Morphological structure of English words

Plan

1. Morphemes. Combining forms. Allomorphs.

2. Morphological classification of words.

3. Analysis into immediate constituents.

Literature

1. Антрушина Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка. С. 78 – 104.

2. Гвишиани Н.Б. Современный английский язык. С. 80 – 82.

3. Э.М. Дубенец. Современный английский язык. С. 5 – 20.

4. Arnold I.V. The English word. P. 77 – 81, 83 – 87, 104 – 106.

1. The word morpheme is derived from Greek morphe -form. A morpheme is an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. Unlike a word, which is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern a morpheme is not autonomous. Morphemes occur only as a constituent parts of words, not independently, though a word may consist of one morpheme. Morphemes are not divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit.

Morphemes are divided into two large groups: lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound. A morpheme is said to be free if it may stand alone without changing its meaning, for example: cat, sport, always. A morpheme is called bound because it is bound to something else. For example, in the word sportive sport- is a free morpheme, it can be used independently, there is the word sport. The morpheme - ive is a bound morpheme, it can not be used alone, there is no word like ive.

Free lexical morphemes are roots of words.

Free grammatical morphemes are function words such as articles, conjuctions and prepositions.

Bound lexical morphemes are affixes. Affixes are subdivided into prefixes, suffixes, infixes, combining forms or completives. Bound grammatical morphemes are endings (inflexions). For example: -s for the plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs and so on.

A prefix is a morpheme standing before a root and modifying its meaning, for example: hearten – dishearten. In some cases prefixes not only modify the meaning of a word but can form words of a different part of speech. For example: earth is a noun, to unearth is a verb. Prefixes can also express the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, for example: to stay – to outstay.

A suffix is a morpheme following the root or a stem and forming a new word of a different part of speech or a different word class of the same part of speech. For example, the suffixes -en, -y, -less form such words of different parts of speech as hearten, hearty, heartless. The suffixes -ify, -er are verb-forming suffixes, but the suffix -ify forms causative verbs, for example: horrify, purify, while the suffux -er forms frequentative verbs, for example: flicker, shimmer, twitter.

An infix is an affix placed within the word, like -n- in stand, like -s- in statesman. Infixes are rare in the English language.

A combining form or completive is a bound form which can be distringuished from an affix historically. Combining forms are always borrowed from Latin or Greek. In Latin or Greek combining forms existed as free forms, as separate words. In English combining forms occur in compound and derivative words as their parts. These compound and derivative words did not exist in Latin or Greek, they were formed only in modern times in English. For example: megapolis (from mega- Greek and polis - Greek), AIDSophobia (from phobia – Latin), autocue (from auto - Greek), chimponaut (from naut - Greek). Combining forms are mostly international.

Some morphemes may have variants. For example, -ion, -sion, -tion, -ation are variants of the same suffix. They do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form which depends on the final sound of the preceding stem. Such variants are called allomorphs. An allomorph is from Greek allos – другой.

Analysing all the grammatical forms of a word, that is its paradigm, we may see the part which remains unchanged through the whole paradigm. This unchanged part is a stem of a word. Stems may be free or bound, simple or derived. For example, the paradigm of the adjective clean is clean – cleaner – cleanest. The stem of the word clean is clean-. This stem is free, not bound, because there is an independent word clean. At the same time, this stem is simple, because it coincides with the root of the word clean. In the words cordially and cordiality the stem is cordia-l. This stem is free as there exist the word cordial. But it is not a simple stem, it is a derived stem consisting of the root cord- and a suffix -ial. Bound stems are characteristic of loan words. Take for example French borrowings arrogance, charity, courage, coward, distort, involve, notion, legible. After the affixes of these words are taken away the remaining stems are arrog-, char-, cour-, cow-,-tort, -volve, not-, leg-. They are bound stems, they do not exist independently. Of course, the words cow, not, leg do exist, but the meaning of the stems -cow, not-, leg- and the meaning of the separate words cow, not, leg is different.

Stems have not only the lexical meaning, but also grammatical, part-of-speech meaning. They can be noun stems, as gir-l in the adjective girlish. They can be adjective stems, as girlish- in the noun girlishness. Stems can also be verb stems as in the noun expellee. Stems differ from words by the absence of inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.

2. According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituing a word there are different structural types of words in English: simple, affixed, compound, compound-affixed.

Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion. In many cases the inflexion is zero, for example: seldom, chair, asked, speaking.

Affixed words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, for example: unemployed, underground, overestimation.

Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, for example: wait-and-see, forget-me-not, baby-moons.

Compound-affixed words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, for example: job-hopper, autotimer, hydroskimmer.

3. To define a structural type of a word, that is, to accomplish a morphological analysis, it is necessary to use the analysis into immediate constituents. It was first suggested by an American scientist L. Bloomfield. Immediate constituents are any of the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. The main constituents are un affix and a stem.

L. Bloomfield analyzed the word ungentlemanly.

In the first stage of the analysis one breaks the word ungentlemanly into two immediate constituents: un + gentlemanly. The morpheme u- is a negative prefix, one has come across words built on the pattern un + stem: uncertainly, uncomfortably etc. And the adjective gentlemanly exists in the English language.

In the second stage one separates the stem gentleman and the morpheme ly. In English there are many words with the pattern stem + ly: womanly, masterly etc. There is also the noun gentleman. The immediate constituents of this pattern have the same semantic relationship: having the quality of the person denoted by the stem. Besides, there is the noun gentleman.

In the first two stages of the analysis one separated a free and a bound forms: un + gentlemanly and gentleman + ly.

In the third stage the cut gentle + man has its pecularities. The morpheme gentle is a stem. The element man may be classified as a semi-bound affix or as a variant of the free form man. A similar pattern can be found in the word nobleman.

To sum up: as one breaks the word, one obtains at any level only two immediate cobstituents, one of which is a stem. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a result, we get the following formula: un + (gentle + man) + ly.

The above procedure is an elementary case of the analysis. There are complicated, open or unresolved cases.

An American scientist Eugine Nida discusses the morphological structure of the word untruly. This word might, it seems, be divided either un + truly or un + true + ly. E. Nida notices that the prefix un- is very rarely combined with adverb stems and is freely combined with the adjective stems. So the immediate constituents of the word untruly is untrue + ly. Other examples of the same patterns are uncommonly, unlikely.

Some linguists think that words like pocket cannot be subjected to morphological analysis. They say that in the words pocket, hogget, locket it is possible to single out a diminutive suffix -et. In the words hogget, locket the remaining parts, that is, hog- and lock- are stems because there are independent words hog and lock. At the same time the remaining part of the word pocket, that is, pock- cannots be regarded as a stem. The element pock- does not exist independently.

Russian scientist Aлександр Иванович Смирницкий does not share the opinion of E. Nida. He believes that the stem is morphologically divisible if at least one of its elements belongs to a regular correlation. It means that if we agree that et- in the words pocket, hogget, locket is a suffix, we must agree that the elements pock-, hog, lock are stems. The words like pocket can be subjected to morphological analysis.

There are also cases, especially among borrowed words, that defy analysis altogether: calendar, perestroika.

Lecture 4

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