MORPHOLOGICAL TERMS
WORD
Definition: Words are potentially complex units, composed of even more basic units, called morphemes. A word is sometimes placed, in a hierarchy of grammatical constituents, above the morpheme level and below the phrase level. Example: "Red" and "food" are words that consist of a single morpheme. Extra Information: "Words that have meaning by themselves-boy-are called lexical morphemes. Those words that function to specify the relationship between one lexical morpheme and another-words like at, in, on, -ed, -s- are called grammatical morphemes." References:(http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy598/Ling-Morphology.pdf; http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAWord.htm;http://wac.colostate.edu/books/sound/chapter5.pdf)
CLOSED CLASS
Definition: A closed class is a grammatical class of words with limited membership. These words have primarily grammatical meaning. Example: In the sentence "She is a teacher and singer ("and" is a conjunction which is a closed class word) Extra Information: "Closed-class words or 'function words' are limited in number and act as markers or guides to the structure of a sentence. The role of articles is to signal nouns. Prepositions mark special relationships between persons, objects, and locations. Conjunctions are connectors that link actors or objects." References:(http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/closedclassterm.htm;http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAClosedClass.htm)
COGNATE
Definition: A cognate is defined as a word that shares a common etymology with another word, most often a word of a different language. Example: Philosophy in Spanish means filosofía. Both words are derived from the Latin words philo, meaning love for, and soph, meaning wisdom. Extra Information: "Two words that are cognates, therefore, share a similar historical origin. For example, cognates often share a similar root, usually from ancient Germanic, Greek, or Latin languages. False cognates refer to pairs of words that appear to be cognates because of their similarities, but have different meanings." References: (https://www.udemy.com/blog/cognates-in-spanish/)
DETERMINER
Definition: A determiner is a word or affix that belongs to a class of noun modifiers that expresses the reference, including quantity, of a noun. This function is usually performed by articles, demonstratives, possessive determiners, or quantifiers. Example: The boy is sick."The" is a definite article, meaning the person using the word is referring to a specific one. Extra Information: "In most Indo-European languages, determiners are either independent words or clitics that precede the rest of the noun-phrase. In other languages, determiners are prefixed or suffixed to the noun, or even change the noun's form. For example, in Swedish bok "book", when definite, becomes boken "the book". " References: (http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsADeterminer.htm;http://www.shaba.co/wa?s=Determiner_(linguistics))
LEXEME
Definition: A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. They are represented in small capitals while the word forms are in italics. Example: The verb lexeme RUN has the following inflected word forms: run, runs, running, and ran. Extra Information: "The use of the forms of a lexeme is governed by rules of grammar; in the case of English verbs such as RUN, these include subject-verb agreement and compound tense rules, which determine which form of a verb can be used in a given sentence." Reference:(http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Lexeme.html)
STEAM
Definition: A stem is the root or roots of a word, together with any derivational affixes, to which inflectional affixes are added. Example: The stem of unties is untie, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached. Extra Information: "In languages with very little inflection, such as English and Chinese, the stem is usually not distinct from the "normal" form of the word. However, in other languages, stems may rarely or never occur on their own. The exact use of the word 'stem' depends on the morphology of the language in question," References: (http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAStem.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_stem)
SUFFIX
Definition: A suffix is a word ending. It is a group of letters you can add to the end of a root word. Adding suffixes to words can change or add to their meaning. Example: The suffix "-ful" changes the verb use to the adjective useful. Extra Information: "A suffix can make a new word in one of two ways: inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. With derivational suffixes, the new word has a new meaning, and is usually a different part of speech. But the new meaning is related to the old meaning." References: (https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/suffixes.htm;http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/english/en17suff/factsheet/en17suff-l1-f-what-is-a-suffix.pdf)
TRANSITIVE VERBS
