Introducing English Linguistics

Self-study activities
1. What are TWO key differences between inflectional and derivational mor-
phemes in English?
2. In the words below, identify all bound, free, derivational, and inflectional
morphemes:
nonconformist, decontextualized, repeating, upon, scariest, untested,
carelessly
3. Is fight a member of a closed class of words or an open class?
4. What is lexical decomposition, and why is it difficult to decompose words
like love and hatred into semantic features?
5. What semantic features do the English words bull and man have in com-
mon? What features distinguish the words?
6. Is it possible for two words to be completely synonymous? Explain, using
examples to develop your response.

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English words: Structure and meaning
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