The morphemic structure and structural types of words.
From the point of view of their structure English words are classified into:
simplexes or monomorphic words, which can’t be segmented because they consist of one morpheme;
complexes which consist of more that one morpheme and can be segmented.
One of the most distinguish features in English is the great number of monomorphic words that consist of one root.
e. g. tree, go, back
In modern English simplexes cannot be further segmented. However a closer examination of such simple root-words reveals that their derivational history isn’t always the same. Some of the simplexes have always been simplexes.
e. g. hand
The monomorphic words can also be derived from other monomorphic words which are regarded as primaries.
e. g. corner – to corner
eye – to eye
to tramp – tramp
Their morphemic composition is simple but they are obviously motivated by another word that belongs to a different part of speech. Historically simple words may have been derived from affixal formation (back formation).
e. g. “to beg” isn’t a primary word . It was derived from the French borrowing “beggar”
e. g. “to edit” was derived from the noun editor
Some of the monomorphic wards are the result of simplification. They have developed from complexes in a long process of phonetic and semantic modifications. At some earlier period they may have been either affixal derivatives or compounds.
e. g. answer = an- was a prefix; swer was from “swear”
e. g. husband is a Scandinavian borrowing:
“hus” – house, “band’ – bonda – хозяин
husbonda – хозяин дома
Such words as “exam, fan, pram” consist of one unit which must be regarded as a morpheme or an allomorph. Actually these words are a result of shortening a longer word.
Polymorphic words or complexes are combinations of root and affixal morphemes. They can be segmented. They may combine two or more morphemes.
e. g. weekend, oilrich, adman (человек, занимающийся рекламой)
Complexes may be a combination of roots and affixes.
e. g. open-ly, mis-manage-ment
Polymorphic words are built on certain patterns of word-formation.
The morphemic analyses and the word-formation focus on the same linguistic unit, the both study the word. However they pursue different purposes. The morphemic analyses segments words into smaller meaningful units to arrive at a level of constituent morphemes. The word-formation, on the other hand, involves searching for patterns on which words are built. These patterns mean certain rules for combining meaningful units to create words.
English words are built of two types of units:
bases (основы)
word-building affixes.
The affixes make a limited set of units. The base is a functional unit which implies that any lexical unit may serve as a base for building another word. Of course the unit most commonly used as a base is identical to the word form. It’s the infinitives of words, the positive degrees of adjectives etc. Units larger than words can also function for bases.
e. g. all-at-onceness