Define the word structure

The
modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between
the external
and
the
internal structures
of the word.

By
external
structure of the word we
mean its morphological
structure.
For example, in the word post-impressionists
the
following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-,
im-, the
root press,
the
noun-forming suffixes —ion,
—ist,
and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s.
All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word
post-impressionists.

The
internal
structure of the word, or
its meaning,
is
commonly referred to as the word’s semantic
structure. This
is the word’s main aspect. Words can serve the purposes of human
communication solely due to their meanings.

The
area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word
is called semantics.

Another
structural aspect of the word is its unity.
The word possesses both external (or formal) unity and semantic
unity. Formal unity of the word is sometimes interpreted as
indivisibility. The example of post-impressionists
has
already shown that the word is not indivisible. Yet, its component
morphemes are permanently linked together in opposition to
word-groups, both free and with fixed contexts, whose components
possess a certain structural freedom, e.g. bright
light, to take for granted.

The
formal unity of the word can best be illustrated by comparing a word
and a word-group comprising identical constituents. The difference
between a
blackbird and
a black bird is
explained by their relationship with the grammatical system of the
language. The word blackbird,
which
is characterized by unity, possesses a single grammatical framing:
blackbird/s.
The
first constituent black
is
not subject to any grammatical changes. In the word-group a black
bird each
constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the
blackest birds I’ve ever seen. Other
words can be inserted between the components: a
black night bird.

The
same example may be used to illustrate what we mean by semantic
unity.

In
the word-group a black
bird each
of the meaningful words conveys a separate concept: bird
– a
kind of living creature; black
– a
colour.

The
word blackbird
conveys
only one concept: the type of bird. This is one of the main features
of any word: it always conveys one concept, no matter how many
component morphemes it may have in its external structure.

A
further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility
to
grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in different
grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized.

All
that we have said about the word can be summed up as follows.

The
word
is
a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication,
materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning,
susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and
semantic unity.

1. The main problems of lexicology

Two
of these have been already underlined. The
problem of word-building is
associated with prevailing morphological word-structures and with
processes of making new words. Semantics
is
the study of meaning. Modern approaches to this problem are
characterized by two different levels of study: syntagmatic
and
paradigmatic.

On
the syntagmatic
level, the
semantic structure of the word is analysed in its linear
relationships with neighbouring words in connected speech. In other
words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed,
described and studied on the basis of its typical contexts.

On
the paradigmatic
level, the
word is studied in its relationships with other words in the
vocabulary system. So, a word may be studied in comparison with other
words of similar meaning. E.g. work
n – labour
n.
Work работа,
труд; 1
the
job that a person does especially in order to earn money. This word
has many meanings (in
Oxford Dictionary – 14),
many synonyms and idioms [`idiemz]: creative
work творческая
деятельность; public
work общественные
работы;
his life`s work дело
его жизни; dirty
work (difficult,
unpleasant) 1
чёрная работа; 2
грязное
дело, подлость.
Nice
work! Отлично!
Здорово!
Saying (поговорка):
All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (мешай
дело с бездельем, проживёшь век с
весельем)
–
it is not healthy to spend all your time working; you need to relax
too.

Labour:
“work”
и “labour” не взаимозаменимы; labour
– 1 work,
especially physical work: manual
labour,
a
labour camp
– исправительно-трудовой
лагерь; 2
people
who work: a
shortage of labour; cheap labour; skilled labour –
квалифицированные
рабочие, Labour
Party; labour relations; a labour of
Sisyphus;
Sisyphean
labour [,sisi‘fi:en]
сизифов труд; тяжёлый и бесплодный труд
– of a task impossible to complete. From the Greek myth in which
Sisyphus was punished for the bad things he had done in his life with
the never-ending task of rolling a large stone to the top of a hill,
from which it always rolled down again.

Other
words of similar meaning (e.g. to
refuse v – to reject v),
of
opposite meaning (e.g. busy
adj – idle adj; to accept v – to reject v),
of
different stylistic characteristics (e.g. man
n – chap n – bloke n – guy n).
Man
–
chap
(coll.)
–
парень, малый; a
good chap
–
славный малый; old
chap – старина;
chap
– BrE,
informal,
becoming old-fashioned – used to talk about a man in a friendly
way: He
isn`t such a bad chap really. Bloke
(coll.)
тип,
парень: He
seemed like a nice bloke.
Guy
– coll.
US – малый;
tough
guy железный
малый; wise
guy умник;
guys
(informal,
especially US) a
group of people of either sex: Come
on, you guys!

Consequently,
the main problems of paradigmatic studies are synonymy,
antonymy, functional styles.

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WORD STRUCTURE IN MODERN ENGLISH

  I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of morphemes. Allomorphs.

II.   Structural types of words.

III.   Principles of morphemic analysis.

  IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of stems. Derivational types of words.

I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of Morphemes.  Allomorphs.

There are two levels of approach to the study of word- structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.

Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.

