Overview
This lecture discusses how affixes in English attach to specific word categories, emphasizing that knowing a morpheme includes understanding its syntactic placement, meaning, and pronunciation.
Syntactic Placement of Affixes
- Affixes (prefixes/suffixes) need to attach to specific locations in a word, such as the beginning (prefix) or end (suffix).
- Example: The suffix -s is a suffix and must go at the end of a word (e.g., lines, not *slines).
- Affixes do not attach to every word; their placement depends on the grammatical category of the word.*
Category Sensitivity of Affixes
- The suffix -s only attaches to nouns (e.g., tables, dogs, pens), not to adjectives (e.g., *joyfuls).
- The prefix re- attaches to verbs (e.g., rewrite), not to adjectives (e.g., *redelicious).
- The oddness of words like *joyfuls or *redelicious comes from affixing to the wrong category, not from unclear meaning.
What We Know About Morphemes
- Knowing a morpheme involves knowing its syntactic placement (where it attaches), its meaning, and its pronunciation.
- Descriptive rules and stored knowledge of morphemes and affixes are fundamental in understanding language.
Preview of Next Week: Grammatical Categories
- Terms like noun, verb, and adjective are central to affix placement rules.
- Understanding what defines a noun, verb, or adjective will be covered in the next lecture.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Morpheme — the smallest unit of meaning in a language.
- Affix — a morpheme attached to a base word; includes prefixes and suffixes.
- Suffix — an affix attached at the end of a word (e.g., -s).
- Prefix — an affix attached at the beginning of a word (e.g., re-).
- Noun — a word category typically referring to a person, place, thing, or idea.
- Verb — a word category expressing an action or state.
- Adjective — a word category describing properties or qualities of nouns.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Prepare for next week’s lecture on the definitions and properties of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.