4.MORPHOLOGY
4．MORPHOLOGY
4.1 Morphology
MORPHOLOGY is the branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed.
For example, the verb ―purify‖ in English consists of two orthographic parts: ―pur(e)‖ and ―-ify‖, f rom which one can work out a rule: a new form of verb can be formed by adding ?-ify‘ to an adjective. This morphological rule accounts for the existence of a set of verbs with ―-ify‖ ending, such as ―amplify‖, ―simplify‖, ―falsify‖.
Morphology is generally divided into two fields:
the study of INFLECTIONS (also called INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY), and of WORD-FORMATION (often referred to as LEXICAL or DERIV ATIONAL MORPHOLOGY).
4.1.1 Inflection
INFLECTION is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case, which do not change the grammatical class of the stems (See 4.3.4) to which they are attached. For instance,
(a) number table/tables
apple/apples
car/cars
(a)person, finiteness and aspect
talk/talks/talking/talked
open/opens/opening/opened
(b)case boy/boy‘s
John/John‘s
University/university‘s
Each set in example 4-1 constitutes a single paradigm, that is, a set of grammatically conditioned forms all derived from a single root or stem.
4.1.2 Word-formation
WORD-FORMATION, in its restricted sense, refers to the processes of word variations signaling lexical relationships.
It can be further subclassified into the compositional type (compound) and the derivational type (derivation).
4.1.2.1 Compound
The term COMPOUND, covers a wide range of different relations between lexical words. For instance,
(a)Noun compounds
day+break → daybreak (N+V)
play+boy → playboy (V+N)
hair+cut → haircut (N+V)
call+girl → callgirl (V+N)
wind+mill → wirtdmill (N+N)
(b)Verb compounds
brain+wash → windmill (N+V)
(c)Adjective compounds
man+eating → maneating (N+Ving)
heart+felt → heartfelt (N+Ved)
duty+free → dutyfree (N+Adj)
(d)Preposition compounds
in+to → into
through+out → throughout
4.1.2.2 Derivation
DERIV ATION shows the relation between stems and affixes.
For instance,
un+conscious → unconscious
nation+al → national
In contrast with inflections, derivations can make the word class of the original word either changed or unchanged. For instance,
(a)Word class changed
N→ V length+en → lengthen
dis+card → discard
N→ Adj fool+ish →foolish
Earth+ward →earthward
V→N work+er→worker
V→Adj accept+able →acceptable
Adj→N mean+ness →meanness
Adj→V deaf+en →deafen
Adj→adv exact+ly →exactly
(b) Word class unchanged
N→N non+smoker →nonsmoker
V→V dis+obey →disobey
Adj→adj tall+ish→tallish
4.2 Word and morpheme
4.2.1 Morpheme
The MORPHEME is the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and content, a unit which cannot be divided without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical.
For instance, the word ―barks‖ in ―The dog barks‖ consists of two morphemes in
orthographic forms: ―bark‖ and ―-s‖ , neither of which can be further divided into other smaller meaningful units.
Therefore, a morpheme is the minimal unit of meaning. It is not like the sound patterns or syllables which can be further divided into segements. The fact that there are three phonetic segments in /ba:k /is a case in point.
Words may consist of one morpheme or more than one morphemes. Here are some examples:
1—morpheme boy, desire
2—morpheme boy+ish, desir (e) +able
3—morpheme boy+ish+ness, desir (e) +able(e) +ity
4—morpheme gentle+man+li+ness; un+desir(e) +able+ity
5—morpheme un+gentle+man+li+ness
over 5—morpheme anti+dis+establish+ment+ari+an+ism
4.2.2 Morpheme and phoneme
A single phoneme may represent a single morpheme, but they are not identical. The phoneme /z/in/? /(goes) represents the third-person singular present tense morpheme, but /z/ occurs very often when it has nothing to do with this specific morpheme. See the following examples:
(a)boys
(b)boy‘s
(c)raise
In (a), the phoneme /z/ represents the plural morpheme, whereas in (b), it represents the morpheme which means possessive case. However, in (c), it means nothing at all.