It has been universally acknowledged that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, the basic units on the morphemic level, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation).

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots.

Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

Roots and derivational affixes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill-, are understood as the lexical centers of the words, and –less, -y,      -ness, -er, re- are felt as morphemes dependent on these roots.

 Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirable there is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes  pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as –ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in  Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.

It should also be noted that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please , pleasing , pleasure , pleasant the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme, that manifest alternation are called allomorphs/or morphemic variants/ of that morpheme.

The combining form allo- from Greek allos “other” is used in linguistic terminology to denote elements of a group whose members together consistute a structural unit of the language (allophones, allomorphs). Thus, for example, -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. They are considered as variants of one and the same morpheme and called its allomorphs.

Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.

Complementary distribution is said to take place, when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment.

Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes –able and –ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in –able mean “ capable of beings”.

Allomorphs will also occur among prefixes. Their form then depends on the initials of the stem with which they will assimilate.

Two or more sound forms of a stem existing under conditions of complementary distribution may also be regarded as allomorphs, as, for instance, in long a: length n.

II. Structural types of words.

The morphological analysis of word- structure on the morphemic level aims at splitting the word into its constituent morphemes – the basic units at this level of analysis – and at determining their number and types. The four types (root words, derived words, compound, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word building.

According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups:  derived words and compound words – according to the number of root-morphemes they have. Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, e.g. acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant. There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.

These structural types are not of equal importance. The clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: 1)the importance of each type in the existing wordstock, and 2) their frequency value in actual speech. Frequency is by far the most important factor. According to the available word counts made in different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing wordstock; derived nouns comprise approximately 67% of the total number, adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15% and adjectives about 4%. Root words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; adjectives root words come to approximately 12%.

But we cannot fail to perceive that root-words occupy a predominant place. In English, according to the recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are root-words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the root-words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that root words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Root- words also serve as parent forms for all types of derived and compound words.

III. Principles of morphemic analysis.

In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents.

A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into Immediate Constituents. ICs are the two meaningful parts forming a large linguistic unity.

The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility is involved in certain structural correlations. To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only ICs one of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula:

un+ { [ ( gent- + -le ) + -man ] + -ly}

Breaking a word into its Immediate Constituents we observe in each cut the structural order of the constituents.

A  diagram presenting the four cuts described looks as follows:

1. un- / gentlemanly

2.   un- / gentleman / — ly

3.   un- / gentle / — man / — ly

4.   un- / gentl / — e / — man / — ly

A similar analysis on the word-formation level showing not only the morphemic constituents of the word but also the structural pattern on which it is built.

The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents. For example, the noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs: [frendlı-] recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and [-nıs] found in a countless number  of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC [-nıs] is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of –ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The IC [frendlı-] is next broken into the ICs [-lı] and [frend-] which are both UCs of the word.

Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.

According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, e.g. the identification of the suffix –er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme – er  and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-.

According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, for example the identification of the root-morpheme agree-  in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.

As a rule, the application of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

However, the morphemic structure of words in a number of cases defies such analysis, as it is not always so transparent and simple as in the cases mentioned above. Sometimes not only the segmentation of words into morphemes, but the recognition of certain sound-clusters as morphemes become doubtful which naturally affects the classification of words. In words like retain, detain, contain or  receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [rı-], [dı-] seem to be singled quite easily, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes  re-, de- as found in words re-write, re-organize, de-organize, de-code. Moreover, neither the sound-cluster [rı-] or [dı-], nor the [-teın] or [-sı:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning because [rı-] distinguishes retain from detain and [-teın] distinguishes retain from receive.

It follows that all these sound-clusters have a differential and a certain distributional meaning as their order arrangement point to the affixal status of re-, de-, con-, per- and makes one understand —tain and –ceive as roots. The differential and distributional meanings seem to give sufficient ground to recognize these sound-clusters as morphemes, but as they lack lexical meaning of their own, they are set apart from all other types of morphemes and are known in linguistic literature as pseudo- morphemes. Pseudo- morphemes of the same kind  are also encountered in words like rusty-fusty.

IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of Stems. Derivational types of word.

The morphemic analysis of words only defines the constituent morphemes, determining their types and their meaning but does not reveal the hierarchy of the morphemes comprising the word. Words are no mere sum totals of morpheme, the latter reveal a definite, sometimes very complex interrelation. Morphemes are arranged according to certain rules, the arrangement differing in various types of words and particular groups within the same types. The pattern of morpheme arrangement underlies the classification of words into different types and enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. These relations within the word and the interrelations between different types and classes of words are known as derivative or word- formation relations.

The analysis of derivative relations aims at establishing a correlation between different types and the structural patterns words are built on. The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem.

The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm, thus the stem which appears in the paradigm (to) ask ( ), asks, asked, asking is ask-; thestem of the word singer ( ), singer’s, singers, singers’ is singer-. It is the stem of the word that takes the inflections which shape the word grammatically as one or another part of speech.

