is for Affix

a word element added to the beginning (Prefix) or end (Suffix) of a root word which creates a new word

Pre  +  plan  +  ing

=

Preplanning

Prefix

Suffix

Root Word

Planning ahead

is for Blends

the process of creating a new word by combining parts of two separate words

Breakfast  +  Dinner

=

Brinner

Used to describe having breakfast for dinner

is for Clipping

the process of shortening a word

"Bot" for "Robot"

is for Diphthongs

a vowel produced by having one sound glide into another

House

haʊz

Diphthong

is for "-Ed", an example of a Bound Morpheme

Bound morphemes must be attached to a word, usually as a suffix

is for Free Morpheme

A morpheme that can stand alone as its own word

Book    

Hat

Cake

Cow

is for Gentrified Words

Using a Brand Name to represent all products

People in Texas often use "Coke" when talking about carbonated beverages in general

is for "Hit", a word with a Lax Vowel

A Lax Vowel is an English vowel sound that is short

Bat

Helmet

Dugout

is for Inflectional Morpheme

A morpheme, always added as a suffix, that indicates a grammatical change to a word

Dance

Dances

Danced

Dancing

Dancer

is for "Jump", a word with a Closed Syllable

A Closed Syllable is a sound unit that always ends in a consonant

Head    Shirt    Pants

is for "Kidnap", an example of Backformation

Backformation is the process of creating new words by removing affixes

Kidnapper - "er" 

=

Kidnap

is for "Lake", a word with an Open Syllable

An Open Syllable is a sound unit that always ends in a vowel

Umbrella

Tie

Tree

is for Minimal Pair

Words that differ by only changing one sound in the same position

Jar                Car

is for "Nine", a word with a Nasal Consonant

A nasal consonant is produced when air flows through the nasal cavity rather than the oral cavity during articulation

Ring

/ŋ/

Nine

/n/

Summer

/m/

is for Open Class

A word class (noun, adjective, verb, adverb) that is always accepting new words

Girl

(noun)

Talk

(verb)

Now

(adverb)

Friendly

(adjective)

is for Phoneme

A speech segment that is distinctive and contrastive to other speech segments

is for "Quasi", an example of Language Borrowing from Latin

Language Borrowing is when English speakers "loan" words from other languages.

Espresso

(from French)

Pretzel

(from German)

Coyote

(from Spanish)