LECTURE 2

MORPHOLOGY.

MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD.

THE PROBLEM OF PARTS OF SPEECH

1. The main unit of morphology. The definition of the word.

2. The definition of the morpheme. The word and the morpheme, their correlation in the level structure of the language. Intermediary phenomena between the word and the morpheme.

3. Traditional classification of morphemes: positional and functional (semantic) criteria. Roots and affixes. Lexical (derivational, word-building) and grammatical (functional, word-changing) affixes. Infix.

4. The "allo-emic" theory in morphology: morphs, allomorphs and morphemes.

5. Distributional analysis in morphology; contrastive/non-contrastive/complementary types of distribution. Distributional classification of morphemes: full and empty (zero morphemes), free and bound, overt and covert, segmental and supra-segmental, additive and replacive, continuous and discontinuous.

6. The notion of a part of speech as a lexico-grammatical class of words. Criteria for differentiating the classes of words: semantic, formal and functional criteria.

7. Principles of grammatical classification of words. The traditional classification of parts of speech. Notional and functional parts of speech. The problem of grammatical relevance of the traditional classification of parts of speech. Polydifferential and monodifferential (heterogeneous and homogeneous) classifications.

8. The syntactico-distributional classification of words (Ch. Fries). The combination of the syntactico-distributional and the traditional classifications: three main layers (supra-classes) of lexicon - notional parts of speech. Supra/sub classes of words. Intermediary phenomena between the three major layers.

9. The field approach in the classification of parts of speech.

Key terms: - significative (meaning), intermediary phenomenon (phenomena), root, affix, lexical (derivational, word-building) affix, grammatical (functional, word-changing) affix, stem, outer inflexion, inner inflexion, suppletivity, allo-emic theory, morph, allomorph, distribution (complementive, contrastive, non-constrastive), distributional analysis, full and empty morphemes, free and bound morphemes, overt and covert morphemes, segmental and suprа-segmental morphemes, additive and replacive morphemes, continuous and discontinuous morphemes

- part of speech, classes of words (subclasses, supra-classes), semantic features (categorial meaning), formal features, functional features, homogeneous (monodifferential) classification, heterogeneous (polydifferential) classification, syntactico-distributional classification, notional parts of speech, functional parts of speech, substitutional part of speech, openness/closedness of word classes

1. The main unit of morphology. The definition of the word.

Morphology deals with the internal structure of words, peculiarities of their grammatical categories and their semantics while traditional syntax deals with the rules governing combination of words in sentences (and texts in modern linguistics). So, the main objectives of Morphology are:

– to study the internal structure of the word and means of word form building in relation to the abstract meanings they express;

– to study general grammatical characteristics of words which enable them to make up sentence;

– to classify words into a few basic classes.

The word is the main unit of morphology. It is difficult to arrive at a one-sentence definition of such a complex linguistic unit as the word. First of all, it is the main expressive unit of human language which ensures the thought-forming function of the language. It is also the basic nominative unit of language with the help of which the naming function of language is realized. As any linguistic sign the word is a level unit. In the structure of language it belongs to the upper stage of the morphological level. It is a unit of the sphere of ‘language’ and it exists only through its speech actualization. One of the most characteristic features of the word is its indivisibility. As any other linguistic unit the word is a bilateral entity. It unites a concept (поняття, ідея) and a sound image and thus has two planes – the content and expression planes.

In the history of linguistics, there were attempts to separate grammar (as the description of linguistic forms and structures) from semantics (the description of meanings). This is absolutely impossible, since grammatical forms and regularities are meaningful, though, the quality of grammatical meanings is different from the quality of lexical meanings. Grammatical meanings are connected with the most abstract and general parts of information, rendered by lingual units. For example, the word hands, apart from its immediate lexical meaning (the referent of the word), bears some grammatical meanings, in particular, ‘thingness’ (the categorical grammatical meaning of nouns), ‘plurality’ (more than one objects are denoted) and others.

2. The definition of the morpheme. The correlation between the word and the morpheme. Intermediary phenomena between the word and the morpheme.

As shown in the previous lecture, the morpheme is the elementary meaningful lingual unit built up from phonemes and used to make words. It has meaning, but its meaning is abstract, not concrete, or nominative. Morphemes constitute the words; they do not exist outside the words. Studying the morpheme we actually study the inner structure and functions of the word.

Stating the differences between the word and the morpheme, we have to admit that the correlation between these units is problematic. The borderlines between the morpheme and the word are by no means rigid and there is a set of intermediary units (half-words - half-morphemes), which form an area of transitions between the word and the morpheme as the polar phenomena. This includes the so-called “morpheme-like” functional, or auxiliary words, for example, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, articles, particles, prepositions and conjunctions: they are realized as isolated, separate units (their separateness is in writing) but perform various grammatical functions; in other words, they function like morphemes and are semantically dependent. Cf..: a boy, have done.

Such an approach is known in linguistics as “a field approach”: polar phenomena possessing the unambiguous (однозначний, ясний) characteristic features of the opposed units constitute “the core”, or “the center” of the field, while the intermediary phenomena combining some of the characteristics of the poles make up “the periphery” of the field; e.g.: functional words make up the periphery of the class of words since their functioning is close to the functioning of morphemes.