Introducing English Linguistics

6 English words: Structure and meaning
1. (i)
Inflectional morphemes can only be suffixes; derivational morphemes can be either pre-
fixes or suffixes. 
(ii) Inflectional morphemes never change the word class or meaning of a word; derivational
morphemes often do change the meaning or word class of a word.
2. non- (bound, derivational), conform (free), -ist (bound, derivational)
de- (bound, derivational), context (free), -ual (bound, derivational), -ize (bound, derivational), -ed
(bound, inflectional)
repeat (free), -ing (bound, inflectional)
up (free), on (free)
scare (free), -y (bound, derivational, here spelled as -i), -est (bound, inflectional)
un- (bound, derivational), test (free), -ed (bound, inflectional)
care (free), -less (bound, derivational), -ly (bound, derivational)
3. The word fight could be a noun or a verb. Both of these word classes are open because they
readily admit new members. The form class of auxiliary verbs, however, is closed because
English is unlikely to add a new verb to the class of auxiliaries.
4. Lexical decomposition involves defining words in terms of semantic features. With abstract
words such as love and hatred, lexical decomposition does not work very well because it is dif-
ficult to determine exactly which features these words should have. It is much easier to find
features for concrete words such as woman: 
human female adult.
5. The nouns bull and man share the features 
animate and male. However, they are different
kinds of animate organisms: a bull would have the feature 
bovine, a man the feature
human.
6. It is difficult to find words that are exactly equivalent in meaning, and that can be substitut-
ed one for the other in any context without some change in meaning. For instance, the words
hate and abhor both express extreme dislike of something or someone. However, while I hate
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ANSWERS TO SELF-STUDY ACTIVITIES

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spinach and I abhor spinach both express this dislike, abhor seems somewhat odd in this con-
text: one abhors violence, but not food.
7. 1 b, 2 c, 3 a, 4 b, 5 c, 6 a
8. 1 b, 2 a, 3 c, 4 e, 5 g, 6 h, 7 l, 8 f, 9 k, 10 j, 11 i, 12 m, 13 d