Glossary: morphology and phonology

Adjective applied to languages (or to morphology, as in aggutinative morphology) characterized by words containing several morphemes, of which one belongs to a lexical category and the others are clearly identifiable affixes, each with a single semantic function.

The process by which one lexical category is inflected to express the properties of another, or the result thereof, e.g., a verb bearing person and number morphology that reflect those of the subject. Also called concord.

One of a number of ways in which airflow can be created in the vocal tract for the purpose of producing speech sounds. The most common airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive.

In case systems, one of the cases, with the meaning ‘motion towards, onto’.

The different shapes of a single morpheme which appear in different phonological environments. E.g. the third person singular morpheme in English includes the allomorphs [s] (he cuts), [z] (he digs) and [iz] (he blushes).

The different shapes of a single phoneme which appear in different phonological environments, e.g. different allophones of /t/ in English.

A system of writing, like that used for English, where the symbols that are used represent the individual vowels and consonants of the language. Other languages that use other, different alphabetic writing systems include Russian, Greek and Mongolian.

An abbreviation consisting of initial letters that are read with the letters’ alphabet values, e.g. English CD [si:di:]. Contrast acronym.

The phenomenon that morphemes or phonemes have different shapes when they appear in different phonological contexts (see also allophones, allomorphs).

The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the tip or blade of the tongue. The passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. [t s n l] are examples of alveolar sounds.