1. Morphological structure of a word. Classification of Morphemes

The word is the main unit of Morphology. The best definition of the word for inflective lgs is as follows: The Word is the smallest unit of the lg having positional independence. The word is the largest unit of Morphology. It is generalized representative of all word-forms, which it has. e.g. Speaking of word “река”we mean all word-forms (реку, реки, рекой). Thus a word-forms is a particular form of a word & the word represents all possible word-forms.

While the word is the largest unit of Morphology, the morpheme is the smallest unit, having both form (sound) & substance (meaning). The notion of the morpheme was introduced by Бодуэн де Куртэ as a generalized expression of the components of the word: the stem & the affixes.

The morpheme is represented in the lg by its variants – allomorphs, having special forms & sounding differently (one & the same meaning). e.g. dreamed [d], worked [t], loaded [id].

A great many words in a lg has a composite nature & are made up of smaller units, each having sound form & meaning. These are called morphemes. e.g. Teach-er, help-less-ness, sports-man.

Like a word a morpheme has a sound form (pattern) & meaning.

Unlike a word a morpheme can’t be divided into smaller units without losing their constitutive meaning & can’t be used separately, can occur in speech only as a constituent part of a word.

1. Semantic classification of morphemes:

1. root morphemes: they are lex. centers of the words, their basic constituent parts (black-ness, London-er); The roots of notional words are classical lex. morphemes. Obligatory for any word.

2. affixational morphemes: subdivided into: prefixes [i:] + suffixes (lex.) + inflexions (gr suffixes) = affixes: they have a generalized lex. meaning & the-part-of-speech-meaning (–er, -est, –ee -> A doer of an action, noun-forming affixes). Not obligatory.

Prefixes & lex suffixes have word-building functions, together with the root they form the stem of the word.

Inflections express different morphological categories. e.g. fatherless & worked.

The abstract complete morphemic model of the common E. word is the following: prefix + root + lex suffix + gram suffix.

2. Structural classification of morphemes:

1. free morphemes (root morphemes) can build up words by themselves, they can be used freely: friend, way, day, week;

2. bound morphemes (all the affixes) can’t form words by themselves, they are only part of words: un-, -less, pre-, -or, -er, dis-, mis-;

Productive bound morphemes: 1) -(e)s denotes * the plural of nouns, * the possessive case of nouns, * the 3d person singular of verbs (Present); 2) –(e)d denotes the Past & Past Participle of verbs; 3) –ing: * the Gerund, * the Present Participle; 4) –er, -est: the Comparative & Superlative degrees of adj-s & adv-s.

3. semi-bound (can function as an affix & as a free morpheme): thing (free)–something (bound), like – manlike, ladylike, do well–well-bred, well-done, well-known.

2.Various ways of word-building in Modern e..

Word-formation or word-building is the process of creating new words from the material of the language after certain structure & semantic formulas & patterns. There are productive ways-widely used: affixation (derrivation); word-composition; conversion; shortening & Non-productive ways – not used: back-formation; sound-&-stress interchange of word-formation.

affixation involves adding to an existing word (stem) either a suffix to an end or a prefix at the beginning. e.g. special-ist

Prefixes+suffixes=affixes:help-less-ness=(n+less)+ness, specialist = (n+ist),chairmanship=(n+n) (chair+ man ) + suff.

Affixes: prefixation is mostly typical of verbs; prefixes change the lex. meaning of words: reread–read; only some prefixes change the part of speech form: large–enlarge; suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns & adj.s; suffixes also change the lex. meaning of words: help–helpless; the majority of suffixes change the part of speech formed: black–to blacken, child–childless; only some suffixes don’t change part of speech: relation–relationship, chiold–childhood, brown–brownish; they transfer a word into another semantic group: from concrete nouns to abstract nouns (child–childhood).

Convertion is another highly productive way of Modern E. word-building. It is a type of word building in which from some word already existing in the lang-e a new word is made. The new word coincides with the old one in its phonetic shape but belong to a different word class. A different category of part of speech & that’s why possessing a different paradigm & a different lex. meaning from that of original word. 2 main cases of convertion: v<–n, to doctor–doctor; v<–adj., to thin–thin; formation of n–>v, to cut–a cut; n<–conjunction.

Work (noun) –s, pl.; -‘s singular pos –> substantive; Work (verb) -‘s plural pos –> paradigm -s: the 3-d person singular; -ed: past simple, participle II -ing: present part., gerund.

Word composition Compounds are made up by joining together at least 2 stems, mostly stems of notional parts of speech. degree of complexity: simple & derived stems (‘motorway’ is form from 2 simple words–motor & way). Compounds are usually formed according to structural & semantical formulae & patterns. Structurally it is a 2-stem center. Semantically it possesses a combined lex. meaning (not a sum).

In a sentence it functions free & has quite a different reference to an object (marry-go-round). According to different degrees of motivation compounds are: completely motivated (both components are used in their direct meanings: a housekeeper, a sportsman); partially motivated (one component in the direct meaning, the other in indirect: a flowerbed (bed – indirect mean.), chatterbox (box-indirect)); completely non-motivated (there is no connection between the meaning of the compound & the lex. meaning of those components: eye-wash (smth said or done to deceive a person)).

According to degree of semantic independence of stems: subordinated (the head member is in the 2^nd component): a speedometer; coordinated (both stems are semantically equally important): zig-zag, fifty-fifty,bye-bye

According to the structure compounds are divided into: neutral (that is formed by simple placing of one stem after another without any linking element: a flowerbed, a shopwindow) –> simple (consist of simple affix less stems: a bedroom, a waller); morphological compounds (with a linking element such as afroasian; speedometer; sportsman, salesman); syntactic (are formed from segments of speech preserving In their structure traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs: man-of-war, up-to-date).

According to the types of stems: derivational (one of the stems is derived: babysitter); compounds proper (one of the stem is shortened or contracted: bedroom, fbi-aqgent).

Shortening is the way of formation of new words by means of substituting a part of a word for a whole. graph. is used in written speech: in letters, scientific books, newspaper, articles, … : Mr & Mrs, Dr, St, rd,…; lex. is used in both: written & oral speech.

Ways of reading: as separate words (& they are substituted by words & phrases they represent ); as one word (FBI, MP); as a succession of a sound denoting by the constituent parts: UN.

Among lex. abbreviations we should distinguish between lex. abbrev. Proper, clipping, blending & ellipses. Clipping consists in the cutting off of one or several syllables of a word: phone>–TELEPHONE,maths. Ellipses is clipping of a word or words in a phrase when the remaining part keeps the lex. meaning of whole phrase (pub=public house); a sit-down

Blending is compounding by means of clipped words: medicare=medical care; yaden=yard+garden, Oxbridge.