Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Exercise 2.1
Describe three major problems involved in the notion of morpheme. Use the following word
pairs for illustration:
Zero affixation/conversion.
b. David – Dave
Patricia – Trish
It is problematic because we are deleting from the word, which causes problems because
morphemes are made by units of form and meaning.
c. bring – brought
keep – kept
Exercise 2.2
Discuss the morphological structure of the following words. Are they morphologically
complex? How many morphemes do they contain? Provide a meaning for each morpheme
that you detect.
Report, refrain, regard, retry, rest, rephrase, reformat, retain, remain, restate.
-Segment “re” is a prefix since it has a common meaning in all these words.
-The meaning of the derived words can be predicted by summing up the meanings of the
prefix and the bases.
Excercise 2.3
Explain the notion of base allomorphy using the following words for illustration. Transcribe
the words in phonetic transcription and compare the phonetic forms.
Active: [ˈæktɪv] Change the position of the stress as a result of the addition of the
Curious: [ˈkjʊəriəs] Stress shift and vowel change. Change the position of the stress
Possess: [pəˈzɛs] There is a change in the pronunciation when we add the suffix
Exercise 2.5
Determine the allomorphy of the prefix in- on the basis of the data below…
FURTHER PRACTICE
All these words contain elements that seem to be independent and recyclable.
Empty morphs.