Morphology Flashcards

Front

What is a Prefix?

Back

A letter or group of letters added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning. Examples include 'un-' in 'unhappy', 're-' in 'rewrite', and 'pre-' in 'preplan'.

Front

What is a Suffix?

Back

A letter or group of letters added to the end of a word to modify its meaning. Examples include '-ing' in 'walking', '-ed' in 'jumped', and '-ly' in 'quickly'.

Front

What is a Root?

Back

The core part of a word that carries the essential meaning. Examples include 'love' in 'lovable', 'graph' in 'photograph', and 'dict' in 'predict'.

Front

What is a Stem?

Back

The base form of a word to which affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are added. Examples include 'walk' in 'walking', 'happy' in 'unhappiness', and 'teach' in 'teacher'.

Front

What is Inflection?

Back

A change in the form of a word to indicate grammatical function, such as tense, number, or case. Examples include 'walk' to 'walked' (past tense), 'dog' to 'dogs' (plural), and 'he' to 'him' (object case).

Front

What is Derivation?

Back

The process of creating a new word from an existing word, usually by adding a prefix or suffix. Examples include 'happy' to 'unhappy', 'act' to 'action', and 'beauty' to 'beautiful'.

Front

What is a Compound word?

Back

A word formed by combining two or more existing words, such as 'sunflower', 'bookshelf', and 'grandmother'.

Front

What is an Affix?

Back

A morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or to change the grammatical function of the word, including prefixes and suffixes. Examples include 'un-', 're-', '-ing', and '-ly'.

Front

What is Syntax?

Back

The set of rules that govern the structure of sentences and the relationship between words in a sentence. Examples include subject-verb agreement, word order, and the use of conjunctions.