The structure of stems should be described in terms of IC’s analysis, which at this level aims at establishing the patterns of typical derivative relations within the stem and the derivative correlation between stems of different types.

There are three types of stems: simple, derived and compound.

Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be modeled. Simple stems are generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root morpheme. The derivational structure of stems does not always coincide with the result of morphemic analysis. Comparison proves that not all morphemes relevant at the morphemic level are relevant at the derivational level of analysis. It follows that bound morphemes and all types of pseudo- morphemes are irrelevant to the derivational structure of stems as they do not meet requirements of double opposition and derivative interrelations. So the stem of such words as retain, receive, horrible, pocket, motion, etc. should be regarded as simple, non- motivated stems.

Derived stems are built on stems of various structures though which they are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis  of the derivative relations between their IC’s and the correlated stems. The derived stems are mostly polymorphic in which case the segmentation results only in one IC that is itself a stem, the other IC being necessarily a derivational affix.

Derived stems are not necessarily polymorphic.

Compound stems are made up of two IC’s, both of which are themselves stems, for example match-box, driving-suit, pen-holder, etc. It is built by joining of two stems, one of which is simple, the other derived.

In more complex cases the result of the analysis at the two levels sometimes seems even to contracted one another.

The derivational types of words are classified according to the structure of their stems into simple, derived and compound words.

Derived words are those composed of one root- morpheme and one or more derivational morpheme.

Compound words contain at least two root- morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.

Derivational compound is a word formed by a simultaneous process of composition and derivational.

Compound words proper are formed by joining together stems of word already available in the language.

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This is my paper summary of English Morphology Class

2.1 WHAT IS A WORD?

The assumption that languanges contain word is taken for granted by most people. Even illiterate speakers know that therer are words in their language. True, sometimes there are differences of opinion as to what units are to be treater as word.

2.1.1 The Lexeme

However, closer examination of the nature of the ‘word’ reveals a somewhat more complex picture than i have painted above. What we mean by ‘word’ is not clear. As we shall see in the next few paragraphs, diffuculties in clarifying the nature of the word are largely due to the fact the term ‘word’ ised in a variety of senses which usually are not clearly distinguished.

We shall refer to the ‘word’ in this sense of abstact of vocabulary item using the term lexeme.

we shoul all agree that :

The physical word form                      are realisation of                      the lexeme

See,sees,sleeing,saw,seen                                                                    SEE

Sleeps, sleeping,slept                                                                          SLEEP

Catch, catches, catching, caught                                                         CATCH

2.1.2 Word form

As we have just seen above,sometimes, when we use the term ‘word’, it is not the abstract vocabulary item with a common core of meaning,the lexeme, that we want to refer to. Thus we can refer to see, sees, seeing, saw and seen as five different word we counting the number of word.

2.1.3 The Gramatical Word

The ‘word’ can also be seen as a representation of a lexeme that is associated with certain morpho-syntactic properties such as noun, adjective,verb, tense, gender, number, etc.

The same word-form cut, belonging to the verbal lexeme CUT, can represent two different grammatical words. In [2.3] cut represents the grammatical word cut [verb,present,noun 3rd person]. But in [2.3b] it represents the grammatical word cut [verb, past] which realises the past tense of CUT.

2.2 MORPHEMES : THE SMALLEST UNITS OF MEANING

Morphology is the study of word structure. The claim that words have structure might come as a suprise becayse normally speakers think of word as indivisble units of meaning. This is probably due to the fact that many word are morphologically simple. For example the,fierce, desk, eat, boot, at, fee, mosquito,etc.

The term morpheme is used to refer to the smallest, indivisible unit of semantic content or grammatical function which word are made up of. By definition, a morpheme cannot be decomposed into smaller units which are cither meaningful by themselves or mark a grammatical function like singular or plural number in the noun.

The form –er is attached to verbs to derive nouns with the general meaning, -ness is added to an adjective,it produces a noun meaning, -ette to a noun derrives a new noun which has the meaning, -ex and pre- derive nouns from nouns while mis- derive verbs from verbs.

2.2.1 Analysing Word

We have used the criterion of meaning to identify morphemes, where the meaning of a morpheme has been somewhat obscure, you have been encouraged to consult a good etymological dictionary.

Helicopter is a kind of non-fixed flying aircraft, pteropus are tropical bats, diptera are two winged flies, the words bible,bibliography and bibliophile have to do with books. But it is unlikely that anoyone lacking a profound knowledge of English etymology is aware that word bible is not just the name of  a scripture book.

2.2.2 Morphemes, Morps and Allomorph

At one time, establishing mechanical procedures for the identification of morphemes was considered a realistic goal by structural lingusts (cf.Harris, 1951). But it did not take long before most linguist realised that it was impossible  to develop a set of discovery procedures that would lead aitomatically to a correct morphological analysis.

Definition : the morpheme is the smallest difference in the shape of a word that correlates with the smallest difference in word or sentence meaning or in grammatical structure. A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language, it is recurrent distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes). Different morphs represent the same morpheme, they are grouped together and they are called allomorphs.

