MORPHEMES

The morpheme is one of the central notions of grammatical theory, without which no serious attempt at grammatical study can be made. Definition of a morpheme is not an easy matter, and it has been attempted many times by different scholars. Without going into particulars of the discussions that have taken place, we may briefly define the morphemes as the smallest meaningful units into which a word form may be divided. For instance, if we take the form writers, it can be divided into three morphemes: (1) writ-, expressing the basic lexical meaning of the word, (2) -er-, expressing the idea of agent performing the action indicated by the root of the verb, (3) -s, indicating number, that is, showing that more than one person of the type indicated is meant. Similarly the form advantageously can be divided into three morphemes: advantage + ous + ly, each with a special meaning of its own.

Two additional remarks are necessary here: (1) Two or more morphemes may sound the same but be basically different, that is, they may be homonyms. Thus the -er morpheme indicating the doer of an action as in writer has a homonym — the morpheme -er denoting the comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs, as in longer. Which of the two homonymous morphemes is actually there in a given case can of course only be determined by examining the other morphemes in the word. Thus, the morpheme -er in our first example, writer, cannot possibly be the morpheme of the comparative degree, as the morpheme writ- to which it is joined on is not the stem of an adjective or adverb, and so no comparative degree is to be thought of here.

(2) There may be zero morphemes, that is, the absence of a morpheme may indicate a certain meaning. Thus, if we compare the forms book and books, both derived from the stem book-, we may say that while books is characterised by the -s -morpheme as being a plural form, book is characterised by the zero morpheme as being a singular form.

In modern descriptive linguistics the term "morpheme" has been given a somewhat different meaning.¹ Scholars belonging to this trend approach the problem from this angle: If we compare the four sentences: the student comes, the students come; the ox comes, the oxen come, it will be seen that the change of student to students is

¹ See, for example, H. A. Gleason Jr., An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics, 1955, Chapter V.

22 Essentials of Morphology

paralleled by the change of ox to oxen. That is, the meaning and function of the -en in oxen is the same as the meaning and function of the -s in students. On this account the -s and the -en are said to represent the same morpheme: each of them is a morph representing the morpheme, and they are termed allomorphs of the morpheme. Furthermore, as in the word goose the form corresponding to students and oxen is geese, where nothing is added, but the root vowel is changed, the morph representing the morpheme in this case is said to be the very change of [u:] into [i:] (graphically, oo and ее). Thus the morpheme, in this case, has three allomorphs, (1) -s, (2) -en, (3) [u:] -> [i:].

This latter item entails some difficulty, as a morph is shown not necessarily to be a material entity, that is a phoneme, or a combination of phonemes; sometimes it may be a change of one phoneme into another.

Similarly, in the past tense of verbs the morpheme of the past tense has two allomorphs, (1) -ed, (2) the change of vowel, as [ai] —> [ou] (write — wrote), [i] -> [ae] (sing —sang), etc.

We will apply the term "morpheme" only to material units including zero.

In grammar, we are of course concerned with the grammatical, or structural, meaning of morphemes: we do not here study the meanings of root morphemes, which are necessarily lexical, and as to derivation morphemes, i. e. those which serve to build words, we are only interested in them in so far as they are grammatically relevant, and that is the case if they show that the word belongs to a certain part of speech, and if they serve to distinguish one part of speech from another. This grammatical significance of derivation morphemes, if it is there at all, is always combined with their lexical meaning. For instance, if we take this pair of words: write v. and writer n., the derivative morpheme -er has a grammatical significance, as it serves to distinguish a noun from a verb, and it has its lexical meaning, as the lexical meaning of the noun writer is different from that of the verb write.

Inflection morphemes have no lexical meaning or function. There is not the slightest difference in the way of lexical meaning between live and lived, or between house and houses. However, an inflection morpheme can acquire a lexical meaning in some special cases, for instance if the plural form of a noun develops a meaning which the singular form has not; thus, the plural form colours has a meaning, 'flag', which the singular form colour has not. These are cases of lexicalisation (compare below, p. 36).

There is in Modern English a case where a boundary line between inflection and derivation is hard to draw, and a morpheme does duty both ways. This is the morpheme -ing with its function of a suffix deriving verbal nouns and of an inflection serving to

Morphemes 28

form a gerund, which is one of the non-finite verb forms. This appears to be quite a special case in English, and it does not seem to find any parallel in Russian.

Terminology

It should be noted that there is some confusion in the use of the terms "suffix" and "inflection" or "ending".

According to one view, the term "suffix" is taken in a wide sense, and applied to any morpheme coming after the root morpheme, whether it is derivative or inflectional. If this view is endorsed, an inflection is a special kind of suffix, since it falls under the general definition of a suffix just mentioned.

According to another view, the term "suffix" is taken in a narrow sense, and applied to derivational post-root morphemes only. In that case an inflection is not a special kind of suffix but a morpheme of a different kind, having no lexical meaning of any sort.

We will adhere to this latter view, as it seems better to have a clear distinction than to use the term "suffix" in a vague sense.

There is also some slight vacillation in the use of the term "inflection" (or "ending"), and it is connected with the twofold use of the term "suffix" considered above.

According to one view, the term "inflection" (or "ending") is applied to any morpheme serving to derive a form of a word and having no lexical meaning. So the morphemes characterising the infinitive, for instance, in Russian or German, will be termed inflections.

According to another view, the term "inflection" (or "ending") is only applied to morphemes expressing case and number in nominal parts of speech, and to those expressing person and number in verbs. From this viewpoint the morpheme characterising the infinitive in Russian or German or the morpheme characterising the gerund in English would not be an inflection or ending, whereas the morpheme -s in forms like writes, buys, would be one.

