Chapter 4: Morphology

complex lexeme: lexeme consisting of more than one lexical morpheme. 
 
compounding: type of morphemic word-formation process involving the combination of at 
least two free lexical morphemes, i.e. lexemes. 
 
conversion: type of typically word-class-changing word-formation process which transposes 
a lexeme to a new word-class without the addition of an overtly marked suffix (e.g. empty V 
 empty Adj). 
 
copulative compound: a type of two-headed, non-determinative compound denoting the sum 
of two meanings (e.g. bitter-sweet). 
 
derivational morpheme: type of morpheme involved in the creation of new lexemes, 
typically close to the stem and subject to productivity restrictions. 
 
derivational morphology: branch of morphology dealing with word-formation types using 
prefixes and suffixes. 
 
determinative compound: type of endocentric compound exhibiting a modifier-head relation 
between the constituents. 
dvandva compound: type of compound which has two heads (e.g. bitter-sweet, actor-
director). 
 
endocentric compound: type of compound where one constituent, in English usually the 
final one, encodes the grammatical and semantic head. 
 
exocentric compound: type of compound whose grammatical and semantic head is encoded 
by neither of the constituents but „lies outside‟ the compound (e.g. redbreast). 
 
free morpheme: type of morpheme that can occur as a free form. 

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fusional language: type of language (e.g. Latin) which is rich in inflectional morphemes 
frequently encoding several meanings in one form.