The structure of English words
Plan
The morphemic structure
Types of morphemes.
The Immediate Constituents Method.
The morphemic structure and structural types of words.
Motivation.
The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of the language. The term “morpheme’ is derived from Gr “morphe” – form + Gr. suffix –eme, that denotes the smallest unit of smth.
The morpheme is singled out from the word on the evidence of the regular association between a certain form and a certain meaning. These two aspects are equally important. Unlike the word morpheme is not autonomous. Morphemes are used in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. They are not divided into smaller units.
e. g. –wide- is used in: widen, widely, width
e. g. – short - is used in: shorten, shortly
On the same hand we identify the phonemes “ly” and “en”.
“Re” has the meaning of “doing something again”
e. g. rebuilt, reread
But in words “reconstruct” and “reproduce” this meaning is weaker.
In the following words –re- can’t be regarded as separate morphemes
e. g. record
though there are two Latin morphemes here: -re- and –cord-. Just the same with “refuse”.
Types of morphemes
According to the role the morpheme plays in a word we distinguish between:
the root morphemes
the affixal morphemes.
The root morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word. It may be recurrent in a set of semantically and structurally related words.
The affixal morphemes are lexically dependent on the root.
e. g. wid(e)+en
They are structurally bound and semantically dependent.
e. g. –less- отсутствие but lack of what? Only within a word it gets its meaning.
Affixes are devided according to their position in a word into:
prefixes (a derivational m. standing before the root and modifying meaning: to hearten – to dishearten)
suffixes (a derivational m. that follows the stem and forms a new derivative in a different part of speech: heart-to hearten-heartly-heartless: )
infixes (it’s an affix within the word: like –n- in “stand”. The type is not productive)
The lexical meaning of the root morpheme represents the general notion, contained in the lexical meaning of the corresponding word.
The lexical meaning of the morpheme is of more generalized character. It may point to a part of speech as –ment- (movement) or –ous- (famous). It also may add a shade of meaning to the root.
Distribution – position of a certain form among other elements (позиция к-либо формы среди других элементов).
e. g. “reread” but not “readre”
We distinguish between:
free morphemes and
bound morphemes.
Free morphemes are called so because they can make words by themselves. Free morphemes are only root ones.
e. g. wide, short, read.
Bound morphemes can make words only in combination with other morphemes. Bound morphemes include affixal morphemes and some root morphemes.
e. g. auditorial, auditory (-aud- is not free)
The Immediate Constituents Method
Метод непосредственных составляющих
This method was first suggested by L. Bloomfield and was later developed by many other linguists.The morphemes can be identified by means of the I. C. Method. When it is applied to words it helps to segment them into morphemes in order to discover the derivational structure and the morphemic composition. The aim is to segment a complex into ultimate (конечные) constituents.
The method is based on the binary principle which means that at each stage the complex is split into two parts which are called constituents.
The first stage results in immediate constituents. Each IC is further analyzed and if it turns out to be a complex it is then segmented again into two parts. The analyses is completed when we arrive at constituents which can’t be further segmented.
The ultimate constituents show the morphemic composition of a word. The IC of a word shows the derivational pattern on which the word is built.
If there are more than one possible way of segmenting a complex, the preference is given to free forms.
The binary principle also helps to reveal a regular relationship between the Ics in sets of words.
e. g. noun + less = adjective (lacking smth)
Analyses of the ICs of various complexes helps to formulate certain rules of word-building and discover word-building patterns.
It is important to remember that new words are coined with the help ofthese patterns.
e. g. pre + noun (prebooking – предварительный заказ)
The word is segmented into morphemes without a residue (остаток).
e. g. ambush, woman – can’t be segmented.
As a rule the morpheme has a fixed sound form which makes it recognizable. Yet some morphemes exist as a set of allomorphs. The allomorphs are determined by distribution.
An allomorph is a positional variant of a morpheme.
e. g. –ion / -tion / -sion / -ation – are the positional variants of the same suffix. They do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form depending on the final phoneme of the preceding stem.
e. g. liberation, corruption