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.