Morphology: The Hidden Life of Words
Rare Terms that Morphologists Will Love (and Possibly Google)
Welcome to the world of word-building wizardry. If you thought morphology was just prefixes and suffixes, think again. This list dives into rare, technically rich, and mind-expanding terms that explore how words are formed, transformed, and understood.
1. Disfix
A morphological process involving the removal of phonological material to indicate grammatical change.
Example: In Alabama (a Muskogean language), plurals are formed by deleting segments:
/ɬakba/ ‘to lie’ → /ɬaba/ ‘they lie’.
2. Suppletion
Using an entirely different root form for grammatical inflection.
Example: go → went (past tense)
3. Reduplication
Repeating all or part of a word to mark grammatical features like plurality or intensity.
Example: teeny-weeny, or bye-bye in English; rumah → rumah-rumah in Indonesian (houses).
4. Infixation
Inserting a morpheme within a root—not at the beginning or end.
Example: Tagalog: sulat (write) → s-um-ulat (wrote)
5. Circumfix
A bound morpheme that "wraps" around a word.
Example: German geliebt (‘loved’): ge- + lieb + -t
6. Interfix
A linking element used between morphemes without contributing meaning.
Example: English: speed-o-meter (the -o- is an interfix)
7. Polysynthesis
The formation of long, complex words that express entire clauses, common in some indigenous languages.
Example: Yupik:
angyaghllangyugtuq = “He wants to acquire a big boat.”
8. Templatic Morphology
A non-concatenative morphology where word forms fit into a prosodic "template" of consonants and vowels.
Example: Arabic root √k-t-b ("writing") becomes kitāb (book), kātib (writer), maktab (office).
9. Morpheme Boundary Shift
A reanalysis of where one morpheme ends and another begins.
Example: a norange becoming an orange
10. Portmanteau Morpheme
A single morpheme that encodes multiple grammatical categories.
Example: French au = à + le (‘to the’)
11. Back-formation
Creating a new base form by removing what looks like an affix.
Example: Editor → edit
12. Cranberry Morpheme
A bound morpheme that has no meaning outside of one fixed word.
Example: cran- in cranberry
13. Zero Morph (or Zero Affix)
An invisible morphological marker.
Example: Plural sheep – morphologically plural, but with no visible affix.
14. Allomorphy
Different surface forms of the same morpheme.
Example: English past tense morpheme: /t/ in walked, /d/ in played, /ɪd/ in wanted
15. Blocking
Preventing a regular morphological form from occurring due to the presence of an irregular form.
Example: goed is blocked by went
16. Morphomic Pattern
A morphological process that is not phonologically or semantically motivated—it’s purely morphological.
Term coined by Aronoff.
Example: Latin noun declensions that change form for abstract grammatical reasons.
17. Clitic vs Affix Distinction
Clitics behave syntactically like words but phonologically like affixes.
Example: ’s in English (as in John’s): is it a clitic or an affix? Still debated.
18. Transfix
A morpheme that interdigitates within a root across non-linear positions—central in Semitic languages.
Example: Arabic √d-r-s → dars (lesson), darrasa (to teach)
19. Derivational Trapping
When one derivational process blocks another from applying due to morphological opacity.
Example: Government → blocks govern + -ment + -al → governmental, but not governmentality
20. Lexical Integrity Hypothesis
The claim that syntax cannot "see into" the internal structure of words—morphology is a black box to syntax.
A foundational concept in theoretical morphology.
Bonus Concepts for Hard-Core Morphologists
- Compounding vs Derivation – Are truck driver and truckload morphologically equivalent? Not exactly.
- Conversion (Zero Derivation) – Changing word class without changing form: to Google (v) ← Google (n)
- Iconicity in Morphology – When morphological structure mimics conceptual structure (e.g., repeated reduplication to signal intensity).
Morphology Is Where Language Gets Weird
If you’re still here, you’re definitely morphologically inclined. These terms show that word formation is not just a building-block game—it’s a pirouette of logic, history, sound, and structure.