2.2.3 Grammatical Conditioning, Lexical Conditioning and Suppletion

Distribution of allomorphs is usually subject to phonological conditioning,sometimes phonological factors play no role in the selection of allomorphs. Instead the choice of allomorph may be grammatically conditioned, i.e. it may be dependent on the presence of a particular grammatical element.

In other cases, the choice of the allomoprh may be lexically conditioned, i.e. use of a particular allomorph may be obligatory if a certain word is present. We can see this in the realisation of plural in English. There exist a few morphemes whose allomorphs show no phonetic similarity, example by the forms good/better which both represent the lexeme GOOD despite the fact that they do not have even a single sound in common, where allomoprhs of a morpheme aer phonetically unrelated we speak of suppletion.

2.2.4    Underlying Representations

Above we have distinguished between, on the one hand, regular, rulegoverned phonological alternation, this is standard in generative phonology. Merely listing allomorphs does not allow us to distinguish between eccentric alternations like good/better and regular alternations like that shown by the negative prefix in- or by the regular plural –s plurall suffix. A rule of suppletion or lexical conditioning only applies if a form is expressly marked as being subject to it. Similarly, a grammatically conditioned rule will only be triggered if the appropriate grammatical conditioning factor is present.

To bring out the distinction between regular phonological alternation, which is phonitecally motivated and other kinds of morphological alternation that lack a phonetic basis, linguists posit a single underlying representation or base form from which the various allomorphs of a moprheme are derived by applying one or more phonoligical rules. The stages which a form goes through when it is being converted from an underlying representation to a phonetic representation sonstitute a derivation. The term morphophonemic and morphophonolgy are used to refer conditioned allomorphs of morphemes.

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Описание презентации по отдельным слайдам:

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  1 слайд

  WORD-STRUCTURE
  Morphemic Structure of Words
  Lecture 8

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  2 слайд

  1. Word-Structure and Morphemes

  Morphe – ‘form’ + -eme. The Greek suffix – eme has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest unit (phoneme, sememe, lexeme)

  Word-structure is internal organization of words.
  The morpheme is the smallest indivisible two-facet language unit.

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  3 слайд

  MORPHEMES
  Morphemes cannot be segmented into smaller units without losing their constitutive essence (two-facetedness) – association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern.
  Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words but not independently.

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  4 слайд

  SEGMENTATION OF WORDS
  INTO MORPHEMES
  Boiler = boil- + er;
  Driller = drill- + er ;
  recurrence of the morpheme -er in these and other similar words and of the morphemes boil- and drill- in
  to boil, a boil, boiling and
  to drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press, etc.

• 

  5 слайд

  SEGMENTATION OF WORDS
  INTO MORPHEMES
  flower-pot = flower- + -pot;
  shoe-lace = shoe- + -lace;
  Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern.
  Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.
  Lace [l], [ei] ,[s] — without meaning.

• 

  6 слайд

  Word-cluster
  please pleasing pleasure pleasant
  [pli:z] [pli:z] [pleʒ] [plez]

  All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants.
  Thus, [pli:z], [plez] and [рlеʒ] are allomorphs of оnе and the same morpheme.

• 

  7 слайд

  The root-morphemes
  in the word-clusters
  Duke [dju:k], ducal [‘dju:kl],
  duchess [‘d˄tʃiƨ], duchy [‘d˄tʃi]
  or
  Poor [puə] , poverty [‘povəti] —
  are the allomorphs of one morpheme

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  2.1. Semantic Classification of Morphemes
  Root-morphemes (radicals) — the lexical nucleus of words, which has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language:
  Helpless, handy, rewrite, hopeful, disorder
  Help- hand- -write hope- -order
  The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster:
  work- in to work, worker, working or
  theor- in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc.

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  Non-root morphemes
  Non-root morphemes include inflectional morphemes (inflections) and affixational morphemes (affixes). Inflections carry only grammatical meaning.
  Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.
  A prefix: understand – mis-understand, correct – in-correct).
  A suffix: (-en, -y, -less in heart-en heart-y, heart-less).

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  2.2. Structural Classification of Morphemes
  A free morpheme — one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. Many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, use − of the noun useless is a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun use.
  A bound morpheme — a morpheme that must be attached to another element. It occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are bound morphemes for they always make part of a word, for example:-ness, -ship in the words kind-ness, friend-ship; un-, dis- in the words un-tidy, dis-like.

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  All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes.
  Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory, theoretical, etc.,
  barbar-in barbarism, barbarian, etc.,
  -ceive in conceive, perceive, etc.

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  Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes -morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme: the morpheme well and half can occur as free morphemes: sing well, half a month.
  They can also occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.