4.2.3 Morphemic structure and phonological structure
Morphemes may also be represented by phonological structures other than a single phoneme. The following examples show that they may be monophonemic, monosyllabic or polysyllabic.
Monophonemic dogs
Monosyllabic love+ly
Polysyllabic tobacco
The syllabic (phonological) structure of a word and its morphemic (grammatical) structure do not necessarily correspond. For instance,
tell+er
big(g)+er
4.2.4 Allomorph
Some morphemes have a single form in all contests, such as ―dog‖, ―bark‖, ―cat‖, etc. In other instances there may be considerable variation, that is, a morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms.
ex. 4—9 map—maps
dog—dogs
watch—watches
mouse—mice
ox—oxen
tooth—teeth
sheep—sheep
From the examples, one can see clearly that the plural meaning in English can be represented by the voiceless /s/, the voiced /z/, the vowel-consonant structure /iz/, the diphthong /aI/ found in the irregular form of /mais/, the nasal sound /n/ in /`aksn/, the long vowel /i:/ in/ ti: /and the zero form ? of / /and others.
Each would be said to be an ALLOMORPH of the plural morpheme.
Thus, morpheme, like phoneme, as held by Americam structuralists, is an abstract unit, but on a higher level of abstraction. It consists of a sequence of classes of phonemes and has either lexical or grammatical meaning.
In morphemic transcription, morphemes in the abstract notion are put between braces like {}. Take the plural morpheme for example, it can be expressed in the form of {-s ~-z~-iz~-ai~-i:~-n~- }.
4.3 Types of morphemes
4.3.1 Free morpheme and bound morpheme
A FREE MORPHEME is one that may constitute a word (free form) by itself, such as ―bed‖, ―tree‖, ―sing‖, ―dance‖.
A BOUND MORPHEME is one that may appear with at least one other morpheme, such as ―-s‖ in ―dogs‖, ―-al‖ in ―national‖, ―dis-― in ―disclose‖, and so on.
Thus, the word ―distempered‖ has three morphemes, namely, ―dis-― and ―-ed‖ are two bound morphemes.
4.3.2 Roots
A root is the base from of a word which cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity. That is to say, it is that part of the word left when all the affixes are removed. In the word ―internationalism‖, after their removal of ―inter-‖, ―-al‖ and ―-ism‖, what is left is the root ?nation‘.
All words may be said to contain a root morpheme.
4.3.3 Affix
AFFIX is the collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme (the root or stem). Naturally, affixes belong to the type of ―bound‖ morphemes.
Affixes are limited in number in number in a language, and are generally classified into three subtypes namely, prefix, suffix and infix, depending on their position with reference to the root or stem of the word:
prefix para-, mini-, un-
suffix -ise, -tion
infix foot/feet, goose/geese
4.3.4 Root and stem
A STEM is any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an affix can be added. ―Friend-― in ?friends‖ and ―friend- ship-― in ―friendships‖ are both stems. The former shows that a stem can be equivalent to a root, whereas the latter shows that a stem may contain two or more roots.
It should be noted that certain affixes function primarily to form stems. They may be called STEM-FORMATIVES.
In the word ―thermos‖, ―-s‖ originally indicated the root in question can be the subject of a sentence, but it cannot be attached to the Greek root ―therm‖ directly, it is the stem-formative ―-o-― that helps turn the root ―them‖ into a stem ―thermo-―, to which the morpheme ―-s‖ is attached.
Affixes may also be divided into inflectional and derivational types. For instance,
ex. 4—11
Inflectional Derivational
walks sleepy
walked lovely
walking notional
meanness
stars amazement
watches disunity
sweeten
president‘s
4.4 Morphophonology and morphophonemics
MORPHOPHONOLOGY (morphonology) or MORPHOPHONEMICS (morphonemics) is a branch of linguistics referring to the analysis and classification of the phonological factors which affect the appearance of morphemes, and, correspondingly, the grammatical factors which affect the appearance of phonemes.
