Morpheme - Answers the linguistic term for the most elemental unit of grammatical form
Morphology - Answers The study of the internal structure of words and the rules by which words
are formed
Derivational Morphemes - Answers affixes that can be added to a morpheme to change its
meaning and may change its part of speech
Bound Morphemes - Answers must be attached to other morphemes (-ify and -cation). Usually
changes the part of speech
Inflectional Morphemes - Answers affixes that can be added to a morpheme without changing
its part of speech/suffixes. (-ing, -s, -es, -est). They mark properties such as tense, number,.
person, etc.
Free Morphemes - Answers morphemes that can stand alone (boy, desire, etc)
Affix - Answers One or more letters occurring as a bound form attached to the beginning, end, or
base of a word and serving to produce a derivative word or an inflectional form (e.g., a prefix or
suffix).
prefix - Answers comes before a root word
suffix - Answers comes after a root word
infix - Answers A type of bound morpheme that is inserted into the middle of the stem.
circumfix - Answers a bound morpheme, parts of which occur in a word both before and after
the root
coinage - Answers the invention of new words
compounds - Answers two or more words that are joined to form a new word
head of compound - Answers The rightmost word: e.g., house in doghouse. It generally
indicates the category and general meaning of the compound.
blends - Answers similar to compounds in that they are produced by combining two words, but
parts of the words that are combined are deleted (smog, from smoke and fog)
back-formations - Answers new words can be created through misanalysis of morpheme
boundaries
content words - Answers nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
function words - Answers Words such as articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs. Children first
,learn to speak without using these words.
discontinuous morphemes - Answers affixes that attach to both the beginning and end of a root
accidental gaps - Answers well-formed but non existing words (like sounds)
roots - Answers a word that may or may not stand alone as a word (paint and read do; -ceive
and -ling don't)
bound roots - Answers Morpheme that has some associated basic meaning but that is unable
to stand alone as a word in its own right.
stems - Answers a root morpheme is combined with an affix.
base - Answers refers to words that are both roots and stems
suppletive forms - Answers A term used to refer to inflected morphemes in which the regular
rules do not apply (irregular nouns and verbs)
Distinctive features - Answers one small changes makes a meaning difference
nondistinctive features - Answers does not make a meaning difference
morphological rules for new word formation - Answers simplification, falsification, and
purification
Syntax - Answers the part of grammar that represents a speaker's knowledge of sentences and
their structures
Noun Phrase - Answers a word or group of words that functions in a sentence as subject, object,
or prepositional object. (The child, John, a police officer, etc)
Verb Phrase - Answers contains a verb, and it may contain other categories, such as a noun
phrase or prepositional phrase
Prepositional Phrase - Answers preposition + noun or pronoun
lexical category - Answers Noun, verb, preposition, adjective, adverb.
Complementizer Phrase (CP) - Answers if and whether or a phrase that complements a phrase
and is embedded in.
Head of phrase - Answers the word whose lexical category defines the type of phrase
Determiner - Answers functional category that includes the articles a and the, as well as
demonstratives such as this, that, these, and those. Also includes counting words: each and
every.
, Auxillary - Answers functional category that includes the verbs have, had, be,. was, and were,
and the modals (may, might, can, could, must, shall, should, will, and would)
Subject - Answers who or what the sentence is about
Direct object - Answers a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb
present perfect - Answers is formed by using have/has + past principle.
"I have seen the Barbie movie"
present principle - Answers is when a verb ends in -ing
gerund - Answers a noun formed from a verb (such as the '-ing' form of an English verb when
used as a noun)
complement - Answers a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a
given expession
object - Answers Noun or pronoun that is affected by the verb. <The man read the
linguistic competence - Answers what we know
linguistic performance - Answers how we use this knowledge in actual speech production and
comprehension
descriptive grammar - Answers represents the unconscious linguistic knowledge or capacity of
its speakers
mental grammar - Answers describes the rules that are already known. It does not teach the
rules of language
prescriptive grammar - Answers a grammar that attempts to legislate what your grammar
should be
Universal Grammar (UG) - Answers Noam Chomsky/Aspects of the Theory of Syntax: belief that
language acquisition was innate--not acquired.
corpus callosum - Answers allows the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each
other
Aphasia - Answers the neurological term for any language disorder that results from brain
damage caused by disease or trauma
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - Answers the idea that language structures thought and that ways of
looking at the world are embedded in language
Broca's aphasia - Answers condition resulting from damage to Broca's area, causing the