What is morphological productivity, and which example illustrates it?

What is morphological productivity, and which example illustrates it?

• A. The ability to apply known morphemes to new words; e.g., adding -ing to a novel verb to form a present participle: 'zook' -> 'zooking'.
• B. The capacity to imitate adults' sentences exactly.
• C. The skill of counting syllables in words.
• D. The tendency to memorize entire phrases.

Answer: (A)

Morphological productivity is the ability to apply known morphemes to new words to form novel, understandable forms. In this example, adding the productive suffix -ing to a new verb like “zook” to get “zooking” shows that the speaker isn’t just copying real words they’ve heard but using a rule to create a new, valid word form. This demonstrates understanding of how affixes attach to verbs to indicate ongoing action, a hallmark of productive morphology. The other ideas describe imitation of adults’ sentences, counting syllables, or memorizing whole phrases—things that don’t capture the ability to generate new word forms by applying morphological rules.

Morphological productivity is the ability to apply known morphemes to new words to form novel, understandable forms. In this example, adding the productive suffix -ing to a new verb like “zook” to get “zooking” shows that the speaker isn’t just copying real words they’ve heard but using a rule to create a new, valid word form. This demonstrates understanding of how affixes attach to verbs to indicate ongoing action, a hallmark of productive morphology.

The other ideas describe imitation of adults’ sentences, counting syllables, or memorizing whole phrases—things that don’t capture the ability to generate new word forms by applying morphological rules.