Ic and uc analysis

The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents. A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into Immediate Constituents. ICs are the two meaningful parts forming a large linguistic unity. The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility is involved in certain structural correlations. To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only ICs one of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary.

The morphemic analysis of words only defines the constituent morphemes, determining their types and their meaning but does not reveal the hierarchy of the morphemes comprising the word. Words are no mere sum totals of morpheme, the latter reveal a definite, sometimes very complex interrelation. Morphemes are arranged according to certain rules, the arrangement differing in various types of words and particular groups within the same types. The pattern of morpheme arrangement underlies the classification of words into different types and enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. These relations within the word and the interrelations between different types and classes of words are known as derivative or word- formation relations. The analysis of derivative relations aims at establishing a correlation between different types and the structural patterns words are built on. The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem. Stem is that part of a word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm and to which grammatical inflexions and affixes are added. The bulk of compound words is motivated and the semantic relations between the two components are transparent.

14. 14.Types of morphemes

Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. These categories are mutually exclusive, and as such, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them.Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear with other lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse).Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes, examples of suffixes are: tion, ation, ible, ing etc.. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or inflectional.Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root kind.Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense or a noun's number without affecting the word's meaning or class. Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited. Allomorphs Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are semantically identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can be pronounced /-z/, /-s/, or /-ɨz/, depending on the final sound of the noun's singular form

15. Affixes and their types.

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words. DERIVATIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL AFFIXES Lexicology is primarily concerned with derivational affixes, the other group being the domain of grammarians. The derivational affixes in fact, as well as the whole problem of word-formation, form a boundary area between lexicology and grammar and are therefore studied in both.

Language being a system in which the elements of vocabulary and grammar are closely interrelated, our study of affixes cannot be complete without some discussion of the similarity and difference between derivational and functional morphemes.

The similarity is obvious as they are so often homonymous (for the most important cases of homonymy between derivational and functional affixes see p. 18). Otherwise the two groups are essentially different because they render different types of meaning.

Functional affixes serve to convey grammatical meaning. They build different forms of one and the same word. A word form, or the form of a word, is defined as one of the different aspects a word may take as a result of inflection. Complete sets of all the various forms of a word when considered as inflectional patterns, such as declensions or conjugations, are termed paradigms. A paradigm has been defined in grammar as the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word, e. g. near, nearer, nearest; son, son’s, sons, sons’ (see¹ p. 23).

Derivational affixes serve to supply the stem with components of lexical and lexico-grammatical meaning, and thus form⁴different words. One and the same lexico-grammatical meaning of the affix is sometimes accompanied by different combinations of various lexical meanings. Thus, the lexico-grammatical meaning supplied by the suffix -y consists in the ability to express the qualitative idea peculiar to adjectives and creates adjectives from noun stems. The lexical meanings of the same suffix are somewhat variegated: ‘full of, as in bushy or cloudy, ‘composed of, as in stony, ‘having the quality of, as in slangy, ‘resembling’, as in baggy, ‘covered with’, as in hairy and some more. This suffix sometimes conveys emotional components of meaning. E.g.:

My school reports used to say: “Not amenable to discipline; too fond of organising,” which was only a kind way of saying: “Bossy.” (M. Dickens) Bossy not only means ‘having the quality of a boss’ or ‘behaving like a boss’; it is also a derogatory word.

16.Classification of words according to the number and types of morphemes.

Word-structure is internal organization of words. The morpheme is the smallest indivisible two-facet language unit. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words but not independently.

MORPHEMIC TYPES OF WORDS

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into:

Monomorphic or root-words which consist of only one root-morpheme, for example, small, dog, make, etc.

Polymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into:

Monoradical words (having one-root morpheme) fall into three subtypes:

radical-suffixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and two or more suffixal morphemes, for example, respectable, respectability;

radical-prefixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, for example, overcome, unbutton;

prefixo-radical-suffixal words, i.e. words which consist of one root, prefixal and suffixal morphemes, for instance, unforgettable, misinterpretation.

Polyradical words (having words consisting of two or more roots) fall into two subtypes:

polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morpheme, for example, pen-friend, copybook;

polyradical words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morpheme, for instance, safety-pin, light-mindedness, pen-holder.