ГОС_1 / Lexicology / Lecture4 / MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. ITS LEVELS:

MORPHEMIC & DERIVATIONAL ANALYSISES

The morphological analysis serves to study the word structure. There are 2 levels of approach to the study of the word structure:

• The level of morphemic analysis; ( A )

• The level of derivational analysis (word-building). ( B)

(A) The morphemic analysis aims at breaking the word into constituent morphemes

determining their number & types. The procedure,used for segmenting words into constituent morphemes,is the method of immediate & ultimate constituents (метод непосредственных и конечных сост-их).

At each stage of the analysis the word is broken into 2 parts which are called immediate constituents on the basis of procedures of the identification of the root & the identification of the affix. The possibility of these procedures is determined by two main characteristics of the morpheme:

1. the repetition in different distributional structures in the same language.

2. the ability to render a certain amount of information, e.i. to possess a seperate individual meaning.

The analysis is completed when we arrive at the constituents incapable of further division, e.i. morphemes. They are called “ultimate constituents”,

e.g. unreasonable → un (I.C, U.C.)+reasonable(1, I.C.)→ reason(2, I.C./U.C.)+able(uc).

According to the number of morphemes words are classified:

• monomorphic (root) words;

• polymorphic.

According to the number of root morphemes polymorphemic words are divided into monoradical (1- root words) & polyradical (with 2 or more roots).

Monoradical words fall into 3 subtypes:

• radical – suffixal (acceptable);

• radical prefixal (to unbutton);

• prefixo-radical-suffixal (unreasonable)

Polyradical:

• those consisting of 2 or more roots (blackboard);

• those const –g of 2 or more roots & 1 or more affixes (looking-glass).

According to their segmentability words are:

• segmentable = polymorphic

• non-segmentable (monomorphic root-words).

There are 3 types of segmentability of words in English:

1. in case of complete seg-ty the U.C.-s are morphemes proper, e.g. worker

2. in case of conditional seg-ty (условная) the U.C.s are pseudo-morpheme or quasi- morphemes, e.g. to retain – to detain- to contain; to receive-to deceive- to conceive. Have no lexical meaning.

3. in case of defective seg-ty at least 1 of the UC-s is a unique morpheme, e.g. pocket(a unique morpheme) – lionet, locket, hogget.

The existance of words that are difficult to analyse is due to the folowing:

1. to borrowing from different languages;

2. to the changes in their morphological structure that some words underwent in the course of their historical development.

(B) The morphemic analysis does not reveal the way a word is constructed. It’s revealed on the derivational level of the analysis which deals with the derivational or derivative structure of a word. Though the morphemic & derivative structures of the word are closely connected & often coincide, they are interpreted differently, e.g. to water: on the MorphemicLevel – just a root word; but on the Deriv.L. – it’s a derived word formed by means of conversion from the noun “water”.

The nature types & arrangement of Immediate Constituences are known as its derivative structure. Basic units of the Derivative Structure of words are:

derivational basis;

derivational affixes;

derivational patterns.

Derivation between words within common roots but of different derivative structure are known as derivative relations. Derivational relations make the subject of study at the dedrivational level of analysis. “The derivational analysis” aims at establishing correlations between different types of words, the structure & semantic patterns the words are built on.

“A derivational base” is the constituent of a word to which a rule of word-building is applied. It is the part of a word which establishes connection with the lexical unit that motivates the derivative & determines its individual lexical meaning.

Structurally, derivational base falls:

1. basis that coincides with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity. (cложность)

e.g. duetiful, - lly, daydreamer

The morphological stem of a word is the part of the word which takes on the system of grammatical inflections & remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Derivationally the stems that serve as this class of basis are:

• Simple - consisting of a simple root morpheme ( girl-girly);

• A derived stem consists of a root morpheme & one or more affixes (girlish – ly ) to parrot – is a one morpheme, it’s still derived.

• A compound stem consists of 2 or more other stems e.g. matchbox

stems may be also free & bound. A free stem is capable of building a word without adding other morphemes. E.g. handy. A stem is bound if it can not form a separate word by itself. E.g. philosopher.

2. basis that concides with word forms is confined to verbal word forms: the present & past participles & is characterized by limited collacobility. ( unknown, smilingly, mockingbird).

3. basis which coincides with word groups also allow a limited range of collocability & are the most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives & nouns. ( blue-eyed, second-gradeness, do-gooder).

A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, structure that imposes rigid rules on the order & the nature of the derivational basis & affixes that may be brought together. It shows the types of immediate constituents, their order & arrangement which signals the part of speech & structural & semantic peculiarities, common to all the indivdual words, formed according to this pattern.

Patterns are usually represented in terms of conventional (обычный) symbols, where small letters m,a,d,hum,v stand for the stems of the respective parts of speech (long-fingered – [(a+n) + ed] ).

Derivational patterns may represent the derivat. Structure at different levels of generalization:

• At the level of structure or types specifying only the class membership of ICs & the direction of motivation, such as a+st→n; prf+n→v. Patterns of this type are known as structural fomulas.

• The deriv.structure of words may be represented at the level of structural-semantic types, which specify the base classes & individual. It follows that deriv. Patterns may be classified into 2 types: 1) structural

2) structural semantic.