for as long as it has existed as a separate language. They can be traced back to the core language which certain Germanic peoples, the Anglos and the Saxons, brought with them to England over fifteen hundred years ago.

Bound Root

can never occur alone as whole words.

Characteristics of Morphemes

four defining characteristics: They cannot be subdivided. They add meaning to a word. They can appear in many different words. They can have any number of syllables.

Nasal Insertion

involves the insertion of n or m after the vowel in a root.

Metathesis

involves the switching of any two sounds.

Suffix

occur after a root (although multiple suffixes can occur at the ends of words).

Prefix

occur before a root (although several prefixes can be strung together before a single root). They modify a root in some way.

Parse/Parsing

to divide it into its morphemes.

Gloss

to give the meaning for a morpheme.

Clipping

to shorten a word without regard to morph boundaries.