The Morpheme

1. Definition of the Morpheme, its characteristics.2. Allomorphs3. Word parts, the model of the word4. Suffix and inflection5. Types of word-form derivation6. Classification of the Morpheme

The morphological system of language reveals its properties through the morphemic structure of words.

Morphology as a part of grammatical theory faces the two segmental units: the morpheme and the word.

The morpheme is one of the central notions of grammatical theory. is the smallest elementary meaningful unit into

which a word form may be divided. is a meaningful segmental component of the word; is formed by phonemes; The functions of the morpheme are effected only

as the corresponding constituent functions of the word as a whole.

For instance, the form of the verbal past tense is built up by means of the dental grammatical suffix: train-ed [-d]; publish-ed [-t]; meditat-ed [-id].

The form writers it can be divided into three morphemes: (1) writ-, expressing the basic lexical

meaning of the word, (2) -er-, expressing the idea of agent

performing the action indicated by the root of the verb,

(3) -s, indicating number, that is,, showing that more than one person of the type indicated is meant.

Additional remarks on the Morpheme Theory (1) Two or more morphemes may sound

the same but be basically different, that is, they may be homonyms:

Writ-er – Long-er (2) There may be zero morphemes, that is,

the absence of a morpheme may indicate a certain meaning:

Book-Ø - Books

Allomorphs

are morphs representing the same morpheme and having the same meaning and function

the student comes, the students come; the ox comes, the oxen come Goose – geese The morpheme, in this case, has three

allomorphs

In accord with the traditional classification

root-morphemes (roots) affixal morphemes (affixes)

The roots

express the concrete, "material" part of the meaning of the word.

The roots of notional words are classical lexical morphemes.

the affixes

express the specificational part of the meaning of the word,

the specifications being of lexico-semantic and grammatico-semantic character.

The affixal morphemes include prefixes, suffixes, and inflexions

Prefixes and lexical suffixes have word-building functions, together with the root they form the stem of the word;

Inflexions (grammatical suffixes) express different morphological categories.

The root, according to the positional content of the term (i.e. the border-area between prefixes and suffixes), is obligatory for any word, while affixes are not obligatory.

out — a root-word (preposition, adverb, verbal

postposition, adjective, noun, verb); throughout — a composite word, in which -out serves as

one of the roots (the categorial status of the meaning of both morphemes is the same);

outing — a two-morpheme word, in which out is a

root, and -ing is a suffix;

The abstract complete morphemic model of the common English word

prefix + root + lexical suffix+grammatical suffix.

"suffix" and "inflection" / "ending"

In a wide sense the term "suffix" is applied to any morpheme coming after the root morpheme, whether it is derivative or inflectional.

An inflection is a special kind of suffix

"suffix" and "inflection" / "ending"

In a narrow sense the term "suffix" is applied to derivational post-root morphemes only.

In that case an inflection is a morpheme of a different kind, having no lexical meaning of any sort.

"inflection" / "ending"

The term "inflection" (or "ending") is applied to any morpheme serving to derive a form of a word and having no lexical meaning.

So the morphemes characterizing the infinitive, for instance, in Russian or German, will be termed inflections.

"inflection" or "ending" According to another view, the term "inflection"

(or "ending") is only applied to morphemes expressing case and number in nominal parts of speech, and to those expressing person and number in verbs.

From this viewpoint the morpheme characterizing the infinitive in Russian or German or the morpheme characterizing the gerund in English would not be an inflection or ending, whereas the morpheme -s in forms like writes, buys, would be one.

TYPES OF WORD-FORM DERIVATION

(a) those limited to changes in the body of the word, without having recourse to auxiliary words (synthetic types),

(b) those implying the use of auxiliary words (analytical types).

(c) there are a few special cases of different forms of a word being derived from altogether different stems.

Synthetic Types

the ending -s (-es), with three variants of pronunciation, used to form the plural of almost all nouns, and the endings -en and -ren, used for the same purpose in one or two words each, viz. oxen, brethren (poet.), children.

Synthetic Types

the ending -s, with the same three variants of pronunciation as for the plural ending, used to form what is generally termed the genitive case of nouns.

Synthetic Types

For adjectives, there are the endings -er and -est for the degrees -of comparison.

Synthetic Types the ending -s (-es) for the third person singular

present indicative, with the same three variants of pronunciation noted above for nouns,

the ending -d (-ed) for the past tense of certain verbs (with three variants of pronunciation, again),

the ending -d (ed) for the second participle of certain verbs,

the ending -n (-en) for the second participle of certain other verbs

the ending -ing for the first participle and also for the gerund.

Sound Alternations

a way of expressing grammatical categories which consists in changing a sound inside the root.

man - men, mouse - mice.

Analytical Types

using a word (devoid of any lexical meaning of its own) to express some grammatical category of another word.

has invited or is invited is inviting, or does not invite more vivid, the most vivid more vividly, most vividly

Suppletive Formations

building a form of a word from an altogether different stem:

Go - went; Good - better

The "distributional morpheme types" On the basis of the degree of self-

dependence On the basis of formal presentation, On the basis of segmental relation On the basis of grammatical alternation On the basis of linear characteristic,

On the basis of the degree of self-dependence,

"free" morphemes that can build up words by themselves, i.e. can be used "freely".

"bound" morphemes that cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words.

The auxiliary word-morphemes of various standings should be interpreted in this connection as "semi-bound" morphemes, since, being used as separate elements of speech strings, they form categorial unities with their notional stem-words

In the word handful the root hand is a free morpheme, while the suffix -ful is a bound morpheme

the segments -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz]: the plural of nouns, the possessive case of nouns, the third person singular present of verbs;

the segments -(e)d [-d, -t, -id]: the past and past participle of verbs;

the segments -ing: the gerund and present participle;

the segments -er, -est: the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs.

Productive bound morphemes in the morphological system of English:

On the basis of formal presentation,"overt" morphemes "covert" morphemes Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit

morphemes building up words; The notion of covert morpheme coincides with the notion of zero morpheme in the oppositional description of grammatical categories

Covert morpheme is identified as a contrastive absence of morpheme expressing a certain function.

The word-form clocks consists of two overt morphemes: one lexical (root) and one grammatical expressing the plural.

On the basis of segmental relation,

"segmental" morphemes "supra-segmental" morphemes: intonation

contours, accents, pauses. Suprasegmental units are functionally

connected with words, word-groups, sentences, supra-sentential constructions.

On the basis of grammatical alternation,

"additive" morphemes "replacive" morphemes Additive morphemes are outer grammatical

suffixes, since, as a rule, they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation.

Cf. look+ed; small+er, etc. The root phonemes of grammatical interchange

are considered as replacive morphemes, since they replace one another in the paradigmatic forms.

Cf. dr-i-ve - dr-o-ve - dr-i-ven; m-a-n — m-e-n.

On the basis of linear characteristic, "continuous" (or "linear") morphemes "discontinuous" morphemes Discontinuous morpheme is opposed to the

common and uninterruptedly expressed, Continuous morpheme is a two-element

grammatical unit identified in the analytical grammatical form comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix. They are symbolically represented as follows:

be ... ing — for the continuous verb forms (e.g. is going); have ... en — for the perfect verb forms (e.g. has gone); be ... en — for the passive verb forms (e.g. is taken)