Definition: A transitive verb is used with an object. In other words, a transitive verb takes a noun phrase (NP) as its complement. The "agent" performs the action that is received by the animate or inanimate object. Example: In this statement "She reads a book, reads is transitive and its object is 'a book'. Extra Information: "Among transitive verbs there are three sub-types: monotransitive verbs have only a direct object, ditransitive verbs have a direct object and an indirect object. Complex-transitive verbs have a direct object and an object attribute." References: (http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/presten9.html; http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/tranverb02term.htm)
TREE DIAGRAM
Definition: A tree diagram can de used to give a structural definition of the grammatical relations subject and object. Example: In the sentence "Diego likes Laura", if we use a tree diagram, we can analyze it and conclude that 'Laura' joins with the verb (likes) to form a NP (noun phrase) tha tthen combines with the name 'Diego' to form a sentence. Extra Information: "A tree provides the following information: the word class of each word, the phrase structure of the whole sentence (what the word-groupings are, and their hierarchical structure—how they are nested or not nested inside each other), and the phrasal category of each phrase (what kind of phrase each phrase is)." References: (https://www.google.com.ec/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fkhoaanh.org%2Findex.php%3Fmodule%3DDownloads%26func%3Dprep_hand_out%26lid%3D1157&ei=UZNOVLOrOennsAS56YHoDQ&usg=AFQjCNEcwTUyIubjN0r6pYZTi-N60XcNuw&sig2=zQ-3VFYU4kXupJ6hccwdZw&bvm=bv.77880786,d.cWc; http://books.google.com.ec/books?id=gPbQyRdnM18C&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=tree+diagram+definition+(linguistics)&source=bl&ots=8wmGmIvqJt&sig=yihM4f9NgwV73yZEwziUEFtdXbo&hl=es&sa=X&ei=KnBPVNZqqNqwBKOtgpgJ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=tree%20diagram%20definition%20(linguistics)&f=false
DIALECT
Definition: A variety of a language that signals where a person comes from. The notion is usually interpreted geographically (regional dialect), but it also has some application in relation to a person's social background (class dialect) or occupation (occupational dialect). Example: Dialectal differences about vocabulary include the American English word "subway"(metro) which contrasts with the British English word "underground"(metro). Extra Information: "A dialect is chiefly distinguished from other dialects of the same language by features of linguistic structure—i.e., grammar (specifically morphology and syntax), and vocabulary. Nevertheless, while dialects of the same language differ, they still possess a common core of features." References:(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/161156/dialect)
INFIX
Definition: A word element (a type of affix) that can be inserted within the base form of a word (rather than at its beginning or end) to create a new word or intensify meaning. Example: In Tagalog, the active verb sulat (write) can be converted to a passive by inserting the infix -in- =sinulat (written). Extra Information: "The infix gets inserted before the syllable that receives the most stress. And it cannot be inserted anywhere else in the word. English has very few infixes. A few are heard in colloquial speech, and a couple more are found in technical terminology." References: (http://www.elda.org/medar-conference/pdf/39.pdf; http://es.slideshare.net/Lightpity/derivational-morphology-26958456)
AFFIXATION
Definition: Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base. Example: The words "discover", "covered", all have passed through affixation process because they have been made from adding the affixes "dis-", "-ed" into the base word 'cover'. Extra Information: "Affixation marks derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and word forms." References: (http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0183.xml)
ALLOMORPH
Definition: An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments. Example: The past form of morpheme "ed" has three allomorphs: [t] as in stopped, [d] as in smiled, and [ɪd] as in visited. Extra Information: "The term was originally used to describe variations in chemical structure. It was first applied to language in 1948, by Fatih Şat and Sibel Merve in Language XXIV. Allomorph is used in linguistics to explain the comprehension of variations in sound for a specific morpheme." References:(http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Allomorph.html; http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAnAllomorph.htm)
OBJECT
Definition: An object is a part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It refers to someone or something involved in the subject's "performance"of the verb. Example: She invited Wagner to the party: Wagner is the direct object of the verb invited. Extra Information: "Objects are most typically noun phrases. They follow the verb. They may be direct or indirect. Direct objects indicate the person or thing that undergoes the action denoted by the verb, or the participant directly affected by the action. Indirect objects indicate the recipient of a direct object." References: (http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-direct-indirect-object.php#.VEEu4Gd5P6I;http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/objecterm.htm)