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  The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes

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  Word-structure
  on the morphemic level:
  1st Group — Combining forms are morphemes borrowed namely from Greek or Latin in which they exist as free forms. They are considered to be bound roots: tele-phone consists of two bound roots.
  Phonoscope = ‘sound’ + ‘seeing’;
  Microscope = ‘smallness’ + ‘seeing’;
  Telegraph = ‘far’ + ‘writing’;

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  The 2nd Group embraces morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.
  Root morpheme man – in postman, fisherman, gentleman, etc. in comparison with man-made, man-servant.
  -man = -er; in cabman, chairman, tradesman
  Not a male adult But agent!
  * She is an Englishman
  *All women are tradesmen.

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  3. TYPES OF MEANING IN MORPHEMES
  In morphemes can be singled out different types of meaning depending on the semantic class they belong to.
  Root-morphemes have lexical, differential and distributional types of meaning.
  Affixational morphemes have lexical, part of-speech, differential and distributional types of meaning.
  Both root-morphemes and affixational morphemes are devoid of grammatical meaning.

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  3.1. LEXICAL MEANING
  Root-morphemes have an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morphemes in the language: light, deaf, deep, etc.
  Affixational morphemes have a more generalizing character of lexical meaning: the suffix –en carries the meaning “the change of a quality”, e.g. to lighten – to become lighter, to deafen – to make somebody deaf.

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  Morphemes may be also analyzed into denotational and connotational components:

  The connotational component of meaning may be found in affixational morphemes: -ette (kitchenette); -ie (dearie, girlie); -ling (duckling) bear a heavy emotive charge.

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  The affixational morphemes with the same denotational meaning sometimes differ only in connotation: the morphemes –ly, –like, -ish in the words womanly, womanlike, womanish have the same denotational meaning of similarity but differ in the connotational component (женственный – женский – бабий).

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  Stylistic reference may be found in morphemes of different types: the affixational morphemes –
  -ine (chlorine), -oid (rhomboid)
  are bookish.

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  3.2. DIFFERENTIAL MEANING
  Differential meaning is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes. In words consisting of two or more morphemes, one of the constituent morphemes always has differential meaning: in the word forehead the morpheme – head serves to distinguish the word from other words containing the morpheme fore-: forefoot, forepart, foreground.

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  3.2. DISTRIBUTIONAL MEANING
  Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of morphemes making up the word.
  It is found in all words containing more than one morpheme: the word teacher is composed of two morphemes teach- and –er both of which possess the denotational meaning ‘to help students to learn something’ and ‘the doer of the action’.
  A different arrangement of the same morphemes *erteach would make the word meaningless.

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  3.4. PART-OF-SPEECH MEANING
  Part-of-speech meaning is the indicative of the part of speech to which a derivational word belongs: the affixational morpheme – ness (darkness) is used to form nouns, while the affixational morpheme –less (careless) forms adjectives.
  Sometimes the part-of-speech meaning of morphemes predominates: the morpheme –ice in the word justice serves principally to transfer the part-of-speech meaning of the morpheme just- into another class and namely that of the noun.

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  4. MORPHEMIC TYPES OF WORDS
  According to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic (root-words) and polymorphic words.
  Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme: small, dog, make, put, doll, pen, ect.

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  Polymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into:
  Monoradical words (having one-root morpheme) fall into three subtypes:
  radical-suffixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and two or more suffixal morphemes, for example, respectable, respectability;
  radical-prefixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, for example, overcome, unbutton;
  prefixo-radical-suffixal words, i.e. words which consist of one root, prefixal and suffixal morphemes (e.g. unforgettable, misinterpretation).

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  Polyradical words (having words consisting of two or more roots) fall into two subtypes:
  polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morpheme, for example, pen-friend, copybook;
  polyradical words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morpheme, for instance, safety-pin, light-mindedness, pen-holder.

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  5. TYPES OF WORD-SEGMENTABILITY
  Word-segmentability is the division of words into morphemes.
  Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished:
  complete,
  conditional,
  defective.

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  5.1. COMPLETE SEGMENTABILITY
  Complete segmentability
  is characteristic of words, the morphemic structure of which is transparent enough, as their individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word and can be easily isolated.

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  The morphemes making up words of complete segmentability are called morpheme proper or full morphemes

  The transparent morphemic structure of the segmentable words careless, stressful is conditioned by the fact that their constituent morpheme recur with the same meaning in other words: thoughtful, powerful.

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  5.2. CONDITIONAL SEGMENTSBILITY
  Conditional segmentability characterizes words whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons.
  In the words retain, detain or deceive the sound-cluster – [ri-], [di-] seem to be singled out easily due to their recurrence in a number of words (cf. rewrite, reorganize, decode, deorganize).

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  Neither [ri-], [di-] nor [-tain], [si:v] possess any lexical or part-of-speech meaning of their own.

  They have differential and distributional meanings: the [ri-] distinguishes retain from detain and the [-tein] distinguishes retain from receive, whereas their order and arrangement point to the status of the re-, de- as different from that of the –tain and –ceive within the structure of the words.

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  The morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability do not rise to the status of full morphemes for semantic reason and that is why are called pseudo-morphemes or
  quasi-morphemes.

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  5.3. DEFECTIVE SEGMENTABILITY
  Defective segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words.
  One of the component morphemes of these words is a unique morpheme, which is isolated and understood as meaningful because the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational meaning.
  In streamlet, ringlet, leaflet the morpheme –let has diminutive meaning.

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  In the word hamlet деревушка the morpheme -let has the meaning of diminutiveness. This morpheme occurs in the words ringlet, leaflet, streamlet.
  The sound-cluster [hæm-] does not recur in any other English word.
  The morpheme ham- carries a differential and distributional meaning as it distinguishes hamlet from streamlet, ringlet.

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  comparison with words
  Locket медальон, lionet, cellaret погребец, etc. leads one to the isolation of the morpheme -et having a diminutive meaning, the more so that the morphemes lock-, lion-, cellar-, etc. recur in other words: (cf. lock, locky; lion, lioness; cellar, cellarage).

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  The isolation of the morpheme -et leaves in the word pocket the sound-cluster [роk] that does not occur in any other word of Modern English.
  The morpheme [роk] clearly carries a differential and distributional meaning as it distinguishes pocket from the words mentioned above and thus must be qualified as a unique morpheme.

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  The morphemic analysis of words like
  cranberry, gooseberry, strawberry shows that they also possess defective morphemic segmentability: the morphemes cran-, goose-, straw- are unique morphemes.

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  on the level of morphemic analysis
  the linguist has to operate with two types of elementary units, namely full morphemes and pseudo-(quasi-)morphemes.
  A considerable percentage of words of conditional and defective segmentability signals a relatively complex character of the morphological system of the language, reveals the existence of various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary.

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  7. PROCEDURE OF MORPHEMIC ANALYSIS
  The procedure of segmenting words into the constituent morphemes is known as the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents (any of two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unit. L. Bloomfield).
  It is based on a binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into.

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  At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is broken into smaller meaningful elements.
  The analysis is completed when constituents are incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes.
  These morphemes are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs).

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  The noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs:
  friendly- (recurring in the adjectives friendly and friendly-looking).
  –ness (found in a countless number of nouns): happiness, darkness.
  The IC –ness is at the same time an UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning.
  The IC friendly- is next broken into the ICs
  friend- (recurring in friendship, unfriendly) and
  –ly (recurring in wifely, brotherly).
  The ICs friend- and –ly are both UCs of the word under analysis.

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  The procedure of segmenting a word into its Ultimate Constituent morphemes

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  8. PRINCIPLES OF WORD-SEGMENTATION
  According to the affix principle the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words, for example, the identification of the morphemes –less leads to the segmentation of words like thoughtless, careless, merciless into the suffixational morpheme –less and the root-morphemes thought-, care-, merci- within a word-cluster.

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  According to the root principle the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree makes it possible to split these words into the root agree- and the affixational morphemes -able, -ment, dis-.

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  Summary and Conclusions:
  There are two levels of approach to the study of word-structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.
  The basic unit of the morphemic level is the morpheme defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language unit.

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  Summary and Conclusions:
  Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished in linguistic literature: complete, conditional and defective. Words of conditional and defective segmentability are made up of full morphemes and pseudo (quasi) morphemes. The latter do not rise to the status of full morphemes either for semantic reasons or because of their unique distribution.

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  Summary and Conclusions:
  Semantically morphemes fall into root-morphemes and affixational morphemes (prefixes and suffixes); structurally into free, bound and semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes.
  The structural types of words at the morphemic level are described in terms of the number and type of their ICs as monomorphic and polymorphic words.

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  References
  Зыкова И.В. Практический курс английской лексикологии. М.: Академия, 2006. – С. 52-56.
  Гинзбург Р.З. Лексикология английского языка. М.: Высшая школа, 1979. – С. 89-106.
  Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка. М.: Дрофа, 2006. – С. – 78-128.

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WORD-STRUCTURE AND WORD-FORMATION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

How do we guess the meanings of the words we have never encountered before? Attachment: attach (root morpheme) + -ment (suffix) attachment – smth. you add to a document ? Attachmeant ? to mean – meant // -ment N-forming suffix v the file you meant to attach to your email but did not

This is one of the central questions of lexicology: the structure of words and the ways of building new words Lexicology studies the internal structure of words and the rules of word-formation, the formation of new words from the resources of this particular language. Together with the borrowing, wordforming provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.

Morphemes What is the smallest meaningful unit of the language? Sound / phoneme? ? ? Word? ? ? ring > ringlet MORPHEME! Morpheme is the minimum meaningful language unit. Morphemes are not independent, they occur only as parts of words, although a word may consist of a single morpheme (love, house, red, cry).

