1. Lexicology (from Gr lexis ‘word’ and logos ‘learning’) is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main units of language. The term v o c a b u l ar y is used to denote the system formed by the sum total of all the words and word equivalents that the language possesses. The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit.
The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred to as language universals.
Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. It goes without saying that every special lexicology is based on the principles of general lexicology, and the latter forms a part of general linguistics.
Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics, dealing with causal relations between the way the language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other.
2. The w-d is studied in several branches of linguistics & not in L-gy only, & 1 latter, in its turn, is closely connected with general linguistics, 1 history of the lang, phonetics, stylistics &, especially, grammar.
The connection of lexicology with phonetics is very important. This importance stands explained if we remember that a w-d is an association of a given group of sounds with a given meaning. Phonemes have no meaning of their own: the form-meaning unity is introduced only on a higher level, i.e. on the level of morphemes. But phonemes are not lexicologically irrelevant: as their function is building up morphemes, they serve to distinguish between meanings.
Word-unity is conditioned by a number of phonological features. Phonemes follow each other in a fixed sequence so that [pit] is different from [tip]. The importance of 1 phonemic sequence & arrangement may be revealed by a transposition of parts of w-ds. The substitution test, which isolates 1 central phoneme of hope by setting it against hop, hoop, heap or hip, illustrates the same point. 1 jokular transposition of 1 initial sounds of 2 or more w-ds is called spoonerism. Discrimination b/w 1 w-ds may be based upon stress: 1 w-d 'import is recog-zed as a N & distinguished from 1 v-b im'port due to 1 position of stress. It also distinguishes compounds from otherwise homonymous word-groups: 'blackbird :: 'black'bird. Each lang also possesses certain phonological features marking word-limits. '
Stylistics, although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in L-gy.These are 1 problems of meaning, synonymy, differentiation of voc-ry acc to 1 sphere of communication & some other issues.
Gen. linguistics-uses its terminology & notions.
1 history of 1 Engl lang-#1 narrowing of meaning (# girl).
The difference and interconnection between grammar and L-gy is one of 1 important controversial issues in linguistics.
Even isolated w-ds as presented in a dictionary bear a definite relation to 1 grammatical system of 1 lang because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical characteristic of 1 w-d class to which they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in certain patterns conveying 1 relations b/w 1 things for which they stand, but with their lexical meaning they possess some grammatical meaning. The 2 kinds of meaning are often interdependent. Certain gr-cal functions &meanings are possible only for w-ds whose lexical meaning makes them fit for these functions, &, some lexical meaning in some w-ds occur only in def. gr-cal functions & forms & in def. gr-cal patterns.
Another point of interest is 1survival of 2 gr-cally equivalent forms of the same word when they help to distinguish b/w its lexical meanings. A few nouns, for instance, have two separate plurals, one keeping 1 etymological plural form, & 1other with the usual Engl ending -s. # 1 form brothers is used to express the family relationship, whereas 1old form brethren survives in ecclesiastical usage or serves to indicate 1members of some society; 1scientific plural of index is usually indices, 1plural in more general senses is indexes. Cf., formulas :: formulae, geniuses :: genii.
It may also happen that a form that originally exp-sed gr-cal meaning (# 1plural of N-s)becomes a basis for a new gr-cally conditioned lexical meaning (#arms).this is called a lexicalization of a gr-l form.
The ties between lexicology and grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of word –formation which before lexicology became a separate branch of linguistics had ever been considered as part of grammar.
3. The notion of lexical system
It has been claimed by dif. authors that in contrast to Gr. 1voc-ry of a lang. is not systematic but chaotic.
There has been much discussion of late, both in this country and abroad, concerning different problems of the systematic nature of a lang voc-ry. L-gy studies 1reccurent patterns of semantic relationship, & of any formal phonological, morphological or contextual means by which they may be rendered. It aims at systematization.
