3. The morphological structure of English words.

The morpheme. Types of morphemes in English: roots and affixes: prefixes and suffixes. Grammatical and derivational affixes. Free and bound morphemes. Semi-affixes. Combining forms. Allomorphs as positional variants of morphemes

All words consist of morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest invisible meaningful language unit within the structure of the word. Like a word, a morpheme is a two-faced language unit (every morpheme has a certain sound form & a certain meaning).

E.g. builder (build – root morpheme, er – suffix)

But unlike a word, a morpheme is not independent, it can occur in speech only as a constituent part of a word. Morphemes may have different phonetic or gr. forms.

E.g. pleasing, pleasant, pleasure (one root morpheme is represented by different phonetic shapes: плиз, плэз, плэж)

All the representations of a given morpheme are called allomorphs. Allomorphs (or morpheme variants) are positional variants (phonetic & graphical) of a given language.

There are different types of morphemes in English:

1. Acc. to their meaning & the role in word-building all morphemes are divided into 2 groups: root-morphemes (roots) & affixational morphemes (affixes).

The root morpheme is the lexical nucleus, the semantic centre of the word. The root-morpheme is a common part of a word-building means.

E.g. work, worker, workable, workday

Affixational morphemes can in their turn be subdivided into 2 groups:

1. Acc. to their position affixes can be subdivided into:

-prefixes (morphemes which precede the root) E.g. abnormal, irrelevant

-suffixes (morphemes which follow the root)

-infixes (morphemes which are placed within the root) E.g. stand

2. Acc. to their function & meaning all affixes may be divided into:

-grammatical affixes (functional affixes: endings, inflexions) are used to form ne gr. forms of the same word. There are 8 gr. affixes in English: -s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est – verbs; -s, -s’ – nouns; -th – numerals.

-derivational affixes serve to build new words. There are about 200 derivational affixes in English

2) Acc. to their structure morphemes may be divided into 3 groups:

-free-morphemes (coincide with separate word) E.g. heartless, disagree, friendly

-bound-morphemes (do not occur separately) E.g. horror (horr + bound affixal morpheme) horr – не существует

Free morphemes are always root morphemes. All affixes are bound morphemes.

-semi-affixes can function both as affixes & root morphemes. Semi-affixes: -man, -free, -phobia, -mania, -like, -proof, -oriented, half-, ill-, etc. E.g. ladylike, waterproof, half-sister, gentleman

Affixes should not be confused with combining forms. Combining forms are bound root morphemes of Greek or Latin origin (occur in cimpounds & derivatives): tele-, poly-, auto-, moto-, graph-, micro, -logy. E.g. television, automatic

There are also pseudo-morphemes. It occur in such words as: retain, detain/ receive, deceive- the sound clusters (‘re’ & ‘de’) can be easily signed out because they occur in a number of words. And they look like prefixes (rewrite) but they have nothing in common with these prefixes ‘re’ & ‘de. They are called quasi-morphemes. These are morphemes which make up words of conditional segmentability & do not possess the status of full morphemes for semantic reasons.

Besides, there are unique morphemes. They are morphemes which are occur only in some particular environment. That means that they are used in some combinations with other morphemes. E.g. streamlet, booklet, hamlet/ strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, cranberry

The morphological analysis of words. Levels of the morphological analysis: morphemic and derivational. The aim of the morphemic analysis. The method of immediate and ultimate constituents. Morphemic segmentability of English words. The derivational analyses, its aim. The derivative structure of the word, derivational bases, derivational affixes, derivational patterns

There are 2 levels of morphological analyses: morphemic & derivational.

1. The morphological analysis aims at breaking the word into constituent morphemes determining their number & type.

The method of Immediate (IC) & Ultimate (UC) Constituents is used. This method was first suggested by Bloomfield & later developed by many linguists.

At each stage the word is broken into 2 parts which are called IC. It is done on the basis of the procedures of the identification of the root & identification of the affix. The analysis is completed when we arrive at the constituency incapable of further division that is morphemes. They are called UC.

E.g. uncomfortable

Stage 1: we segment the word into 2 parts (ICs): un + comfortable. As a result we distinguish 2 different constituents. The IC un- is UC (incapable of further division).

Stage 2: we segment IC comfortable into to ICs: comfort + able. The ICs comfort- & -able are UCs.

The morphemic analysis doesn’t reveal the way a word is build. E.g. unmistakable, discouraging. Morphemically they refer to the same type. But they belong to different derivational types because they were built in 2 different ways. The way the word is built is related on the derivational level of the analysis un + mistakable (preffixal derivative)/ discourage + ing (suffixal derivative).

2. The derivational analyses aims at establishing correlations b/w different types of words, the structural & semantic patterns the words are build on. So, the derivational analysis shows the way word is built.

The derivational analysis deals with the derivational structure of the word. The nature, types & arrangement of the ICs of the word are known as the derivative structure.

The basic units of the derivative structure of words are: derivational bases, derivational affixes, derivational patterns.

-a derivational base is the constituent of the word to which a rule of word-building is applied

-a derivational affix is a morpheme which is used to build a new word

-a derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, structure that imposes fixed rules on the order & the nature of the derivational bases & affixes that may brought together. It shows the type of ICs, their order & arrangement. So, it shows how the word is built.

E.g. unmistakable: un + adj – a new adj is built/ discouraging: v + ing – a new adj is built

The main structural types of English words

Acc. to morphological structure words are divided into:

1. Root-words (consist of only 1 morpheme – the root)

2. Derivatives (consist of 2 or more morphemes – roots & affixes) E.g. unfortunately

3. Compounds (consist of 2 or more stems) E.g. bedroom, football

4. Compound derivatives (consist of 2 or more stems with a derivational affix) E.g. long-legged, honey-mooner