ENG 143 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Hujan, Circumfix, Affix
Document Summary
How words are formed from separate parts. Morpheme: smallest linguistic unit that has a meaning or a grammatical function. Two classes: free: can appear as words by themselves, bound: cannot appear as separate words they must be attached or affixed to another morpheme. Prefix (a morpheme that attaches to the beginning of a morpheme or stem) example; unfortunate. It attaches to the beginning of the root. Suffix (a morpheme that attaches to the end of a morpheme or stem) example; fortunate. It attaches to the end of the stem. Infix (a morpheme that is inserted into a word or stem) example; un-freakin- believable. Circumfix (goes around the stem) there are no examples in english. The part of the word that an affix is attached to is called the stem. A stem that cannot be analyzed further into smaller parts is a root: example (linguistically). Progressive ing and past ed can also be derivational.