The term system denotes not merely 1sum total of Engl w-ds: to collect and explain them is the task of lexicography accomplished in the numerous explanatory, historical and other dictionaries of 1 lang. The term system denotes a logical homogeneous whole, constituted by interdependent elements of the same order related in certain specific ways. Lexicology studies this whole by determining 1properties of its elements, 1different relationships of contrast and similarity existing b/w them within a language, as well as the ways in which they are influenced by extra-linguistic reality.
1term system as applied to 1voc-ry should not be understood to mean a well-defined or rigid system. It is an adaptive system & cant be completely & exactly char-zed by deterministic functions.
The notions rendered in the meanings of words are generalized reflections of real objects & phenomena. In this light it is easy to understand how things that are connected in reality come to be connected in language too.
The word sea, for instance, denotes not only a great expanse of salt water as opposed to dry land or fresh water, as in the expression by sea
We call vocabulary systematic because the sum total of all the words in it may be considered as a structured set of interdependent and interrelated elements.
THE NOTION OF LEXICAL SYSTEM
There has been much discussion of late, both in this country and abroad, concerning different problems of the systematic nature of a language vocabulary. The Soviet scholars are now approaching a satisfactory solution based on Marxist dialectics and its teaching of the general interrelation and interdependence of phenomena in nature and society.
The term system denotes not merely the sum total of English words: to collect and explain them is the task of lexicography accomplished in the numerous explanatory, historical and other dictionaries of the language. The term system denotes a logical homogeneous whole, constituted by interdependent elements of the same order related in certain specific ways. Lexicology studies this whole by determining the properties of its elements the different relationships of contrast and similarity existing between them within a language, as well as the ways in which they are influenced by extra-linguistic reality.
Theory of reflection, Lenin. The notions rendered in the meanings of words are generalized reflections of real objects and phenomena. In this light it is easy to understand how things that are connected in reality come to be connected in language too.
The word sea, for instance, denotes not only a great expanse of salt water as opposed to dry land or fresh water, as in the expression by sea
Lexicology studies the recurrent patterns of semantic relationships, and of any formal phonological, morphological or contextual means by which they may be rendered. It aims at systematization.
It has been claimed by different authors that, in contrast to grammar, the vocabulary of a language is not systematic but chaotic. We call vocabulary systematic because the sum total of all the words in. it may be considered as a structured set of interdependent and interrelated elements.
A set is a collection of distinct elements to be concieved as a whole.
The term "system" as applied to vocabulary should not be taken firmly. The vocabulary system cannot be completely_and exactly characterized by deterministic functions. In other words, the vocabulary is a probabilistic system, or rather a set of probabilistic systems.
The definition of grammar as a system of general rules governing changes in words, no matter what their lexical meaning may be, representing grammar as an abstraction from all concrete properties 'words, needs revision.
4. The main nominative units in Lex-gy are: a word, a morpheme, a word-group and phraseological unit. The word is a basic unit of a language system. It’s the largest on a morphological and the smallest on the syntactic level. It’s the most typical central, two-facet , ready-made unit which is easily apprehended by native-speakers phsyhologically and perceptually. Every word has definite grammar qualities that serve to unite words into larger units. The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its paradigm. The morpheme is the smallest indivisible two-facet language unit that is a part of a word, into which words may be analyzed (to undo- to redo-a doer). There are distinguished root morphemes and derivational (word-building) morphemes. The word-group, phraseological unit: it’s two-facet, ready-made unit listed in a special dict.; consists of at least 2 ws and the meaning of aech word is dif.from the meaning of the whole. “as loose as a goose” – “clumsy” and is used in a sentence as a predicative.
6. Special properties:
1) L.signs form a very complex system, which is subdivided into subsystems.
2) universal s-m (it can express ANY idea of mind of human communication)
3) the signs are not only the means of exchanging words but also the means of exchanging thoughts
4) L.signs are able to be combined into larger units word possesses a combinatory power. Ann was in brown study. (without an article)
Two kinds of l. Signs: ready-made (phonemes, morphemes) and newly-formed (created in the process of speech)
Absolute properties:
1) a word possesses form and meaning
2) reference to style: neutral and stylistically-coloured or marked
3) frequency of usage: recurrent and non-recurrent
4) referece to time: archaic, obsolete, historisms, noelogisms, noncewords-autorisms.
