Draw Topic & Writing Ideas From This Essay On Morphology

Ch05 Discussion Question 1: When we form compounds in English, how do we know whether to join the words (hairspray), join them with a hyphen (hair-spray) or leave a space between them (hair spray)? Using the examples below, and any others that you want to include in the discussion, try to decide if there are any typical patterns in the way we form compounds. Note that multiple rules are operating in the hyphenation of compound words – pay attention to the length, meaning, sound, and usage of the compound words.backpack, back-pedal, back seat, blackboard, black hole, black-tie affair, bulletin board, double bed, double-cross, house husband, house-warming, housewife, life-saving, lifestyle, life insurance, mother-in-law, mother tongue, postcard, Post-its, post office, workbook, work experience, work-to-rule
I think that there are several typical patterns in the way of compounds formation. One of them is meaning. The compounds are hyphenated when both words have important meaning like in the word “writer-editor”. Another important pattern includes the parts of speech which form the compound word. In case noun is added to adjective or gerund to create another adjective it is hyphenated. The words are written solid in case new notion is formed: “blackboard”, “postcard”, etc. have different meaning that just a black board or post card. The length of compound matters, and “word experience” cannot be written in one word.
II.
1. A morpheme is a basic element in words. A word may consists of one morpheme or multiple morphemes such as “dog” and “hunt-er”.
2. green
3. In analytical languages, almost all morphemes are free (i.e., there is no suffix or prefix). On the other hand, agglutinative languages employ a substantial amount of bound morphemes.
4. Humboldt claimed that agglutinative languages are in process of becoming fusional languages (such as English), which is the most advanced form of human language
5. A compound word consists of two free morphemes such as “blackbard”.