morpheme

From French morphème, equivalent to morph + -eme. Ultimately from Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “shape, form”).

der

(linguistic morphology) The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning. It may be a letter, a syllable, or otherwise.


affix

Borrowed from Latin affixus, perfect passive participle of affigere (from ad- + figere), equivalent to ad- + fix.

affiks

linguistics: a bound morpheme added to a word’s stem

(linguistic morphology) A bound morpheme added to the word’s stem's end.

(linguistic morphology, broadly) A bound morpheme added to a word’s stem; a prefix, suffix, etc.


suffix

Borrowed from Latin suffīxus (“suffix”), from sub- (“under”) + fīxus (perfect passive participle of fīgere (“to fasten, fix”)), equivalent to sub- + -fix.

af

perfect passive participle of <i class="Latn mention" lang="la">fīgere</i> (“to fasten, fix”)

The suffix "-able" changes "sing" into "singable".

(grammar, linguistic morphology) A morpheme added at the end of a word to modify the word's meaning.

Suffix

Suffixum n, Affix n (narrow sense), Affixum n


IA

en-noun

IA (countable and uncountable, plural IAs)

(linguistic morphology) Initialism of item-and-arrangement.


prefix

Borrowed from Late Latin praefīxum, from Latin praefīxus, past participle of praefīgō (“I (fix, fasten, set up) in front”, “I fix on the (end, extremity)”) (from prae- (“before”) + fīgō (“I fix”, “I fasten”, “I affix”)), equivalent to pre- + -fix. Doublet of the archaic synonym prefixum.

(grammar, linguistic morphology) A morpheme added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning, for example as, pre- in prefix, con- in conjure, re- in reheat, etc.


root

root (countable and uncountable, plural roots)

→ Irish: rúta

From Middle English rote, root, roote (“the underground part of a plant”), from late Old English rōt, from Old Norse rót (Icelandic rót), from Proto-Germanic *wrōts, from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”); Doublet of wort, radish, and radix.

the love of money is the root of all evil

Coordinate term: stem

In ſo moche that if any verbe be of the thyꝛde coniugation / I ſet out all his rotes and tenſes[…]

1530 July 18, Iohan Palſgrave, “The Introduction”, in Leſclarciſſement de la langue francoyſe […] , London: Richard Pynſon, Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, page 32; reprinted as Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse, Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1972:

A considerable number of derived nominals, especially thematic nouns, also exhibited o-grade roots.

2006, Donald Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of English; 1), Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 12:

(linguistic morphology) The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.

جَذْر

linguistic morphology: primary lexical unit of a word


formative

en-adj

formative (comparative more formative, superlative most formative)

more formative (comparative)
most formative (superlative)

From Middle English formatyve, formatif (“having the ability to form”), from Old French formatif, formative (modern French formatif), from Medieval Latin formātīvus, from Latin fōrmātus + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘doing’ or ‘related to doing’). Fōrmātus is the perfect passive participle of fōrmō (“to form, to shape”), from fōrma (“a form, shape”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “a form, shape”) (see further at that entry). By surface analysis, form + -ative.

cog

(linguistic morphology) Pertaining to the formation of words; specifically, of an affix: forming words through inflection.


formative

Sense 1 (“thing which causes formation to occur”) is derived from the noun.
Sense 2.1 (“language unit”) is borrowed from German Formativ, a noun use of formativ (adjective), from Middle French formatif, from Old French formatif (see etymology 1).

A language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function (that is, forming a word from a root or another word).

formans

language unit that has a morphological function

Synonym of derivative (“a word that derives from another one”)


macaronic

/ˌmækəˈɹɑnɪk/

From New Latin, 1517 coinage, macaronicus, from Italian (Neapolitan dialect) maccarone (“coarse dumpling”).

(linguistic morphology) A word consisting of a mix of words of two or more languages.

Such a word that mixes Latin morphemes with non-Latin ones.


cranberry morpheme

en-noun

cranberry morpheme (plural cranberry morphemes)

From the cran- of cranberry as an archetype. Cran- is from Low German Kraan (“crane”), but is now a bound morpheme, hence an example of a cranberry morpheme.

(linguistic morphology) A bound morpheme within a complex word that is a fossil and whose meaning is opaque to the present speakers of the language.


bound morpheme

(linguistic morphology) A morpheme that can only occur when bound to a root morpheme. For example: cran- (as in cranberry), -ed, -ing, -ly.


formant

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-formant.wav

Borrowed from German Formant, from Latin fōrmāns (“shaping; forming; fashioning”), present participle of fōrmō (“to shape; to form; to fashion”). Doublet of formans.

der

(linguistic morphology) Synonym of formative (“language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function”).


tagma

From Ancient Greek τάγμα (tágma, “something which has been ordered or arranged”).

uder

This group of four neuromeres constituting the procephalic lobes is further marked off from the rest of the plate by its height, and also by its darker color as in previous stages. These distinctive characters make it convenient to apply the term "tagma" suggested by Lankester for a more or less isolated and independent group of segments. The aptness of this term will become more apparent as the development of the procephalic lobes is followed in the succeeding stages and when it is discussed in the conclusion.