We will apply the term "inflection" to every morpheme serving to derive a grammatical form and having no lexical meaning of its own.

Last not least, a question should be mentioned in this connection, which concerns adjectives and adverbs, namely that of degrees of comparison: are formations like longer, longest forms of the adjective or the adverb long, or are they different words? This means: is there a difference in the lexical meaning between long, longer, and longest, or is there not? This question has been treated in various ways, but the view seems to be prevalent that there is no difference in the lexical meaning here. We will take this view, too, and class the morphemes used to derive degrees of comparison among inflections (see below, p. 58).

24 Essentials of Morphology

TYPES OF WORD-FORM DERIVATION

These fall under two main headings, (a) those limited to changes in the body of the word, without having recourse to auxiliary words (synthetic types), (b) those implying the use of auxiliary words (analytical types). Besides, there are a few special cases of different forms of a word being derived from altogether different stems.

Synthetic Types

The number of morphemes used for deriving word-forms in Modern English is very small (much smaller than either in German or in Russian, for instance). They may be enumerated in a very short space.

There is the ending -s (-es), with three variants of pronunciation, used to form the plural of almost all nouns, and the endings -en and -ren, used for the same purpose in one or two words each, viz. oxen, brethren (poet.), children.

There is the ending -'s, with the same three variants of pronunciation as for the plural ending, used to form what is generally termed the genitive case of nouns.¹

For adjectives, there are the endings -er and -est for the degrees of comparison.

For verbs, the number of morphemes used to derive their forms is only slightly greater. There is the ending -s (-es) for the third person singular present indicative, with the same three variants of pronunciation noted above for nouns, the ending -d (-ed) for the past tense of certain verbs (with three variants of pronunciation, again), the ending -d (ed) for the second participle of certain verbs, the ending -n (-en) for the second participle of certain other verbs, and the ending -ing for the first participle and also for the gerund.

Thus the total number of morphemes used to derive forms of words is eleven or twelve, which is much less than the number found in languages of a mainly synthetical structure.

It should also be noted that most of these endings are mono-semantic, in the sense that they denote only one grammatical category and not two or three (or more) at a time, as is the case in synthetic languages. For example, the plural -s (or -es) denotes only the category of plural number, and has nothing to do with any other grammatical category, such as case.

It would, however, mean oversimplifying matters if we were to suppose that all English inflectional morphemes are monosemantic. This is certainly not the case with the -s (-es) of the third

¹ The problem of the genitive case will be dealt with in Chapter III (see p. 41 ff.).

Types of Word-form Derivation 25

person singular. It expresses at least three grammatical categories: person (third), number (singular), and mood (indicative). In certain verbs it also expresses the category of tense: thus, in the form puts only the -s shows that it is a present-tense form.

Sound Alternations

By sound alternations we mean a way of expressing grammatical categories which consists in changing a sound inside the root. This method appears in Modern English, for example, in nouns, as when the root vowel [ae] of the singular form man is changed into [e] to form the plural men, or similarly the root vowel [au] of mouse is changed into [aı] in mice, and a few more cases of the same kind.

This method is much more extensively used in verbs, such as write — wrote — written, sing — sang — sung, meet — met — met, etc. On the whole, vowel alternation does play some part among the means of expressing grammatical categories, though its part in Modern English has been much reduced as compared to Old English.

Analytical Types

These consist in using a word (devoid of any lexical meaning of its own) to express some grammatical category of another word.

There can be no doubt in Modern English about the analytical character of such formations as, e. g., has invited or is invited, or is inviting, or does not invite. The verbs have, be, and do have no lexical meaning of their own in these cases. The lexical meaning of the formation resides in the participle or infinitive following the verb have, be or do. Some doubt has been expressed about the formations shall invite and will invite. There is a view that shall and will have a lexical meaning.¹ We will not go into this question now and we will consider shall and will as verbs serving to form the future tense of other verbs. Thus, have, be, do, shall, and will are what we call auxiliary verbs, and as such they constitute a typical feature of the analytical structure of Modern English.

While the existence of analytical forms of the English verb cannot be disputed, the existence of such forms in adjectives and adverbs is not nowadays universally recognised. The question whether such formations as more vivid, the most vivid, or, again, more vividly and most vividly are or are not analytical forms of degrees of comparison of vivid and vividly, is controversial. We can only say here that if these formations are recognised as analytical forms of degrees of comparison, the words more and most have to be numbered among the analytical means of morphology.

¹ See below, p. 87.

26 Essentials of Morphology

Suppletive Format ions

Besides the synthetical and analytical means of building word forms in Modern English, there is yet another way of building them which stands quite apart and is found in a very limited number of cases only. By a suppletive formation we mean building a form of a word from an altogether different stem. Examples in point are, the verb go, with its past tense went; the personal pronoun I, with its objective case form me, the adjective good with its comparative degree form better, and a few more. We consider, for instance, go and went as, in a way, two forms of one word, because in the vast majority of verbs the past tense is derived from the same stem as the present or infinitive, e. g. live — lived, speak — spoke, etc. It is against this background that the units go and went come to be considered as forms of one word, formed from different stems. In the morphological system of Modern English suppletive formations are a very insignificant element, but they concern a few very widely used words among adjectives, pronouns, and verbs.

Such, then, are the means of deriving the forms of words in Modern English. We shall have to ascertain the exact meaning and function of each of them as we proceed on our survey of the parts of speech.

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