5 Morphology and Word Formation key concepts

 
morpheme
: a morpheme that must be attached to another mor-
pheme.

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Delahunty and Garvey 
 
142
constituent
: a unified part of a construction (e.g., of a word, phrase, or 
sentence).
conversion
: derivational relationship between two words of different parts 
of speech but without any formal marking of the difference.
coordinative
 
compound
: a compound word that denotes an entity or 
property to which both constituents contribute equally; e.g., bittersweet re-
fers to a quality which is both bitter and sweet.
derivation
: process of changing a word from one part of speech to another 
or from one subclass to another, typically by making some change in form.
endocentric
 
compound
: a compound word that denotes a subtype of 
whatever is denoted by the head. Armchair represents a type of chair; breath-
test represents a kind of test.
exocentric
 
compound
: a compound word that denotes a subtype of a cate-
gory that is not mentioned within the compound; e.g., pickpocket represents 
a kind of person, not a kind of pocket nor a kind of pick.
free
 
morpheme
: a morpheme that need not be attached to another mor-
pheme, but can constitute a word on its own.
head
: the main constituent of a compound, which may be modified by the 
compound’s other constituents.
inflectional
 
morpheme
: a bound morpheme that signals a grammatical 
function and meaning in a specific sentence, e.g., plural {-s}, past tense 
{-ed}, comparative {-er}, superlative {-est}.