Relative properties:
Interrelations b/w words because of assossiations groups
Psychological
1) solid pronunciaion (without pauses b/w syllables)
2) w is an indivisible unit; integrity of form and meaning
3) autonomous unit
7.The important point to remember about definitions is that they should indicate the most essential characteristic features of the notion expressed by the term under discussion, the features by which this notion is distinguished from other similar notions. For instance, in defining the word one must distinguish it from other linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, or the word-group. In contrast with a definition, a description aims at enumerating all the essential features of a notion.
The word may be described as the basic unit of language. Uniting meaning and form, it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation. Morphemes as we have already said are also meaningful units but they cannot be used independently, they are always parts of words whereas words can be used as a complete utterance (e. g. Listen!).
When used in sentences together with other words they are syntactically organised. Their freedom of entering into syntactic constructions is limited by many factors, rules and constraints.
Being the central element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and also for some other sciences that have to deal with language and speech, such as philosophy and psychology, and probably quite a few other branches of knowledge.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), one of the great English philosophers, revealed a materialistic approach to the problem of nomination when he wrote that words are not mere sounds but names of matter. Three centuries later the great Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936) examined the word in connection with his studies of the second signal system, and defined it as a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism.
E. Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he calls the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated ‘meaning’, into which the sentence resolves itself”. Sapir also points out one more, very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility: “It cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two other or both of the several parts remaining as a helpless waif on our hands”.
The semantic-phonological approach may be illustrated by A.H.Gardiner’s definition: “A word is an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about."
The eminent French linguist A. Meillet (1866-1936) combines the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria and advances a formula which underlies many subsequent definitions, both abroad and in our country, including the one given in the beginning of this book: “A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment."
The word is the fundamental unit of language. It is a dialectical unity of form and content.
Positional mobility, functioning alone
The problems associated with the definition of the word have always been most complex and remain disputable. Determining the word involves considerable difficulties for the criteria employed in establishing it are of different character and each language presents a separate system with its own patterns of vocabulary items, its specific types of structural units and its own ways of distinguishing them. The matter is that the simplest word has many different aspects. It has a sound form because it is a certain arrangement of phonemes.
It has its morphological structure, being a certain arrangement of morphemes.
Being the central element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and also some other sciences that have to deal with language and speech, such as philosophy, psychology and probably quite a few other branches of knowledge. All attempts to characterise the word are necessarily specific for each domain of science and are considered one-sided by the representatives of all the other domains and criticised for incompleteness,
The definition of the word from the point of view of philosophy:
Words are not mere sounds but names of matter (T. Hobbes).
The definition of the word from the point of view of physiology:
A word is a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism (I. Pavlov).
The definition of the word from the point of view of Machine Mathematical Linguistics:
A word is a sequence of graphemes between two blanks.
The definition of the word from the point of view of syntax:
A word is a minimum sentence (H. Sweet).
A word is a minimum free form (L. Bloomfield).
The definition of the word from the point of view of semantics:
Words are meaningful units (S. Ullmann).
The definition of the word from the point of view of syntax and semantics:
A word is one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated units into which the sentence resolves itself (E. Sapir).
The definition of the word from the point of view of semantics and phonology:
A word is an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about ( A. Gardiner).
The definition of the word from the point of view of semantics, phonology and grammar:
A word is the association of a given meaning with a given group of sounds susceptible to a given grammatical employment (A. Meillet).
Many scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon. Yet none of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory in all aspects. The definition which is a bit extended but takes into account different aspects and hence can be considered optimal is the definition of the word given be I. Arnold:
The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterised by formal and semantic unity.
