Morphology

Morphology studies grammatical properties of words and pieces of words.

The central issue of morphology is a grammatical word. Although everybody seems to know what a word is, its definition poses problems. The most uncontroversial criterion for differentiating between separate words and parts of one and the same word is functional indivisibility of a word. The units are considered to be individual words if they can be separated by another word, e.g. Engl. a black cat, to better understand. The units are considered to be parts of one and the same word if they cannot be separated by another word, e.g. Engl. work-ed – *work-better-ed, apple-tree – *apple-large-tree.

Grammatical word differs from phonetic word and lexical word. A phonetic word is an indivisible sound form which functions as a rhythm unit. In a phonetic word the meanings of the constituents are not considered, e.g. Engl. an apple / n epl/, to do /t du:/, is here /iz hi /. A lexical word, or lexeme, is an indivisible sound form associated with some lexical meaning. In a lexical word the grammatical meaning is not considered, e.g. Engl. apple (a tree), do (an action). A grammatical word is an indivisible sound form associated with some lexical and/or grammatical meaning, e.g. apples (noun, plural), did (v, Past Simple), a (article., noun, singular), to (particle, verb, infinitive).

The three branches of morphology are morphemics, derivational morphology (word-formation), and part-of-speech taxonomy.

Morphemics

Morphemics studies pieces of words, or morphemes. It focuses on identification and classification of morphemes with regard to their form, meaning, and distribution in a word. The basic notions of morphemics are morph, morpheme and allomorph.

Morph is the smallest meaningful unit of language. It is a distinctive sequence of sounds which conveys some meaning – lexical, derivational or grammatical. Morpheme, similar to phoneme, is an abstract linguistic unit: it may be represented by different sound forms (morphs) that have one and the same meaning, e.g. Engl. {please /pli:z/, pleasant /plez/, pleasure /ple /}, possessive case {cat’s: /s/, dog’s /z/, fox’s /iz/}. Different morphs constituting a morpheme are called allomorphs. The factors that determine phonetic variations of allomorphs are studied by morphophonology.

To identify morphs, morphemics uses immediate constituent analysis. It is a process of disintegrating a word into a series of constituent parts. The analysis is dichotomic: at each of its stages a word is divided into two parts, one of which remains a distinctive individual form. E.g. Russ. преподавательница: преподавтельниц-а  преподаватель-ниц  преподават-ель  пре-подавать  по-давать  дав-ать; пре-по-дав-ать-ель-ниц-а (7 morphs, or morphemes); Eng. unhappiness: unhappy-ness  un-happy; un-happy-ness (3 morphs, or morphemes). Morphemes, thus identified, are further classified into types.

Types of morphemes

• Root morpheme is the base of a word which manifests its lexical meaning, and which cannot be further analyzed without loss of the word’s identity; alternatively, it is the part of a word left when all affixes are removed, e.g. Engl. happy, man, run; Ukr. стіл, стол-, кіт, кот-, лист.

• Affix is an element of a word which is attached to the root. Affixes convey derivational and grammatical meanings. With regard to their position, affixes are subdivided into:

1. Prefixes which precede the root, e.g. Engl. il-legal, im-mortal, re-read; Ukr. не-легальний, без-смертний, пере-читати.

2. Postfixes, represented by suffixes and external inflections. Suffixes are attached after the root, e.g. Eng. work-er, man-hood, child-ish, happy-ly; Ukr. учит-ель, чит-ач, гарн-о. In most languages prefixes and suffixes have derivational meanings, they serve to form new lexical words. External inflections (see above).

3. Infixes (see above).

4. Interfixes, inserted between two stems in compound words, e.g. Ukr. хмар-о-чос, пар-о-плав, фізик-о-математичний; Eng. speed-o-meter.

• Zero morpheme is a meaningful absence of a morph, which is exposed only in a binary opposition, e.g. Engl. table-o (singular) :: table-s (plural); Ukr. зошит-о (sg., NOM) :: зошит-а (sg., GEN).

• Morphemes are also classified into free and bound. A free morpheme can occur as a separate word, which is relevant for root morphemes, e.g. Engl. child, book, ask, work; Ukr. друг, день, біг, сон. A bound morpheme cannot occur as a separate word, which is characteristic of affixes and some root morphemes, e.g. Engl. child-ish, work-er, book-s, ask-ed, fac-ial / fei - l/, courage-ous /k reid - s/; Ukr. при-біг, сон-н-ий, ден-н-ий, друж-ит-и.