§ 29. The above-mentioned criteria serve to prove the identity of lexical morphemes in spite of their difference in form. The same criteria can be used to prove the identity of any morphemes.
H. Gleason writes: "Two elements can be considered as the same morpheme if (1) they have some common range of meaning, and (2) they are in complementary distribution...".
By means of these criteria it is possible to prove, for instance, the identity of the 'plural' morphemes -s (in cows) and -en (in oxen):
1. They are identical as to their grammatical meaning.
2. They complement each other or, in other words, their distribution is complementary: they are not used with the same lexical morpheme. The word ox has no other 'plural' opposite but oxen (not oxes, for instance) and the word cow has no 'plural' opposite but cows (not cowen) 2.
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2 Though there exists the obsolete and dialectal plural kine. Charles F. Hockett (Language. Vol. 23, No. 4, Oct. Dec. 1947) suggests to replace 'complementary distribution' by 'non-contrastive distribution', i. e. two elements may be in partial complementation, and in those environments in which both occur, they are in free alternation. "Thus the unaspirated [t] of stick and the aspirated [t'] of tick are both found as utterance-final and in other positions: He's in the skit may end with [t] and [t']. hoof and hoove /s/ and /z/ are in non-contrastive distribution: hoofs and hooves do not differ in meaning"... "The plural of brother 'fellow lodgeor church-member of the male sex' is either brothers or brethren in free alternation."
§ 30. We have already spoken (§§ 14, 15, 18) about lexico-grammatical morphemes and their functions as stem-building elements. Now we are to see their role in building up classes of words.
A lexico-grammatical morpheme like -er or -ize resembles a lexical morpheme in being common to all the words of a lexeme. Сотр. teacher, teacher's, teachers, teachers'; realize, realizes, realized, will realize, has realized, is realized, etc.
But it resembles a grammatical morpheme in being common to many different lexemes. Сотр. teacher, worker, leader, writer, reader, realize, nationalize, individualize, naturalize, industrialize, etc.
Hence we may draw the following conclusions:
1) The words of a lexeme are united not only by a lexical morpheme functioning as its root, but also by its lexico-grammatical morphemes functioning as its stem-building elements. In short, it is the stem that unites words into a lexeme. To lay stress on the content we may say that a lexeme is a group of words united by the same lexical and lexico-grammatical meanings. Though the words person, personal, personality, personify, personification have the same lexical morpheme, they belong to different lexemes owing to their lexico-grammatical morphemes.
2) Lexico-grammatical morphemes unite lexemes into groups possessing common lexico-grammatical properties.
§ 31. Let us compare the following columns of words:
teach — teacher
work — worker
lead — leader
write — writer
read — reader
real — realize
national — nationalize
individual — individualize
natural — naturalize
industrial — industrialize
The words of column 1 and those of column 2 belong to different classes of lexemes. The same is true of the words of the last two columns.
These classes differ not only in their lexico-grammatical meanings (morphemes), but in some grammatical properties as well: different opposemes, paradigms, etc. Such classes of lexemes have been called parts of speech for over 2000 years. Therefore we dare not change the name. But we must remember that classes of units exist only in the system of a language. In speech we come across combinations of individual representatives of various classes.
Parts of speech are the largest word-classes that may contain endless numbers of word-groups such as lexemes or grammemes.
It is certainly easier to survey a limited number of parts of speech than an ocean of lexemes or grammemes. Therefore it has been a long-standing tradition to study the properties of words within the framework of parts of speach. The chapter headings of a book on morphology are usually the names of the parts of speech. We shall adhere to the tradition and after a chapter on the general criteria for dividing English words into parts of speech we shall analyse them one by one.
THE COMBINABILITY OF WORDS
§ 32. As already mentioned (§ 2), only those combinations of words (or single words) which convey communications are sentences — the object of syntax. All other combinations of words regularly formed in the process of speech are the object of morphology as well as single words. Like separate words they name things, phenomena, actions, qualities, etc., but in a complex way (cf. manners and table manners, blue and dark blue, speak and speak loudly). Like separate words they serve as building material for sentences.
In English the demarcation line between certain types of words and certain types of word-combinations is vague. Compare, for instance, the words blackboard, head-master, brother-in-law and the word-combinations black board, head waiter, brother in arms.
Some combinations of words in English have become so stable and their meaning so fused and so different from the meanings of their components that they are called phraseological fusions, or idioms. Retaining the forms of combinations of words, they function like single words and may be regarded as word equivalents, units of the language system, alongside of words.
E. g. Under the rose = in secret, secretly,
Once in a blue moon = rarely, or never.
Other combinations of words are more or less freely formed in numerous acts of speech. For instance, the word his may be freely combined with the words face, book, love, absence, etc. Grammar mostly studies the relations between the words of free combinations, whereas lexicology analyses phraseological units.
§ 33. The combinability of words is as a rule determined by their meanings, not their forms. Therefore not every sequence of words may be regarded as a combination of words. In the sentence Frankly, father, I have been a fool neither frankly, father nor father, I ... are combinations of words since their meanings are detached and do not unite them, which is marked orally by intonation and often graphically by punctuation marks.
On the other hand, some words may be inserted between the components of a word-combination without breaking it.
Compare,
a) read books
b) read many books
c) read very many books.
In case (a) the combination read books is uninterrupted. In cases (b) and (c) it is interrupted, or discontinuous (read... books).
§ 34. The combinability of words depends on their lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical meanings. It is owing to the lexical meanings of the corresponding lexemes that the word wise can be combined with the words man, act, saying and is hardly combinable with the words milk, area, outline.
The lexico-grammatical meanings of -er in singer (a noun) and -ly in beautifully (an adverb) do not go together and prevent these words from forming a combination, whereas beautiful singer and sing beautifully are regular word-combinations.
The combination * students sings is impossible owing to the grammatical meanings of the corresponding grammemes.
Thus one may speak of lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical combinability, or the combinability of lexemes, grammemes and parts of speech.
§ 35. The mechanism of combinability is very complicated. One has to take into consideration not only the combinability of homogeneous units, e. g. the words of one lexeme with those of another lexeme. A lexeme is often not combinable with a whole class of lexemes or with certain grammemes. For instance, the lexeme few, fewer, fewest is not combinable with a class of nouns called uncountables, such as milk, information, hatred, etc., or with members of 'singular' grammemes (i. e. grammemes containing the meaning of 'singularity', such as book, table, man, boy, etc.).
The 'possessive case' grammemes are rarely combined with verbs, barring the gerund. Some words are regularly combined with sentences, others are not. All this will be dwelt on in the corresponding parts of this book.
§ 36. It is convenient to distinguish right-hand and left-hand connections. In the combination my hand (when written down) the word my has a right-hand connection with the word hand and the latter has a left-hand connection with the word my.
With analytical forms inside and outside connections are also possible. In the combination has often written the verb has an inside connection with the adverb and the latter has an outside connection with the verb.
It will also be expedient to distinguish unilateral, bilateral and multilateral connections. By way of illustration we may say that the articles in English have unilateral right-hand connections with nouns: a book, the child. Such linking words as prepositions, conjunctions, link-verbs, and modal verbs are characterized by bilateral connections: love of life, John and Mary, this is John, he must come. Most verbs may have zero
(Come!), unilateral (birds fly), bilateral (I saw him) and multilateral (Yesterday I saw him there) connections. In other words, the combinability of verbs is variable.
One should also distinguish direct and indirect connections. In the combination Look at John the connection between look and at, between at and John are direct, whereas the connection between look and John is indirect, through the preposition at.