Types of words from the morphological point of view simple derived (friend) (friendly) words compound (girl-friend) compoundderived (eco-friendly)

Phonetically conditioned positional variants of a morpheme are called allomorphs. The negative prefix in- has the following allomorphs: im- (impossible), ir- (irregular), il- (illegal). Morphemes can be classified: a) from the semantic point of view; b) from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into: roots the lexical nucleus of a word, shared by other members of the word-family and does not admit any further analysis into ultimate constituents non-roots inflexions (functional) prefixes affixes (derivational) infixes suffixes

b) Structurally morphemes fall into: free rain bound rainless cranberry morphemes cranberry, receive semibound half-rain

Morphemic and word-formation analysis The procedure employed for segmenting words is morphemic analysis based on the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on a binary principle. At each stage two components are singled out (referred to as the Immediate Constituents (ICs)). Each IC at the next stage of the analysis is broken into two smaller meaningful units. The analysis is complete when we arrive at further unsegmentable units, i. e. morphemes. They are called Ultimate Constituents (UCs).

joyfully joyful joy -ly -ful

Structural word-formation analysis proceeds further, studying the structural correlation with other words. It is done with the help of the principle of oppositions, i. e. by studying the partly similar elements, the difference between which is functionally relevant. In our case joyfully and joyful are members of a morphemic opposition. Their distinctive feature is the suffix -ly, like in other oppositions of the same kind: joyful dreadful beautiful joyfully dreadfully beautifully Observing this proportional opposition we may conclude that there is a type of derived adverbs consisting of an adjective stem and the suffix -ly.

Structural morphemic analysis is helpful in distinguishing compound words formed by composition from the ones formed by other wordformation processes. to daydream to whitewash composition or composition + conversion? day (N) + dream (N) = daydream (N) composition daydream (N) > to daydream (V) conversion white (ADJ) + to wash (V) = to whitewash (V) composition

Word-formation A characteristic feature of all human languages is the potential to create new words. The categories of noun, verb, adjective, and adverb are open in the sense that new members are constantly being added. The most common types of word formation are derivation (affixation), composition (compounding), conversion. The minor types of word formation are clipping, blending, back-formation, abbreviation, sound-imitation, soundinterchange, distinctive stress.

Affixation (Derivation) Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives. Prefixes seldom affect the basic lexico-grammatical component of the stem meaning. A simple word and its prefixed derivative usually belong to the same part of speech: read — reread (v); happy — unhappy (adj. ), but be- + adj. > v (belittle), en- + n > v (encase). Suffixes mostly form a different part of speech and usually modify the lexical meaning of the base: free (adj. ) + -dom > n (freedom) but ring (n) + -let > ringlet (n)

Classifications of affixes according to their origin (native and borrowed) Native suffixes: -er (worker), -ness (loneliness), -ing (feeling), -hood (brotherhood), -ship (friendship), -th (truth), -some (handsome), -en (darken), -ful (colorful) Native prefixes: a- (awake) Borrowed suffixes: -ant (deodorant) (Latin), (parentage) -age, -able (readable), -ance (clearance), ard (Spaniard) (French), -ist (linguist), -ism (communism) (Greek) Borrowed prefixes: pre- (prehistoric), post- (postwar), non- (nonhuman), anti- (antiaircraft) (Romanic and Greek) Words that are made up of elements derived from different languages are called hybrids: readable

according to their semantic characteristics: polysemantic, synonymous and homonymous Polysemantic: -у 1) composed of, full of (bony, stony), 2) characterized by (rainy, cloudy), 3) having the character of (bushy, inky). Synonymous affixes: 1) doer of the action: -er, -ist, -ant (lover, journalist, defendant), 2) collectivity: -age, -dom, -(e)ry (officialdom, peasantry), 3) diminutiveness: -ie, -lit, -ling ( birdie, girlie, wolfling) Homonymic: -ly: 1) Adj. + -ly > Adv. (quickly), 2) N + -ly > Adj. (lovely)

Affixes can also be classified into productive (living) and non-productive (dead). Productive: 1) N-forming suffixes: -er, -ing, -ness (blogging, facebooker) 2) V-forming: -ize, -ate (napsterize) 3) Adj. — forming: -y, -ish, -ed, -able, -less (hay-smoked, proceedable, multitalentless) 4) Adv. -forming: -ly (muchly) 5) Prefixes: un-, re-, dis/de- (unfollow, retweet, defriend) Non-productive: 1) N-forming: -th, -hood 2) Adj. -forming: -ly, -some, -en, -ous 3) V-forming: -en

Word-composition (compounding) Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms (blackbird). Compounding is highly productive in English. Mostly it can be found in nouns (doorstep), adjectives (winedark), and verbs (stage-manage). Among noun compounds the following types can be found: N + N > N (steamboat) V + N > N (crybaby) Adj + N > N (strongbox). Compound adjectives can be of the following types: Adj. + Adj. > Adj. (red-hot) N + Adj. > Adj. (bloodthirsty) N + V > Adj. (snow-covered).