OPEN CLASS
Definition: An open class is a grammatical class of words with a potentially unlimited membership. These words have content meaning. Example: "Like", "differ", "go" are verbs and they are including in the open classes. Extra information: "Open classes accept the addition of new morphemes (words), through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing; closed classes generally do not Tthere are four major classes:nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs." References: (http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAnOpenClass.htm;http://folk.uio.no/jannebj/PUBLIKASJONER_TIL_NEDLASTING/J&M.pdf; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_class_(linguistics))
TENSE
Definition: Any one of the inflected forms in the conjugation of a verb that indicates the time, such as past, present, or future, as well as the continuance or completion of the action or state. Example: Present and past tense are examples of English tenses and a distinction between them is inflectionally: make -made. Extra Information: "In languages which have tense, it is usually indicated by a verb or modal verb, often combined with categories such as aspect (how a situation or action occurs in time), mood, and voice." References: (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tense;https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Grammatical_tense.html)
CRANBERRY MORPHEME
Definition: Cranberry morphemes are morphemes that occur only as bound roots and that have no constant associated meaning. Example: "-ceive" in re-ceive, de-ceive, con-ceive. "Cranberry morphemes can arise in several ways: a dialectal word can become part of the standard language in a compound, but not in its root form (e.g. blatherskite), a compound loanword may have a recognizable native cognate for one element but not the other." References: (http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~dm/04/spring/201/08-morphology.pdf; http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/Cranberry-Morpheme.htm)
PERSON
Definition: Grammatical person usually defines the set of personal pronouns used by the speaker. It also frequently affects verbs, sometimes nouns, and possessive relationships as well. Example: I have been watching a TV show. (I= first-person singular) Extra Information: "In Indo-European languages, first-, second-, and third-person pronouns are typically marked for singular and plural forms, and sometimes dual form as well (grammatical number). Other languages use many different pronouns and verb forms that express the speaker's relationship with the people they are addressing." References:(http://englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Grammatical%20Person.pdf; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_person)
IDIOM
Definition: Idioms are fixed combinations of words whose meaning is often difficult to guess from the meaning of each individual word. Example: When someone says to you "I'm pulling your leg", it means that he or she is teasing you or playing a joke on you. Extra Information: "Idioms include all the expressions we use that are unique to English, including clichés and slang. Idioms are pervasive. They're used in formal and informal speech, conversation and writing and are part of standard speech in business, education and the media." Source: (http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/109-128-s3-idioms.pdf; http://lib.chdu.edu.ua/pdf/zbirnuku/7/37.pdf)
NOMITATIVE CASE
Definition: In language, a nominative generally refers to the subject of a sentence, which is the performer of the verb in the sentence. Example: Domenica eats chocolate cake. ("Domenica" is the subject of the verb eats; "Domenica-subject- is in the nominative case") Extra Information: "Nominative cases are found in Slovak, Hungarian, German, Latin, Greek, Old English, Polish, French, Russian, among other languages. English still remains some nominative pronouns, which are contrasted with the accusative: I (accusative me), we (accusative us), he (accusative him)." References: (http://classroom.synonym.com/difference-between-nominative-objective-pronouns-4968.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_case)
ARGUMENT
Definition: In linguistics, any expression or syntactic element in a sentence that serves to complete the meaning of the verb. Example: In "Judith kicked the ball", 'Judith' and 'the ball' are the arguments; the subject and direct object of the verb kicked. Extra Information: "Argument structure is the specification of the number and types of arguments for a verb in that structure to be well-formed. For instance, an intransitive structure requires one subject argument while a transitive structure requires both a Subject and Object." References: (http://www.sowi.uni-kl.de/fileadmin/ewiss/pdf/Verb_argument_structure_Allen2009.pdf; http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/Argument- linguistics.htm)
CIRCUMFIX
