Part 2. Morphology as a division of theoretical grammar

Plan:

1. Two main divisions in theoretical grammar: morphology and syntax.

2. A word and a morpheme. The notions of allomorphs.

3. Synthetic means of form-building.

4. Analytical forms.

5. Types of morphemes.

1. Two main divisions in theoretical grammar: morphology and syntax.

As a science, grammar is traditionally subdivided into two divisions: morphology and syntax. Morphology studies word-building and word-derivation. The object of morphology is a morphological structure of words, described in such terms as a root, a prefix, flexion and so on. The object of morphology is a paradigmatics of a word, i.e. the laws of the form changing according to word-derivation categories (for example, the category of number in nouns table –tables, tense in verbs – walk - walked) and so on. Syntax studies the theories of word combinations and theory of a sentence. The theory of a word combination studies the nature of its components, the problem of word syntagmatics, types of syntactic links (relations), types of word combinations and so on. The theory of a sentence is a study of structural and communicative types of sentences, ways of connections in a composite sentence (сложный), types of subordinate sentences (придаточные предложения) in compound sentences (сложносочиненное предложение) and so on.

Though in the last decades there appeared other branches of grammar, which is connected with the growing number of linguistic objects. When such linguistic unit as a text appeared in linguistic theories it promoted such division as linguistics of text. It studies the analysis of connections between sentences, the laws of the structure of the sentence dependent of its linguistic environment, the typology of text and so on.

2. A word and a morpheme. The notions of allomorphs.

The main task of morphology is the study of the structure of words. The morpheme is the elementary meaningful lingual unit built up from phonemes and used to make words. Morphemes constitute the words; they do not exist outside the words. Morphemes are abstract units, represented in speech by morphs (the phonetic realization of a morpheme). Most morphemes are realized by single morphs: un – self – ish. Some morphemes may be manifested by more than one morph according to their position. Such alternative morphs, or positional vatiants of a morpheme are called allomorphs (one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments): cats [s], dogs [z], foxes [iz], ect.

3. Synthetic means of form-building.

Means of form-building and grammatical forms are divided into synthetic and analytical. Synthetic forms are built with the help of bound morphemes, analytical forms are built with the help of semi-bound morphemes (word-morphemes). Synthetic means of form-building are affixation, sound-interchange (inner-inflexion), suppletivity. Typical features of English affixation are scarcity and homonymy of affixes. Another characteristic feature is a great number of zero morphemes. Though English grammatical affixes are few in number, affixation is a productive means of form-building. Sound interchange may be of two types: vowel- and consonant- interchange. It is often accompanied by affixation: bring – brought. Sound interchange is not productive in Modern English. It is used to build the forms of irregular verbs.

Forms of one word may be derived from different roots: go – went, I – me, good – better. This means of form-building is called suppletivity. Different roots may be treated as suppletive forms if: