Morphology Terms

• morphemes


  smallest units with meaning or function
• pronouns


  function words (closed class of words), takes the place of a noun, can be singular or plural
• derivational morphemes


  have meaning (create new words), can change part of speech of the root word, bound, can be suffixes or prefixes

  
  

  ex: drivable, greenish, rewrite, *capable is an example of a false morpheme
• inflectional morphemes


  have more function than meaning, required mostly to be grammatically/syntactically correct in a sentence, never change part of speech of the root word, bound, always suffixes (8 in English)
• dialect


  mutually understandable to speakers of the same language, all dialects are linguistically appropriate/grammatical within the group of speakers who use that dialect
• different dialect rules


  in general American English, a plural is always required

  
  

  ex: you have two pens, you have two pen (ungrammatical)

  
  

  vs.

  
  

  in African American English and Appalachian English, a plural does not need to be used

  
  

  ex: you have two pens and you have two pen are both grammatical
• morpheme errors


  errors on inflectional morphemes are usually omissions of the morpheme
• irregular past tense errors


  can be omissions, overregularizations of regular -ed, or double marking of past tense
• past tense acquisition


  1st, children use irregular past tense correctly, 2nd, they start to make errors by overgeneralizing, 3rd, they use irregular past tense correctly again
• irregular plurals errors


  no/zero marking of irregular morpheme, overgeneralization of regular morphemes, double marking
• when do inflection morphemes emerge?


  at about 18-24 months, when the child has at least 50 words
• when are most inflectional morphemes usually mastered?


  by age 3-4, although 5 years is often used as a general guideline
• allomorphs


  different phonological forms for the same morpheme, all have the same meaning or function but are pronounced differently
• first derivational morphemes produced:


  produced by kids at about 2 years, er (someone who): teacher, player, ie (diminutive): puppy, mommy, daddy
• what pronouns develop during preschool years?


  personal and possessive

  
  

  ex: I, it, me, you, your, she, them, we, he, they, us, you, him, her
• what pronouns develop later?


  reflexive pronouns

  
  

  ex: myself, ourselves, etc.
• negation


  develops throughout preschool years, during toddler years, use one word (allgone), then use "no" prior to whole sentences (no go bed), then use "no" embedded in a sentence (I no like it), finally, use "no," "don't," and "can't" correctly (I don't like it)
• nominative case


  the person is the subject (subjective)

  
  

  ex: ____ ate the candy.
• accusative case


  the person is the subject or occurs elsewhere in the sentence (objective)

  
  

  ex: The man hit ____.
• function words


  free morphemes (words) that have grammatical function more than true independent meaning

  
  

  ex: prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, articles
• content words


  free morphemes (words) that have an independent meaning

  
  

  ex: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• bound morpheme


  has meaning only in relation to another word, not a word
• free morpheme


  a morpheme that can stand alone, a word
• morpheme acquitsition


  children tend to acquire morphemes in the same order, but there is some variability
• emergency of morphemes


  a child using a morpheme one time
• mastery of morphemes


  a child using a morpheme with 90% correct use in obligatory contexts
• commission/over errors on inflectional morphemes


  when a child uses a morpheme in an incorrect structure, rare
• production errors


  child does not attempt to produce a word with the morpheme, uses another word instead
• comprehension errors


  child does not realize the word can be divided into two meaningful units
• development of compound words


  slow growth from 3 years to early school age, at first kids do not understand connection between two morphemes, at some point understand that there are two parts but not the reason, full understanding

  
  

  ex: pan + cake = pancake