Chart 3. The scope of morphology

morphology

Inflection word-formation

( form-building, (word-building, in Russian tradition)

i n Russian tradition

derivation composition

(compounding)

David Crystal makes an emphasis on the fact that since inflectional morphology is but scantily represented in English “the notion of morphology is dispensed with altogether, its concerns being handled as ‘syntax of the word’ ” [Crystal 1995: 197].

Another trend with some grammarians is to underscore close ties of grammar to lexicon. Thus, M.A.K. Halliday puts forward the notion of lexicogrammar. This concept puts the overlapping between these two spheres over those cases when they can be told apart.

• Recommended Literature:

1. Блох М.Я Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 2008. – С. 11-14.

2. Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 43-59, 120-142.

3. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981. – С. 9-14.

4. Прибыток И.И. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Издат. центр «Академия», 2008. – С. 10-24.

5. Смирницкий А.И. Морфология английского языка. – М.: Издательство литературы на иностранных языках, 1959. – С. 8-10.

6. Худяков А.А. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Издательский центр «Академия», 2005. – С. 15-25, 44-52.

• Supplementary Literature:

1. Гак В.Г. Теоретическая грамматика французского языка. – М.: Добросвет, 1999. – С. 64-70.

2. Иртеньева Н.Ф., Барсова О.М., Блох М.Я., Шапкин А.П. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка (Синтаксис). – М. : Высшая школа, 1969. – С. 30-35.

3. Лингвистический энциклопедический словарь / Гл. ред. В.Н. Ярцева. – М.: Советская энциклопедия, 1990. – С. 215-216, 348, 385-386.

4. Марузо Ж. Словарь лингвистических терминов / Предисл. В.А. Звегинцева. – М.: Едиториал УРСС, 2004. – С. 161.

5. Мурясов Р.З. К теории парадигматики в лингвистике // Мурясов Р.З. Избранные труды по германскому и сопоставительному языкознанию. - Уфа: Национальная библиотека им. З. Валиди, 1998. – С. 115-132.

6. Хаймович Б.С., Роговская Б.И. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1967. – С. 7-10, 17-26, 233-236.

7. Хлебникова И.Б. Основы английской морфологии. – М.: «ЧеРо», 2001. – С. 14-17, 28-48.

8. Штелинг Д.А. Грамматическая семантика английского языка. Фактор человека в языке. – М.: МГИМИ, ЧеРо, 1996. – С. 101-122.

3. The notion of a morpheme

1. The idea and the definition of a morpheme.

2. The terms ‘morph’ and ‘allomorph’.

3. Types of morphemes.

4. Problems connected with the notion of a morpheme.

5. Characteristic features of inflectional morphology and types of word-form derivation.

1. The idea and the definition of the morpheme

It is common knowledge in modern linguistics that “an important feature of human language is the fact that larger units are composed of smaller units, and that the arrangement of these smaller units is significant” [Kroeger 2006: 7]. Reasoning of this kind leads to a conclusion that, similarly, words can further be segmented into smaller meaningful elements.

E .g. WATCHED – two bits of meaning are explicit: WATCH (expressing the meaning “to look at sb/sth”) + -ED (expressing the idea of the past tense);

UNHELPFUL – can be divided into 3 bits of meaning: UN- (expressing negation), HELP (expressing the meaning ‘aid’, ‘assistance’), -FUL (indication of the part of speech).

The unit of grammar which is smaller than the word is called a morpheme. In fact, the term was introduced in the late XIX^th century by Boduin de Courteney and has been in wide use since then. American structuralists made it the core element of their linguistic description keeping it for minimum meaningful linguistic unit.

L. Bloomfield (1926) describes the morpheme as a “recurrent (meaningful) form which cannot in turn be analyzed into smaller recurrent forms. Hence any unanalyzable word or formative is a morpheme”. Thus basic features to single out in morphemes are (1) meaning, and (2) distribution. By distribution he understands an immediate environment of the word. This approach to the definition of a morpheme is considered to be classical, but other linguists also tried to work out their own definitions.

Often quoted is Charles Hockett’s definition of a morpheme: “Morphemes are the smallest individually meaningful elements in the utterances of the language” (1958). Paul Kroeger underlines two crucial aspects of this definition. First, morphemes are meaningful. Second, morphemes are the minimal meaningful elements in the sense that they cannot be further subdivided into smaller meaningful units [Kroeger 2006: 12-13]. This definition helps us distinguish between morphemes and phonemes (e.g. though the difference between t and d in mat ÷ mad is significant, the phonemes in question do not have any inherent meaning whereas the morpheme does).

Gleason’s definition emphasizes other basic properties of a morpheme: “A morpheme is a minimal unit in the plane of expression which relates to some unit in the plane of content”. Gleason considers a morpheme to be a unit of grammar. This definition underscores the fact that the morpheme has its form and meaning, and it is the smallest of the kind.

Very close to this definition is the one given by A.I. Smirtitsky. According to the Russian linguist, the morpheme is the smallest language unit comprising both the outer (sound) and the inner (sense) aspects. Thus A.I. Smirnitsky stresses the idea that the morpheme possesses essential features of language signs: the inner and outer forms.

In the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary edited by V.N. Yartseva the morpheme is defined as an abstract invariant getting its manifestation in concrete variants (morphs or allomorphs). Thus this definition emphasizes the idea of an abstract character of a morpheme and introduces its concrete manifestations: morphs or allomorphs. The morph is the smallest sequence of phonological units into which words are divided in an analysis of morphemes. It can be defined as a concrete manifestation of a morpheme. Thus the form [Λnstret∫t] (unstretched) will be divided into the morphs [Λn], realizing a negative morpheme; [stret∫], realizing the root morpheme “stretch”; and [t], realizing, for instance, the past-tense morpheme. In grammatical description we deal with abstract ideas as, for one, the negative, plural, and past-tense morphemes. They are not real forms. The real forms that represent them are {in-/un-/im-/il-/ab-/ir/etc.; -s/suppletive forms/etc.; -ed/suppletive forms/etc.}. These are allomorphs representing the subsequent morphemes. An allomorph is ‘one of several alternative forms of a morpheme’ [Dixon 2009: 331]. In other words, an allomorph is one of a set of forms which realizes a morpheme. Thus, an allormorph presupposes the idea of variation. E.g. –[ən] in taken and –[d] in removed are among the allomorphs of the “past participle” morpheme. Similarly, [t], [d], [id] (e.g. liked, played, fitted) are allomorphs of the past tense morpheme. Allomorphs can be phonemically conditioned [z, s, iz] or morphemically conditioned (feet).