Definition: In morphology, circumfix is the combination of a prefix and a suffix that attach to a base simultaneously to express a single meaning or category. Example: The circumfix in English en- -en in "enlighten", one portion appears before the stem, the other after. Extra Information: "Although English has few examples of this type of affix, other languages use it. Circumfixes are common in Indonesian, Malay and Georgian. The circumfix is probably most widely known from the German past participle (ge- -t for regular verbs)." References: (http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Circumfix;https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Circumfix.html)
MORPHEME
Definition: Linguists define a morpheme as the smallest unit of language that has its own meaning. Example: The simple words like pen and yellow are morphemes, but also the prefix re- can be a morpheme. Extra Information: "Linguists usually classify morphemes into two main groups based on how they combine to create a word. A "free" or "unbound" morpheme is a linguistic unit that is able to stand alone and "bound" morphemes that must be bound to a free morpheme in order to create a word." Reference: (http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-morpheme.htm; http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Morpheme.html)
PHONOLOGY
Definition: Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural language. The goal of phonology is to study the properties of the sound systems which speakers must learn or internalize in order to use the langugae for the purpose of communication. Example: If we analyze the word "through", we realize that it consists of three phonemes: the initial "th" sound, the "r" sound, and an "oo" vowel sound. Extra Information: "Is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design. While Phonetics analyzes the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of language, Phonology analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and explaining how these sounds are interpreted." References: (http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsPhonology.htm;http://udel.edu/~heinz/classes/2014/607/materials/readings/Hyman-Phonological-Theory-and-Analysis/1-What%20is%20Phonology%20pp1-23.pdf)
PREFIX
Definition: Prefixes are added to the beginning of an existing word in order to create a new word with a different meaning. Example: The word "illegal" consists of the prefix "il-"which means "not" combined with the base word "legal". Illegal means against the law. Extra Information: "Although affixes are 'small particles', they carry a lot of meaning. For example, prefixes are normally used to change a word from positive to negative, or to show that an action is repeated. In other cases they are used to express relations of time, place or manner." References: (https://www.englishforums.com/content/lessons/lexical-morphology-affixes.htm; http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/prefixes-and-suffixes)
SEMANTICS
Definition: Semantics is the study of meaning expressed by elements of a language, characterizable as a symbolic system. Example: "Children are birds", "My scarf is tired", and "My books are watching TV." Extra Information: "Main divisions in the study of semantics: lexical semantics is the study of word meaning and phrasal semantics is the study of the principles which govern the construction of the meaning of phrases and of sentence meaning out of compositional combinations of individual lexemes." (http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/semanticsterm.htm,https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/branches/semantics/what-is-semantics )
SUBJECT
Definition: Subjects in English grammar are words, phrases, and clauses that perform the action of or act upon the verb. Example: "Felix laughed". In this statement the personal pronoun he is the subject. Extra Information: "The grammatical forms that can function as the subject are noun phrases including pronouns, prepositional phrases, verb phrases, and noun clauses. When the verb is in the active form, the subject of the sentence is the "do-er". However, when the verb is in the passive form, the subject is the "target" of the action." References: (http://sana.tkk.fi/awe/grammar/subject.html; http://www.linguisticsgirl.com/linguistic-definition-of-grammatical-subject/)
ONOMATOPOEIC WORDS
Definition: The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the soundsassociated with the objects or actions they refer to. Example: In Japanese, the sound of a clock is Katchin katchin. Extra Information: "Many onomatopoeic words describe the sounds that animals make. Interestingly, every language has onomatopoeic words. However, there are many different variations of onomatopoeic words. In English the rooster says "cock a doodle do," and in Chinese "gou gou," and in Thai, "ake-e-ake-ake." References: (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Words+for+sounds; http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-onomatopoeic-words.htm)
HEAD
Definition: The head of a phrase is the element that determines the syntactic function of the whole phrase. Example: In "threehouse", the head is house because it describes the basic meaning of the word and three modifies house. Extra Information: "For example, in a noun phrase, the head (also known as the headword) is a noun or pronoun. In an adjective phrase, the head is an adjective. In an adverb phrase, the head is an adverb. Headed phrases and compounds are endocentric." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/headterm.htm; http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsTheHeadOfAPhrase.htm)
WORD CLASS
Definition: The term word class refers to the category a word fits into. Words are categorised partially according to their semantic properties, and partially according to their 'behaviour' - what functions they can perform, changes they can undergo, and places they can occupy within sentences. Example: 'Brother' and 'car' are the same type of word (noun). Extra Information: "Some classes of words are called closed because they contain a relatively small number of items to which no new words can normally be added. Other classes of word are constantly being added to and these classes may be called lexical or open." References: (http://babelnet.sbg.ac.at/themepark/grammar/classes.htm; http://www.heckgrammar.co.uk/old_site/content/departments/english/langpages/wordclasses.html)
INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Definition: To linguists, inflectional morphology is the study of how inflections, or changes to a word's most basic form, changes meaning. Example: In "Paola was drawing a picture", the -ing of drawing is inflectional. This is because drawing is one of the different forms of the lexeme Draw(verb). Extra Information: "The prototypical inflectional categories include number, tense, person, case, gender, and others, all of which usually produce different forms of the same word rather than different words. Modern English has relatively few morphological inflections in comparison with Old English or with other European languages." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/Inflectional-Morphology.htm; http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/enc2010/articles/inflectional-morphology.htm; http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-inflectional-morphology.htm)
BOUND MORPHEME
Definition: a bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It occurs attached to free morphemes. Some bound morphemes include: -er.-s,-ly,-un,-en. Example: The s in "cats", is a bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without the free morpheme cat. Extra Information: "Linguistics recognizes two classes of bound morphemes. The first class is called inflectional morphemes and their influence on a base word is predictable. The second one is derivational morphemes and they modify a word according to its lexical and grammatical class." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/boundmorphterm.htm; http://es.slideshare.net/Andriyanieka12/6-morphology-morpheme-allomorph-18509326)
ENDOCENTRIC
Definition: a compound word or phrase where one of the words links the other words syntactically. This linking word is called the 'head,' and the rest of the phrase, apart from the head, is optional and can be removed without losing the basic meaning. Example: In "three little dogs", the word 'dogs' is the head word. 'Dogs' relates to 'little' to make 'little dogs' and to 'three' to make 'three dogs. Extra Information: "Noun phrases, verb phrases, and adjective phrases, belong to endocentric types because the constituent items are subordinate to the head. In theory, all phrases have a head word whether they are noun phrases or verb phrases." References: (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-endocentric.htm)
EXOCENTRIC
Definition: a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable "Head" inside the group. Example: The English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing Extra Information: "In an exocentric construction, the words are not syntactically related, and so words can be removed and there will still be a meaning. Exocentric construction includes basic sentence, prepositional phrase, and connective construction." References: (http://notions-english-disciple.blogspot.com/2011/08/endocentric-and-exocentric.html)
FREE MORPHEME
Definition: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word without another morpheme. It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. Example: "Friend", "dog" are free morphemes because they can function as independent words. Extra Information: "Free morphemes can be further subdivided into content words and function words. Content words, as their name suggests, carry most of the content of a sentence. Function words generally perform some kind of grammatical role, carrying little meaning of their own." References:(http://www.gaelicgrammar.org/~gaelic/mediawiki/index.php/Free_Morpheme_(definition); http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/freemorphterm.htm)
SUPPLETION
Definition: a relationship between forms of a word wherein on form cannot be phonologically or morphologically derived from the other, this process is rare. Example: The forms good, better, best which belong to the adjective good show suppletion. Extra Information: "In linguistic theory of the 20th century, 'suppletion' came to be fully established as a concept with the advent of structuralism, where the relation between form and meaning as well as the understanding of paradigmatic relationships became very important for a synchronic language description." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/suppletionterm.htm; http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~jfon/ling201/morphology.pdf)
