GLOSSARY
Affix: bound morpheme which by necessity must be added to other morphemes, namely free or
bound roots, in order to make words.
Allomorph: a variant form of a morpheme, that is, when a unit of meaning varies in sound
without changing the meaning.
Amelioration: a shift from negative to more positive meaning, also from neutral from positive
meaning.
Antonym: a word or expression which has an opposite meaning to another word.
Assimilation: the phonological adjustment made in speech in which one phoneme adapts to the
pronunciation of neighbouring sound.
Backformation: forming a lexeme through suppression of what is thought to be a morpheme.
Base: any form of a word to which affixes are appended in the formation of new words.
Binomial: combinations of two words, whose meaning is quite transparent, linked by a
conjunction.
Blocking: psychological phenomenon which may even block the existence of
synonymy.
Borrowing: importation of words or any other linguistic feature from another language.
Bound (morpheme): the segment which is not capable of independent functionality as words
in English since it must be attached to another segment.
Class-changing derivational affixes: they form a new word which is automatically marked by
the affix as noun, verb, adjective or adverb. In most cases suffixes are class-changing. When
more than one suffix is used, the last one is said to determine the class.
Class-maintaining derivational affixes: they change the meaning of the derivative. The class
does not change. In most cases prefixes are class-maintaining. They typically introduce new
meaning.
Clitics: grammatical words attached at the margins of adjacent words which are called hosts or
anchors. They cannot stan on their own because they lack phonological independence, and thus
‘they behave like affixes of the preceding or following word’.
Collocation: an essential syntagmatic dimension of vocabulary. A regular syntagmatic
association between words through their meaning.
Complementary distribution: the situation where two language elements cannot occur in
identical contexts; thus they are mutually exclusive.
Compositionality: when the meaning of a complex word or a compound is determined
by the meanings of its parts.
Compounding: forming new lexemes by putting together free or bound roots.
Concatenative: One of the two basic building operations at formal level are relevant to the
study of word formation in English. It involves the combination if morphemes in strings. Also
known as agglutination.
Nicoleta Ana Maria Stancu
An Introduction to English Lexicology: the Study of Form and Meaning.
Group B
