The main principles of morphemes

Morpheme – smallest non-segmantable meaningful 2-facet unit of language.

All eng ws fall into 2 large classes: segmentable (those allowing of segmentation into morphemes) & non-segmentable. There are 3 types of morphemic segmentability: complete, conditional & defective

Conditional segmentability – semantically isn’t possible: de-ceive, re-ceive – segmentation is doubtful. In such ws the sound-cluster [ri-], [di-] seem to be (1)singled out quite easily due to the recurrence in a number of ws, but (2)they have nothing in common with phonetically identical morphemes re-, de-, as found in ws re-write, de-organize. Sound-clusters [ri-], [di-] posess neither lexical, nor functional meaning of their own.

The morphemes making up ws of conditional segmentability do not rise to the full status of morphemes & are called preudo-morphemes/ quasi-morphemes. They have differential & a certain distributional mg: [ri-] distinguishes retain from detain.

Complete segmentability takes place when we can easily split the w into morphemes. Morphemic structure of a segmentable w is conditioned by the fact that its constituent morphemes recur with the same mg in a number of other ws. These morphemes are called morphemes proper.

Defective morphemic segmentability – components never occur in other ws or very seldom: straw-berry, rasp-berry, cran-berry. One of the component morpheme does not recur in a different linguistic environment & is called a unique morpheme. Stream-let, leaf-let - -let has the denotational mg, but in a w “hamlet” the sound-cluster [hæm]does not occur in any other w & carries a differential & distributional mg & must be qualified as a unique morpheme.

10. The main sources of enriching voc:

1) borrowings

2) w-formation/ w-building – the main source

3) creation of new mgs (semantic extention, semantic derivation).

2 opposite processes take place: enrichment of the voc & ws die or become bookish.

(Webster dict) 6000 new ws, among them 7,5% - borrowings, the majority – derived ws. We pay much attention to w-building, as Eng L has many patterns to build new ws (^,, ∩).

w-formation – branch of lex-gy which studies the derivative structure of existing ws & the patterns on which the L builds new ws.

w-formation – system of derivative types of ws & the prosess of creating new ws in the L from the material available in this L aftercertain struct & semantic patterns.

Means of w-formation:

I)major/ primary/ patterned means

1.w-derivation (словопроизводство): affixation, conversion(N→V, prep→V to in)

2.w-composition (словосложение)

II)secondary/ minor/ non-patterned

1.stress-interchange import, transport

2. sound-interchange man-men, know-knew

3.back-formation baby-sitter – to baby-sit

4.abbriviation (shortening)

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