COMPOUND
Definition: a word consisting of no fewer than two stems, each having a full lexical meaning, that together form a structural and semantic unit. Example: Swimming pool is an open compound word which comes from the gerund swimming and the noun pool. Extra Information: "Compound words fall within three categories. In closed form, the words are melded together such as softball. The open compound word have a space between the words, and the hyphenated include words connected by a hyphen." References: (http://www.k12reader.com/term/compound-words/; http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Compound+(linguistics))
CONVERSION
Definition: also called zero derivation, is a linguistic process that assigns an already existing word to a new syntactic (grammatical) category (part of speech) without any concomitant change in form. Example: The original noun email experienced conversion, thus resulting in the new verb email. We can say either send me an email (noun) or simply email (verb) me. Extra Information: "Conversion is quickly related to shift of word-class. With this respect, it mainly produces nouns, verbs and adjectives. The major cases of conversion are from noun to verb and from verb to noun. Conversion from adjective to verb is also common, but it has a lower ratio." References: (http://translationjournal.net/journal/31conversion.htm; http://lexsrv2.nlm.nih.gov/LexSysGroup/Projects/lvg/2013/docs/designDoc/UDF/derivations/zeroD.html)
PERIPHRASIS
Definition: in a linguistic sense is the use of a combination of words for the expression of some sort of grammatical relationship instead of inflection or agglutination. Example: "Stephanie is more beautiful than Jessica." (the comparative is formed by adding the word more. Extra Information: "The distinction between inflected and periphrastic forms is illustrated across distinct languages. However, comparative and superlative forms of adjectives (and adverbs) in English provide an illustration of the phenomenon. The words more and most contribute functional meaning only, just like the inflectional affixes -er and -est." References: (http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/111/1/ALS-20050630-AJ.pdf ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periphrasis)
COMPARISON
Definition: is a feature in the grammar o some languages, whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected or modified to produce forms which indicate the relative degree of the designated properties. Example: Adjective: Great; Comparative degree: greater; superlative degree: greatest. Extra Information: "The usual degrees of comparison are the positive, which simply denotes a property (as with the English words big and fully); the comparative, which indicates greater degree (er and more); and the superlative, which indicates greatest degree (est and most)." References: (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook/box-adjectives.html;http://www.cyclopaedia.es/wiki/Degree_of_comparison)
AGGLUTINATION
Definition: is a grammatical process in which words are composed of a sequence of morphemes (meaningful word elements), each of which represents not more than a single grammatical category. Example: An example of agglutination from English would be meaninglessness (mean-ing-less-ness) Extra Information: "There are agglutinating languages where prefixation predominates (Quileute); others prefer suffixation (Hungarian haz-ak-ban"in the houses"). In Australia there is a family of languages that is exclusively suffixing and another that is exclusively prefixing." References: (http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test1materials/typology.htm; http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9059/agglutination)
SYNCRETISM
Definition: is a pattern in inflectional morphology where two distinct inflections have the same form, especially when this happens systematically across a lot of different lexemes. Example: Regular verbs syncretize the past tense form (She visited her bother) and perfect participle form (She has visited her brother). Extra Information: "In English there is regularly a syncretism between the forms of the Past Tense and the Past Participle. In a language as Latin regular syncretisms leap to the eye in any grammar.The most cited case is in the Nominative and Accusative of Neuters." References:(http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/enc2010/articles/syncretism.htm; http://books.google.com.ec/books?id=JGEAHLg1rmcC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=syncretism+in+english&source=bl&ots=7IKQfSjsuV&sig=HsXjc15047QRw8Fksfc440LEhE4&hl=es&sa=X&ei=WC87VP-HK8mMNs_KAQ&ved=0CGoQ6AEwCTgU#v=onepage&q=syncretism%20in%20english&f=false)