Close observation and comparison of words clearly shows that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of smaller units, each possessing sound-form and meaning. These are generally referred to as morphemes defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units it’s indivisible and implies an association of a given sound form. Ulike words, m. cannot function independently, they occur in speech only as parts of ws. They’re devoid of gram.meaning, concrete lexical mean.is found only in root morphemes, lex.mean.of a generalized character. Morph.are divided into w.-building and form-building. Morphemes may be classified: a) from the semantic point of view, b) from the structural point of view.
A)Semantically morphemes fall into 2 classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make 2 distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure. The root-morphemes are understood as the lexical centres of the words, without which the ws do not exist The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a word, it has an individual lexical meaning. Besides it may also possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster (teach, teacher, teaching). Affixational morphemes (the mrphs which are added to roots to modify their mn, cannot stand alone) acc to the place of the affix in the w. they are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalized lexical meaning.
B) Structurally mrphs fall into 3 types: free, bound and semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes. A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with some word-forms independently functioning in speech (a stem) – heart – hearts; hearty- heartier.. A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word (affixes, unique roots and pseudo-roots: theor- in theory, theoretical). Semi-bound morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme (sleep well – well-known, half an hour – half-eaten).
A special class of morphemes of Greek and Latin origin should be mentioned. They are used to make up international words. They are called combining forms (telephone, telegraph; the morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, micro-). And also the morpheme –man as the last component may be qualified as semi-bound (fisherman – man-made).
Allomorphes are the phonemic variants of the given morpheme e.g. il-, im-, ir-, are the allomorphes of the prefix in- (illiterate, important, irregular, inconstant).
Monomorphic are root-words consisting of only one root-morpheme i.e. simple words (dry, grow, boss, sell).
Polymorphic are words consisting of at least one root-morpheme and a number of derivational affixes, i.e. derivatives, compounds (customer, payee, body-building, shipping).
Derived words are those composed of one root-morpheme and one more derivational morphemes (consignment, outgoing, publicity).
Derived word are those composed of one root-morpheme and one or more. Compound words contain at least two root-morphemes (warehouse, camera-man),
WORD STRUCTURE IN MODERN ENGLISH
2. There are two levels of approach to the study of word- structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.
Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.
It has been universally acknowledged that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, the basic units on the morphemic level, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units.
The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.
The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation).
The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots.
Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.
Roots and derivational affixes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill-, are understood as the lexical centers of the words, and –less, -y, -ness, -er, re- are felt as morphemes dependent on these roots.
Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes.
Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirable there is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as –ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.
It should also be noted that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please , pleasing , pleasure , pleasant the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme, that manifest alternation are called allomorphs/or morphemic variants/ of that morpheme.
The combining form allo- from Greek allos “other” is used in linguistic terminology to denote elements of a group whose members together consistute a structural unit of the language (allophones, allomorphs). Thus, for example, -ion/ -tion/ -sion/ -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix, they do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form depending on the final phoneme of the preceding stem. They are considered as variants of one and the same morpheme and called its allomorphs.
Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.
Complementary distribution is said to take place, when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment.
Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes –able and –ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in –able mean “ capable of beings”.
Allomorphs will also occur among prefixes. Their form then depends on the initials of the stem with which they will assimilate.
Two or more sound forms of a stem existing under conditions of complementary distribution may also be regarded as allomorphs, as, for instance, in long a: length n.
Structural types of words.
The morphological analysis of word- structure on the morphemic level aims at splitting the word into its constituent morphemes – the basic units at this level of analysis – and at determining their number and types. The four types (root words, derived words, compound, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word building.
According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups: derived words and compound words – according to the number of root-morphemes they have. Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, e.g. acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant. There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.
These structural types are not of equal importance. The clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: 1)the importance of each type in the existing wordstock, and 2) their frequency value in actual speech. Frequency is by far the most important factor. According to the available word counts made in different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing wordstock; derived nouns comprise approximately 67% of the total number, adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15% and adjectives about 4%. Root words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; adjectives root words come to approximately 12%.