4.4.1 Phonologically conditioned
The form or shape of morphemes may be conditioned by phonological factors. Compare the following two sets of words:
ex. 4—12
injustice imperfect
inefficient impenetrable
infirm impossible
The negative morpheme is realized as ―in-‖ or ―im-‖ in the two sets respectively. The reason is very simple, because the change of /n/ (an alveolar nasal) to /m/ (a bilabial nasal) in the right column words makes it more similar to /p/ (a bilabial stop). Therefore, the ASSIMILATION of /n/ is said to be conditioned by /p/.
Opposite to assimilation, there is DISSIMILATION, which refers to the influence exercised by one sound segment upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become less alike, or different. For instance,
ex. 4—13
grammar (O.E.) →glamour (M.E.)
peregrinus (Latin) →pilgrim
marbre (French) →marble
In all these examples, one of the phonemes, /r/, dissimilates to /1/ in the course of time, which results in the change of morphemes concerned.
4.4.2. Morphologically conditioned
Morphemes can also be conditioned by morphological factors. In doing so, three requirements should be met:
(a)All the allomorphs should have common meaning, for instance, the plural morpheme
{-z~ -s~ -aI~ - ~ -n}
(b)All the allomorphs should be in complementary distribution, for instance, the plural
morpheme {-n}occurs only with a limited number of words such as ―ox‖, ―brother‖, etc.
(c)Allomorphs which share the common meaning should occur in parallel formations.
For instance,
Singular Plural
ox / aks/ oxen /aksn/
cow /kau/ cows /kauz/
This suggests that /n/ and /z/ have the same functional place in the grammatical structure of the language.
Returning once more to morphological conditioning, we occasionally find an extreme case in which two forms have no physical resemblance whatever. (Certain of the allomorphs of the plural morpheme are of this type; the –a of data is totally unlike the –s of cats.) The past tense of go is went, actually borrowed from a different verb, to went. But since go and went pattern the same as do-did, write-wrote, talk-talked, and all other verbs, they have to be regarded as ―different forms of the same word,‖ and must therefore contain the same morpheme with two very different allomorphs. The same is true of bad and worse.
This kind of relationship is called suppletion.
There is one further kind of conditioning besides phonological and morphological: stylistic conditioning.
An informal way of say ing What‘s cooking? Is What‘s cookin‘? with the style allomorph /n/ standing in for the –ing morpheme.
Similarly I s‘pose passes for I suppose. Probably the majority of such variants are at least to some extent phonological. S‘pose is the result of informally rapid speech.
Even those variants that were not originally phonological may eventually be considered so.
Table 1 summarizes the different kinds of conditioning in English.
Table 1 Types of Conditioning
Phonological conditioning ten cents /ten/
ten percent /tem/
pots /s / ( the plural morpheme)
mugs/z/
Morphological conditioning dear
darling
half
halves
goose-geese
suppletion sheep-sheep (the plural morpheme)
datum-data
go- went
stylistic conditioning cooking
cookin‘
Exercises
1.Define the following terms
morpheme compound
inflection affix
derivation root
suppletive stem
allomorph bound
Complete the words with suitable negative prefixes.
a. ____ removable g. ____ human
b. ____ formal h. ____ relevant
c. ____ practicable i. ____ evitable
d. ____ sensible j. ____ mobile
e. ____ tangible k. ____ legal
f. ____ logical l. ____ discreet
Describe the morphological rules concerned in exercise 2, the relevant conditioning process, and the morpheme which carries the common negative meaning.
Break up each of the following words into its parts and put the morphemes correctly in one of the columns:
Free Bound
Inflectional derivational
a.luxurious
b.pauperize
c.begin
d.buyers
e.disenchanted
f.scarcity
g.bystander
h.sooner
i.reassuringly
j.insalivation