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Definition: is a process where one word is changed into another. The process takes a word stem and adds a prefix, suffix or infix to make a new word. Example: The English derivational suffix ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow: adj→ slowly:adv.) Extra Information: "There are many derivational morphology combinations such as turning verbs into adjectives or nouns. Adjectives can be converted into adverbs, nouns, verbs and other adjectives. The morphemes used to create such appendages to stem words rarely function as words by themselves. " References: (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-derivational-morphology.htm)
GENDER
Definition: is a system of noun classification. A common gender classification includes masculine and feminine categories. Example: "Actress" is a feminine noun and "actor" is a masculine noun. Extra Information: "Common gender divisions include masculine and feminine; masculine, feminine and neuter; or animate and inanimate. In a few languages, the gender assignation of nouns is solely determined by their meaning or attributes, like biological sex, humanness, animacy." References:(https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Grammatical_gender.html; http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-masculine-feminine.php#.VE7GrSKG_6I)
NUMBER
Definition: linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two", or "three or more") Example: "Table" singular number (one item) and "tables" plural number (more than one item). Extra Information: "English is typical of most world languages, in distinguishing only between singular and plural number. The plural form of a noun is usually created by adding the suffix -(e)s. The pronouns have irregular plurals, as in "I" versus "we", and verbs distinguish singular from plural number in the third person." Source: (http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Grammatical_number.html)
MORPHOLOGY
Definition: morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and how they are formed. Example: Sad (adj)+ly (suffix)= Sadly (adv) The example of sad and sadly indicates how the suffix -ly has been added to the morpheme sad to produce an adverb. Extra Information: "The term 'morphology' has been taken over from biology where it is used to denote the study of the forms of plants and animals. It was first used for linguistic purposes in 1859 by the German linguist August Schleicher. A widely recognized approach divides the field into two domains: derivational morphology and inflectional morphology." Reference:(http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/morphologyterm.htm;http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/introling/Aronoffmorphology.pdf)
ACRONYM
Definition: stems formed by taking the initial sounds or letters of the words of a phrase and uniting them into a new combination. Example: WSU is the acronym of < Washington State University> Extra Information: "Acronyms are proper words created from the initial letter or two of the words in a phrase, and they are pronounced like other words. By contrast, abbreviations do not form proper words, and so they are pronounced as strings of letters." References: (http://public.wsu.edu/~gordonl/S05/256/word_formation.pdf- http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/acronymterm.htm)
SYNTAX
Definition: the branch of linguistics that deals with the grammatical arrangement of words and morphemes in the sentences of a language or of languages in general. Example: Incorrect Sentence: Want I these books. Correct Sentence: I want these books. Syntax studies the word order. Extra Information: "Within traditional grammar, the syntax of a language is described in terms of a taxonomy (i.e. the classificatory list) of the range of different types of syntactic structures found in the language. The central assumption underpinning syntactic analysis in traditional grammar is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituents, each of which belongs to a specific grammatical category." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/syntax.htm;http://mcgregor.continuumbooks.net/media/5/syntactic_theories.pdf; http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/syntax)
CASE
Definition: the case of a noun or pronoun is a change in form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. Example: The accusative case indicates the direct object of a verb: The teacher remembered me("me" is the direct object) Extra Information: "There are only three cases in modern English, they are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English form - nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English." References:(http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/casetext.html;https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Grammatical_case.html )
ROOT
Definition: the root is the unit that provides the core meaning and to which affixes may be attached. Example: In the word "claustrophobia", the root is phobia which means fear. Extra Information: "Roots can usually appear as independent words, for which reason they are called free morphs. In Latin and Greek, roots most often do not occur as separate words: they are bound morphs, meaning they can only appear when tied to other components." References: (http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/rootterm.htm; http://linguisticglossary.hkbu.edu.hk/PDF-HO/Root%20Stem.pdf)