1910 Leland Griggs. Early Stages in the Development of the Central Nervous System of Amblystoma Punctatum. Journal of Morphology Volume 21 page 458

The existing Arachnida, like the higher Crustacea, are "nomomeristic", that is to say, have a fixed typical number of somites to the body. Further, they are like the higher Crustacea, "somatotagmic," that is to say, they have this limited set of somites grouped in three (or more) "tagmata" or regions of a fixed number of similarly modified somites — each tagma differing in the modification of its fixed number of somites from that characterizing a neighbouring tagma. The most primitive among the lower Crustacea, on the other hand, for example, the Phyllopoda, have not a fixed number of somites, some genera — even allied species — have more, some less, within wide limits; they are "anomomeristic". They also, as is generally the case with anomomeristic animals, do not exhibit any conformity to a fixed plan of tagmatism or division of the somites of the body into regions sharply marked off from one another; the head or prosomatic tagma is followed by a trunk consisting of somites which either graduate in character as we pass along the series or exhibit a large variety in different genera, families and orders, of grouping of the somites. They are anomotagmic, as well as anomomeristic.

1911 The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A to Aus. "Arachnida" p.298

(morphology of segmented Metazoa) A specialized, structured, grouping of functionally related segments, or analogous subunits, into units such as the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, particularly in various Arthropoda and Vertebrata.


interfix

An empty morph is an interfix if it fulfills all of the following three conditions (Dressier, 1985f).

2004, Francis Katamba, Morphology: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, →ISBN, page 187:

(linguistic morphology) A morph inserted between two morphemes in the process of word formation, such as the empty morphs English -i- and -o-.

invoegsel

an empty morph inserted between two morphemes


interfix

en-verb

interfix (third-person singular simple present interfixes, present participle interfixing, simple past and past participle interfixed)

interfixes (present singular third-person)
interfixing (participle present)
interfixed (participle past)
interfixed (past)

Our goal in the construction of this task was to isolate and highlight the relationship between the interfixed and free forms of the initial constituent.

2001, Wolfgang U. Dressler et al., “The Processing of interfixed German compounds”, in Yearbook of Morphology 1999, →ISBN, page 185:

(linguistic morphology, transitive) To insert (an interfix) between two morphemes.


BBW

en-noun

BBW (countable and uncountable, plural BBWs)

Abbreviation.
* (big beautiful woman): Coined by Carole Shaw in 1979 in the first sense with the launch of BBW Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus-size women.

(sexuality) Initialism of big beautiful woman: used as a positive description for women who are (sometimes slightly) overweight and physically attractive

(body morphology) Initialism of big-boned woman: recoinage of the acronym, making fun of the typical term for overweight women.


placeable

(linguistic morphology) Something which is conventionally associated with a specific place; for example, blinds go on windows, carpets go on floors.


suprafix

Blend of supra- + affix, equivalent to supra- + -fix.

(linguistic morphology) A type of affix where a suprasegmental change (such as tone or stress) modifies an existing morpheme's meaning.


reduplicant

The second bar in the Ancient Greek word barbaros is a reduplicant.

(linguistic morphology) The reduplicated segment in a word resulting from a reduplication process.


vṛddhi

vṛddhi (countable and uncountable, plural vṛddhis)

Learned borrowing from Sanskrit वृद्धि (vṛddhi, “growth, increase”).

lbor

Sometimes a vrddhi-derivative was formed from a zero-grade and involved the insertion of the full-grade vowel in the “wrong” place.

2004, Benjamin Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture, Blackwell 2004, page 117:

(linguistics, linguistic morphology) The strongest ablaut-grade in a series of vowel alternations in certain Indo-European languages, most notably Sanskrit, as well as in Proto-Indo-European.


clusivity

Back-formation from inclusivity and exclusivity.

(linguistic morphology) The distinction between the exclusive first-person plural pronoun ("we, excluding you") and the inclusive first-person plural pronoun ("we, including you") in some languages.


formans

Borrowed from German Formans, from Latin elementum fōrmāns (“forming element”), with fōrmāns being the present participle of fōrmō (“to shape; to form; to fashion”). Doublet of formant.

der

These facts then clearly evidence such elements as enclitical particles which exercise certain morphological and/or syntactical functions, but which have not yet developed into actual suffixes obliged to conform to sound-harmony and the general accentuation pattern. Some elements of this type are the formantia of the cas. compar. in -däg, and the cas. aequat. (prosecut., mensurat., terminat.) in -ča/-čä in the nominal category, and the formans of the negative aspect in -ma-/-mä- in the verbal category.

1968, Karl H. Menges, The Turkic Languages and Peoples, page 157:

In Cowgill’s […] convincing opinion the basic formans of this PIE mediopassive was an -o(-) originally added to endings identical with those of the perfect (minus -e where applicable;[…]), which only had a single set of endings undifferentiated as to active/middle in PIE.

