4. Theoretical Grammar

1. Morphemic structure of a word The morphological system of a l-ge reveals its properties through the morphemic structure of words. The word is the largest unit of morphology. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of morphology into which the word form may be devided. E.g. writers 1.expresses the basical meaning; 2.expresses the idea of agent performing the action; 3.s indicating number, showing that more than 1 person acts. Бархударов differentiates between a morpheme and a morph (the smallest meaningful succession of phonemes which can not be divided into any other meaningful units and which regularly occur in different utterances. The morph is the smallest meaningful unit in the state of complementary distribution. A morpheme is a set of morphs having the same meaning and being in the state of complementary distribution. These morphs are called allomorphs. Complementary distribution concerns different environments of formally different morphs which are united by the same meaning. It means that each morph never occur in the state of the other morph. E.g. –in,-im,-il-ir they have negative meaning. They are called allomorphs. E.g. clean, clearly, clarity, clarify; clear-morpheme, clear and clar-variants. E.g. boy-boys, look-looks, box-boxes, ox-oxen, foot-feet, man-men in the second column plural forms are represented by the morpheme of plurality. But phonetical representation of the first 3 allomorphs is different. This is phonemically conditioned allomorphs. [in]- morphologically conditioned one. In the 2 last examples the morpheme of plurality is represented by the change of the root vowel they are called replacive (allo)morphs. The idea of plurality can be represented by zero allomorph (fish-fish). Classifications of morphemes: I.they can be divided into derivational and inflexional. Derivational served to build words and alongside of the change of the lexical meaning they often indicate the change of part of speech. E.g. beauty-beautiful, act-acter. Inflexional morphemes change the grammatical meaning of word and used to indicate part of speech E.g write-writes. But sometimes inflexional morpheme acquires a new lexical meaning E.g. spectacle-spectacles. In modern English there is a case when a boundary line between derivational and inflexional morphemes is hard to find E.g. write-writing (письмо) (derivational); he is writing (inflexional). II. Bloch differentiates between 2 main types of inflexions: -uninterrupted, -interrupted. Suffixation, prefixation and morphemic alteration are called uninterrupted morphemes or synthetic. Synthetical inflexions can be outer, inner and suppletive ( I and me). Analytical inflexions are interrupted because they consist of a word which is devoid of any lexical meaning. They consist of an auxiliary word + a gram.suffix. E.g is invited. Modern Eng is considered to be analytical and its features are: -comparatively few gram inflexions, - the use of auxiliaries to form,- a small number of gram. Forms with sound alteration, - a wide use of prepositions to denote relations between objects. –fixed word order. III Gram inflexion can be divided into productive and unproductive. Productive: 1.Phonemically conditioned allomorphs of the morpheme of plurality (s,z,iz) 2.possessive case (s,z,iz) 3.phonemically conditioned allomorphs of the 3 person singular of the verb (s,z,iz) 4.phon.cond. allomorphs of regular verbs in past simple (d,t,id). 5.the allomorphs of the –ing morpheme which forms Participle I and gerund (asking). Unproductive 1.the archaic suffix –en (oxen) 2. suffixes in the words of Latin and Greek origin (data-datum) IV. According to the trad. Classif. Morphemes can be divided into: -roots (rats) express concrete ‘material’ part of the meaning. They are lexical morphemes. –affixes are not lexical ones.