2. Types of morphemes

According to different classifications the meaning and status of morphemes are different. There are a number of classifications of morphemes built according to various principles.

1). On the basis of the type of meaning they convey, morphemes can be lexical and grammatical. Alongside these morphemes recognized by all linguists B.S. Khaimovich and B. Rogovskaya suggested the existence of free lexico-grammatical morphemes (e.g., give in, give up, there’s much similarity in origin and function between the second element and separable prefixes in German) and lexico-grammatical word-morphemes (e.g., auxiliaries shall, do).

2). On the basis of distribution morphemes can be classified differently. Distribution of the word is the total of all its environments.

• Linguists single out contrastive, non-contrastive and complementary distribution. The morphs are said to be in contrastive distribution if their meanings are different. Such morphs constitute different morphemes (e.g.: ed ÷ ing: returned ÷ returning). The morphs are said to be in non-contrastive distribution if their meaning is the same. Such morphs are free variants (or free alternants) of the same morpheme, e.g.: learned/learnt. Complimentary distribution concerns different environments of formally different morphs which are united by the same meaning (function): -en in oxen, children, like [s, z, iz] to express plurality. That is why L.S. Barkhudarov defines a morpheme as a number of morphs which are characterized by complementary distribution.

• According to the degree of dependence morphemes are divided into free (independently used, or those which can build up new words) and bound (which cannot be used independently). These types were suggested by L. Bloomfield.

• According to grammatical alternation morphemes can be additive and replacive. Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, e.g. –ed, -ing, etc. Replacive morphemes replace one another in a paradigm (drive-drove), i.e. it is the process of meaningful replacement (alternation) of phonemes within a root morph.

• According to their linear characteristics morphemes are divided into continuous (uninterruptedly expressed) and discontinuous (be … ing, have … en, be …en). This type was originally singled out by Z. Harris.

• L.S. Barkhudarov singled out fused (included into the structure of two adjacent morphs: really ['rıəlı]) and amalgamated (one morpheme performing the function of 2 morphemes: girls’ [gə:lz]).

• Linguists also single out portmanteau morphemes, i.e. single affixes marking two or more grammatical categories at once [Kroeger 2006: 22] (play-s simultaneously expresses grammatical categories of tense, person and number).

Thus distributional morpheme types comprise different distributional characteristics.

3). On the basis of formal representation morphemes can be overt and covert (zero or null). Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up new words. In covert (zero or null) morphemes the absence of the morpheme is meaningful, it has no sound form. This terminology was worked out by M.Y. Blokh. L.S. Barkhudarov divides morphemes into positive (books) and zero (book Ø).

4). On the basis of word-building function morphemes are divided into roots and affixes, or affixal morphemes. Affixes are further subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and inflexions. Inflexions are devoid of any lexical meaning and only have a grammatical meaning as they express morphological categories. The root is obligatory for any word, while affixes are not obligatory. Roots may be used in isolation whereas affixes are always bound. Roots belong to an open class, i.e. there are many of them in any language and new ones can be either coined or borrowed from other languages. Affixes are part of a closed class, i.e. they are limited in number.

5). On the basis of the ability of morphs to build new words or to change forms of the words morphs are divided into derivational and inflectional. I.B. Khlebnikova calls them respectively word-building (e.g., -ment in government, -less in jobless) and form-building (e.g.: -ed of the Past). Derivational morphology changes one word (or lexeme) into another, while inflectional morphology creates different forms of the same lexeme [Kroeger 2006: 247], cf.: believ-er, un-believ-able ÷ believe-s, believ-ed (base: believe).

6). On the basis of segmental relations, i.e. in relation to the boundaries of the word, morphemes are segmental, expressed within a word, and supersegmental, going beyond the word (intonation, stress, word-order, agreement). This distinction was supported by Zellig Harris, Charles Hockett, Vendriez. Supersegmental elements cannot be segmented or isolated and directly observed in the text as they are not reflected in their written representation [Хлебникова 2001: 12].