1. Concatenative morphology involves the combination of morphemes through simple concatenation, where morphemes are added together in a linear sequence. For example, in English, the word "unhappiness" is formed by concatenating the morphemes "un-" (meaning not) and "happy" (meaning feeling pleasure). In contrast, non-concatenative morphology involves morphemes that are not simply added together in a linear sequence, but rather undergo internal changes or rearrangements to form words. An example of non-concatenative morphology is the Arabic word "ktb" (meaning write), which can be transformed into "kataba" (he wrote) through internal vowel changes.
2. Concatenative morphology typically involves the use of affixes, such as prefixes and suffixes, to modify the meaning of a base morpheme. For example, in English, the word "unhappiness" contains the prefix "un-" and the suffix "-ness" added to the base morpheme "happy." Non-concatenative morphology, on the other hand, often involves internal modifications to the base morpheme, such as vowel changes or consonant shifts, to indicate grammatical or semantic information.
3. Concatenative morphology is more common in languages with a fixed word order, where the order of morphemes in a word is important for determining its meaning. For example, in English, the word order is typically subject-verb-object, and the order of morphemes within a word follows this pattern. Non-concatenative morphology is more common in languages with a more flexible word order, where the internal structure of words plays a more important role in conveying meaning.
4. Concatenative morphology tends to be more transparent, meaning that the relationship between the base morpheme and the affixes is more easily recognizable. For example, in English, the word "unhappiness" clearly indicates that the prefix "un-" negates the meaning of the base morpheme "happy." Non-concatenative morphology can be more opaque, as the internal changes or rearrangements of morphemes may not always be obvious or predictable.
5. Concatenative morphology is more common in isolating languages, where words are formed by combining individual morphemes with clear boundaries. Non-concatenative morphology is more common in agglutinative languages, where morphemes are added to a base morpheme in a more modular fashion, often resulting in complex word forms with multiple morphemes fused together.