Exponent (linguistics)
Encyclopedia
An exponent is a phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 manifestation of a morphosyntactic property. In non-technical language, it is the expression of one or more grammatical properties by sound. There are several kinds of exponents:
  • identity
  • affixation
  • reduplication
  • internal modification

Identity

The identity exponent is both simple and common: it has no phonological manifestation at all.

English example:

DEER + PLURAL → deer

Affixation

Affixation is the addition of a prefix, suffix or infix
Infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...

 to a word.

English example:

WANT + PAST → wanted

Reduplication

Reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....

 is the repetition of part of a word.

Sanskrit Example:

DA ('give') + PRESENT + ACTIVE + INDICATIVE + FIRST PERSON + SINGULARdadaami (the da at the beginning is from reduplication, a characteristic of class 3 verbs in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

)

Internal modification

There are several types of internal modification. An internal modification may be segmental
Segment (linguistics)
In linguistics , the term segment may be defined as "any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech."- Classifying speech units :...

, meaning it changes a sound in the root.

English example:

STINK + PAST = stank (i becomes a)

An internal modification might be a suprasegmental modification. An example would be a change in pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

.

A slightly controversial exponent is subtraction, in which a sound or group of sounds is removed. Some people don't think this happens.
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