Morphology Concepts

noun a morpheme added at the beginning or end of a word to modify its meaning, such as prefixes and suffixes

verb to attach or fasten something to something else

• In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form.
• You can affix the stamp to the envelope before mailing it.
• I'll affix the bumper sticker to my car later.
• The artist decided to affix a small butterfly charm to the painting for added flair.

noun a unit of vocabulary recognized by the grammar of a language

• A lexeme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language, such as a word or a morpheme.
• I learned about the concept of lexeme in my linguistics class.
• I have to look up the meaning of this lexeme in the dictionary.
• The lexeme 'run' can have multiple meanings depending on the context.

noun the use of an entirely different word or root for different forms of a given word

• Suppletion is a linguistic phenomenon where an irregular form is used to fill in a gap in a paradigm.
• I never realized how common suppletion is in English until I started studying linguistics.
• Who knew that language could have such crazy suppletion going on?
• In a way, suppletion is like finding a shortcut in a maze of grammar rules.

noun a word or phrase that affirms or confirms something

adjective describing or relating to a statement or action that affirms or confirms something

• The professor used afformative language to emphasize the importance of the research findings.
• She always speaks in an afformative tone when she's trying to make a point.
• I can't stand when he gets all afformative and starts lecturing us.
• The artist's use of color was afformative, drawing attention to the focal point of the painting.