5 Morphology and Word Formation key concepts

impossible, ined-
ible,
 illegible, irresponsible. 
b. What meaning do these pairs of letters have in common?
c. What is the first sound in all four pairs of sounds?
d. What are the second sounds in the pairs of sounds?
e. Why does the second sound vary as it does? 
f. How would you analyze this variation in terms of morphemes and 
allomorphs?
4. As English readily allows conversion, you should have no trouble com-
piling a list of ten pairs of words with identical forms but different 
parts of speech. For each pair of words, create a pair of short sentences 
that show that the words do belong to different parts of speech.
As we’ll see in more detail in the next chapter, words belonging to differ-
ent parts of speech take different inflections—e.g., {
N
saw} + {
pl
-s}; {
V
saw} + 
{-ed}. Because derivationally related forms often belong to different parts of 
speech and consequently allow different inflections, and because the mean-
ings of derivationally related pairs are not always as parallel as their forms 
are, derived forms may be given their own entries in dictionaries. Webster’s 
New World Dictionary, for instance, has separate entries for generate and 
generation and for compete and competence. Look up these words in your own 
dictionary and note how the meanings of generation and competence are not 
entirely predictable from those of generate + {-ion} and compete + {-ence}, 

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Delahunty and Garvey 
 
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respectively. 
The term word family is often used for a set of words that are related to 
each other derivationally or inflectionally, though the term is also used to 
refer to any set of words that rhyme with each other.