Lecture 4. Morphological structure of the English word (2 hrs)
Objective. To inform the students of the morphological structure of the English words; to introduce the notions of morpheme & allomorph; to raise the students’ awareness of the aims & principles of morphological analysis; to develop cognitive skills of analyzing & summarizing the information, distinguishing between major & minor aspects, categorizing & estimating relevant facts.
Glossary: two-facet language unit, allomorph, free and bound forms, semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes, stem, root, affixe, affixational, compound, derivational compound roots, derivational and functional affixes, suffixe, prefixe, infixes, monomorphic and polymorphic words, monoradical and polyradical words, radical-suffixal, radical-prefixal, and predical-radical-suffixal words. compounds and derivational compounds, word-famile, the principle of oppositions, correlation, analysis into immediate constituents, a word-building pattern, combining form, hybrid
Plan
1. Morphemes & allomorphs
2. Free & bound forms. Types of morphemes
3. Morphological classification of words.
4. Morphemic & word-formation analysis
5. Analysis into immediate constituents
6. Derivational & functional affixes
7. The valency of affixes & stems
8. Word-building patterns & their meaning
9. Boundary cases between derivation, inflection & composition
10. Combining forms & hybrids
4.1. Morphemes & allomorphs
Many Ws are made up of smaller units, each possessing sound-form & meaning. These are morphemes – the smallest indivisible 2-facet language units. Boiler, driller fall into the morphemes boil-, drill- & -er by virtue of the recurrence of the morpheme -er in these & other similar Ws & of the morphemes boil- & drill- in to boil, a boil, boiling & to drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press.
A morpheme is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of Ws, though a W may consist of a single morpheme → the morpheme is the minimum meaningful language unit.
Morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes [pli:z], [pleʒ], [plez]. The phonemic shapes of the W stand in complementary distribution / alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of the morpheme (morpheme variants).
4.2. Free & bound forms
Structurally morphemes fall into 3 types: free, bound, semi-free (semi-bound).
A free morpheme may stand alone without changing its meaning, coincides with the stem / W-form. Many root-morphemes are free. W is a minimum free form (Leonard Bloomfield).
A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a W. In sportive & elegant eleg-, -ive, -ant are bound forms, they never occur alone. Many root-morphemes are also bound morphemes: theor- in theory, theoretical, barbar- in babarism, barbarian, -ceive in conceive, perceive.
Morphemes capable of forming Ws without adding other morphemes are semi-bound (semi-free): sleep well, half an hour; well-known, half-eaten, half-done.
Semantically, morphemes are: roots & affixes. Affixes are subdivided into prefixes, suffixes, infixes according to their position; according to their function & meaning, into derivational & functional (endings / outer) formatives affixes.
When a derivational / functional affix is stripped from the W, what remains is a stem (stem base). It expresses the lexical & the part of speech meaning. The stem heart- contains nothing but the root, it is a simple stem. It is a free stem: it is homonymous to the W heart.
A stem is the part of the W that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty – heartier – (the) heartiest is hearty-. A stem containing 1 / more affixes is a derived stem. If the stem is not homonymous to a separate W of the same root, it is a bound stem. In cordial the Adj-forming suffix can be separated on the analogy with bronchial, radial, social. The remaining stem is bound. In cordially & cordiality the derived stems are free. Bound stems are characteristic of loan Ws: the French borrowings arrogance, charity, courage, coward, distort, involve, notion, legible, tolerable.
Roots are main morphemic vehicles of a given idea in a given language at a given stage of its development. A root is the ultimate constituent element which remains after the removal of all functional & derivational affixes. It is the common element of Ws within a W-family: -heart- from heart, hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness, sweetheart, heart-broken, kind-hearted, whole-heartedly. The root W heart is non-segmentable, non-motivated morphologically.
All the other Ws in this W-family are segmentable, consist of at least 2 distinct morphemes. They are subdivided into: 1) affixational derivatives – a root morpheme & 1 / more affixes: hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness; 2) compounds – 2 / more simple / derived stems: sweetheart, heart-shaped, heart-broken; 3) derivational compounds – Ws of a phrase are joined together by composition a& affixation / phrasal derivation: kind heart + -ed.
The root in English is often homonymous with the W – 1 of the most specific features of English ← its general grammatical system & its phonemic system. The most favoured English phonemic shape is 1 stressed syllable → no space for a 2nd morpheme with classifying LG meaning → this meaning is signalled by distribution: a morning’s ride, a morning’s walk → ride, walk are Ns because they are preceded by a genitive.
A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem & forming a new derivative in a different part of speech / a different W class: hearten, hearty, heartless. Suffixes render the most general semantic component of the W’s lexical meaning, they are semantically fused with the stem.
A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root & modifying meaning: hearten – dishearten. With Vs & statives a prefix may distinguish 1 part of speech from another: earth n – unearth v, sleep n – asleep (stative). With a few exceptions prefixes modify the stem for time (pre-, post-), place (in-, ad-), negation (un-, dis-) & are semantically rather independent of the stem.
An infix is an affix placed within the W, like -n- in stand. The type is not productive.