2006, Kim McCone, The Origins and Development of the Insular Celtic Verbal Complex, page 136:

After the selection of an onomasiological base and an onomasiological mark on the semantic level of the word-formation process, the speaker selects a word-formation base and a formans from an inventory of productive word-formation categories, classes, and subtypes on the formal level.

2011, Joachim Grzega, “Compounding from an Onomasiological Perspective” (chapter 11), in The Oxford Handbook of Compounding, page 221:


empty morpheme

(linguistic morphology) A purely formal morpheme with no semantic content.


free morpheme

Book is a free morpheme, but the -s on books is not, because -s carries no meaning until joined to a free morpheme.

(linguistic morphology) A morpheme that can carry meaning on its own, and does not require a prefix, suffix, or infix to give it meaning.


infixation

en-noun

infixation (usually uncountable, plural infixations)

(linguistic morphology) Word-formation involving an infix or infixes; adding an infix to a word.


thematic vowel

Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies

(linguistic morphology, Indo-European studies) A vowel appended to the end of a root (with which it constitutes a stem), before the ending.


disfixation

disfixation (usually uncountable, plural disfixations)

(linguistic morphology) Word-formation involving a disfix; subtracting a morpheme from a word.


morphologize

en-verb

morphologize (third-person singular simple present morphologizes, present participle morphologizing, simple past and past participle morphologized)

morphologizes (present singular third-person)
morphologizing (participle present)
morphologized (participle past)
morphologized (past)

From morpholog(y), morpholog(ical) + -ize.

[…] and, moreover, it is subject to syntagmatic segmental processes which can morphologize the prosodic accent location (vowel lengthening as in the first three examples and rearticulation of the secondary stressed vowel as in the fourth).

1996, Bernhard Hurch, Richard A. Rhodes, Natural Phonology, →ISBN, page 85:

(transitive, intransitive, linguistic morphology) To become, or cause (e.g. a phonetic feature) to become, (re)interpreted morphologically.

In the word chlekʼwnts 'he broiled it (salmon)' which morphologizes as /č - lekʼʷ - ənts/ 'on - piece - 3.s.sub.3.s.obj.TRANS.-PAST', we have the processual 'pierce' as trajector, […]

1993, Roy H. Ogawa, Gary B. Palmer, “Langacker semantics for three Coeur d'Alene prefixes”, in Issues in Cognitive Linguistics: 1993, page 172:

(transitive, intransitive, linguistic morphology) To decompose into morphemes (as).


paradigm leveling

en-noun

paradigm leveling (countable and uncountable, plural paradigm levelings)

(linguistics, linguistic morphology) Regularisation of a paradigm, alignment of irregular forms on regular forms; replacement of irregular forms by regular forms in an inflection.


subcategorizand

(linguistics) The item which carries subcategorization information for the occurrence of other elements in the phrase or word.

(linguistic morphology) The morpheme which does so.


ephelcystic nu

From Ancient Greek νῦ ἐφελκυστικόν (nû ephelkustikón, literally “attractive nu; dragged-in nu; affixed nu”), from the letter νῦ (nû) + ἐφελκῠστῐκός (ephelkustikós, “attracted to; drawn towards”) from ἐφέλκυσις (ephélkusis, “attraction, pull; affixation”). Shortened from earlier ἐφελκυστικόν τοῦ νῦ (ephelkustikón toû nû, literally “pulling in nu; attracting nu”), transferring the epithet to the letter nu itself.

bor

νῦ ἐφελκυστικόν

(grammar, linguistic morphology) Paragogic nu /ν/ (n), understood as an allomorph of certain Greek morphemic forms otherwise terminating in vowels /ε/ (e) or /ι/ (i), viz. third person verb and third declension dative plural noun forms, phonemically represented as -ε(ν) (-e(n)) and -ῐ(ν) (-i(n)). An early Attic–Ionic innovation, nu paragoge spread through the Hellenic world; inclusion or omission of /ν/ in ancient inscriptions is so variable and unpredictable as to suggest morphemes with and without /ν/ occurred in free variation, not bound to the prescriptive rules of phonetic harmony codified by later Byzantine grammarians.


zero suffix

Coordinate term: zero prefix

(linguistic morphology) A suffix which is a null morpheme, used in models of linguistic analysis to represent the lack of a suffix where one might otherwise be expected (for example, as one of several inflections that a stem can take, or the reduction of a historically vocalised suffix to the point that it is inaudible).


zero prefix

Coordinate term: zero suffix

(linguistic morphology) A prefix which is a null morpheme, used in models of linguistic analysis to represent the lack of a prefix where one might otherwise be expected (for example, as one of several inflections that a stem can take, or the reduction of a historically vocalised prefix to the point that it is inaudible).

representation of the zero prefix in linguistics


null prefix

Coordinate term: null suffix

(linguistic morphology) Synonym of zero prefix


empty morph

Coordinate term: null morpheme

(linguistic morphology) A morph with a surface phonetic realization but no meaning.