But we cannot fail to perceive that root-words occupy a predominant place. In English, according to the recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are root-words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the root-words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that root words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Root- words also serve as parent forms for all types of derived and compound words.
Principles of morphemic analysis.
In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. 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. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula:
un+ { [ ( gent- + -le ) + -man ] + -ly}
Breaking a word into its Immediate Constituents we observe in each cut the structural order of the constituents.
A diagram presenting the four cuts described looks as follows:
un- / gentlemanly
un- / gentleman / - ly
un- / gentle / - man / - ly
un- / gentl / - e / - man / - ly
A similar analysis on the word-formation level showing not only the morphemic constituents of the word but also the structural pattern on which it is built.
The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents. For example, the noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs: [frendlı-] recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and [-nıs] found in a countless number of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC [-nıs] is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of –ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The IC [frendlı-] is next broken into the ICs [-lı] and [frend-] which are both UCs of the word.
Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.
According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, e.g. the identification of the suffix –er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme – er and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-.
According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, for example the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.
As a rule, the application of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.
However, the morphemic structure of words in a number of cases defies such analysis, as it is not always so transparent and simple as in the cases mentioned above. Sometimes not only the segmentation of words into morphemes, but the recognition of certain sound-clusters as morphemes become doubtful which naturally affects the classification of words. In words like retain, detain, contain or receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [rı-], [dı-] seem to be singled quite easily, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes re-, de- as found in words re-write, re-organize, de-organize, de-code. Moreover, neither the sound-cluster [rı-] or [dı-], nor the [-teın] or [-sı:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning because [rı-] distinguishes retain from detain and [-teın] distinguishes retain from receive.
It follows that all these sound-clusters have a differential and a certain distributional meaning as their order arrangement point to the affixal status of re-, de-, con-, per- and makes one understand -tain and –ceive as roots. The differential and distributional meanings seem to give sufficient ground to recognize these sound-clusters as morphemes, but as they lack lexical meaning of their own, they are set apart from all other types of morphemes and are known in linguistic literature as pseudo- morphemes. Pseudo- morphemes of the same kind are also encountered in words like rusty-fusty.
Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of Stems. Derivational types of word.
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.
The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm, thus the stem which appears in the paradigm (to) ask ( ), asks, asked, asking is ask-; thestem of the word singer ( ), singer’s, singers, singers’ is singer-. It is the stem of the word that takes the inflections which shape the word grammatically as one or another part of speech.
The structure of stems should be described in terms of IC’s analysis, which at this level aims at establishing the patterns of typical derivative relations within the stem and the derivative correlation between stems of different types.
There are three types of stems: simple, derived and compound.
Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be modeled. Simple stems are generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root morpheme. The derivational structure of stems does not always coincide with the result of morphemic analysis. Comparison proves that not all morphemes relevant at the morphemic level are relevant at the derivational level of analysis. It follows that bound morphemes and all types of pseudo- morphemes are irrelevant to the derivational structure of stems as they do not meet requirements of double opposition and derivative interrelations. So the stem of such words as retain, receive, horrible, pocket, motion, etc. should be regarded as simple, non- motivated stems.
Derived stems are built on stems of various structures though which they are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis of the derivative relations between their IC’s and the correlated stems. The derived stems are mostly polymorphic in which case the segmentation results only in one IC that is itself a stem, the other IC being necessarily a derivational affix.
Derived stems are not necessarily polymorphic.
Compound stems are made up of two IC’s, both of which are themselves stems, for example match-box, driving-suit, pen-holder, etc. It is built by joining of two stems, one of which is simple, the other derived.
In more complex cases the result of the analysis at the two levels sometimes seems even to contracted one another.
The derivational types of words are classified according to the structure of their stems into simple, derived and compound words.
Derived words are those composed of one root- morpheme and one or more derivational morpheme.
Compound words contain at least two root- morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.
Derivational compound is a word formed by a simultaneous process of composition and derivational.
Compound words proper are formed by joining together stems of word already available in the language.