The constituent members of a compound are not always equal. Some compounds are made up of a determining (basic part = determinatum) and a determined part (serves to differentiate the basic part = determinant). Thus, in steamboat , red in red-hot are determinants, because steamboat is a type of boat, redhot is a degree of hotness. When the meaning of the compound can be inferred from its parts it is called transparent (hairbrush, bedroom, dancing-hall) and non-transparent or idiomatic, when it cannot be inferred from the meaning of components (lazybones, football).

Criteria of differentiation b/w a compound word and a word-combination 1) Graphic — solid or hyphenated spelling airline, air-line, air line 2) Phonological – stress ‘ice-cream (compound) vs. ‘ice ‘cream (free phrase) but this rule does not hold with adjectives: ‘gray’green, ‘easy-‘going Besides, stress can differentiate the meaning of compounds: man’kind «the human race» and ‘mankind «men contrasted with women»

3) Semantic – a compound expresses a single idea which is not identical in meaning to the sum of the meanings of its components in a free phrase. Tallboy does not even denote a person, but a piece of furniture ! But the semantic criterion alone cannot prove anything as phraseological units also convey a single concept. 4) Morphological – a compound is stable a tallboy — a tall and handsome boy a tallboy – a tallestboy 5) syntactic – a compound has one function in the sentence: There is a tallboy in the corner. Ø In most cases, only several criteria can convincingly classify a lexical unit as either a compound word or a word group.

Conversion is an extremely productive way of forming words in Modern English (knife — to knife, to take — a take). It is treated differently in linguistic literature. Some linguists define it as a morphological way of forming words (Smirnitsky, Ginzburg), treating conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm. Others (Arnold) consider it to be a morphological syntactic word-building method, because it involves the semantic change, a change of the paradigm and a change of the syntactic function of the word. A purely syntactic approach (functional approach) to conversion is popular with linguists in Great Britain and the USA. They define conversion as a kind of functional change.

1. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs) can express: a) an action characteristic of the object: ape — to ape (behave as apes do); b) instrumental use of the object: screw — to screw (‘fasten with a screw’); c) acquisition or addition of the object: fish — to fish; d) deprivation of the object: dust — to dust (‘remove dust from something’), skin — to skin (‘strip off the skin’).

2. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives) can express a) instance of the action: to jump — jump, to move — move; b) agent of the action: to help — help ‘a person who helps’; c) place of the action: to drive — drive ‘a path/road along which one drives‘; d) object or result of the action: to peel — peel ‘the outer skin of fruit taken off.

Some other patterns of conversion can be mentioned. 3. Adjectives > Nouns: supernatural, impossible, inevitable; 4. Participle > Adjectives: a standing man / rule, running water. But not all the pairs of such words can be formed by conversion. Some of them arose: (1) as a result of the loss of endings in the course of the historical developments of the English language: love, hate, rest, smell, work, end, answer, care, drink, (2) assimilation of borrowings: check, cry, doubt, change. Some linguists (Smirnitsky, Arbekova) call them patterned homonymy.

Minor types of word formation. Shortening While derivation and compounding represent addition, shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as subtraction, in which part of word or word group is taken away. Shortening can be called a process of wordcoining.

Clipping is a process of creating of a new word by shortening of the original polysyllabic word (prototype). According to what part is cut off we distinguish: final – doc (doctor), initial – net (Internet) medial clipping – poli-sci (political science).

Blending is combining parts of two words to form one. motel = motor + hotel brunch = breakfast + lunch, selectric = select + electric dancercise = dance + exercise. Sometimes only the first word is clipped, as in perma-press for ‘permanent-press’.

Back-Formation Back-formation is a process whereby a word whose form is similar to that of a derived form undergoes a process of deaffixation (the singling-out of a stem from a word which is wrongly regarded as a derivative). resurrect < resurrection enthuse < enthusiasm donate < donation orient < orientation A major source of back-formation in English is represented by the words that end with -er or -or and have meanings involving the notion of an agent, such as editor, peddler, swindler, and stroker. Because hundreds of words ending in these affixes are the result of affixation, it was assumed that these words too had been formed by adding -er or -or to a verb. So, edit, peddle, swindle, and stroke exist as simple verbs.

Abbreviation is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination. (a) If the abbreviated written form is read like a word it is called an acronym — AIDS, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), radar (radio detecting and ranging), (b) The other subgroup of abbreviations is pronounces like a series of letters (initialisms) — S. O. S. , NFL (National Football League), B. B. C. (the British Broadcasting Corporation), (c) The term abbreviation may be used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text for economy of space and effort (graphic abbreviation) — L. A. , N. Y. , B. A. for Bachelor of Arts, ltd for limited, Xmas for Christmas.

Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel: food N — feed V, root consonant: speak V — speech N, or both: life N — live V. It also may be combined with affixation: strong Adj. strength N, or with affixation and shift of stress: ‘democrat — de’mocracy. Distinctive stress: ‘conduct N — con’duct V, object, etc. Sound imitation is the formation of new words from sounds that resemble those associated with the object or action to be named, or that seem suggestive of its qualities: buzz, hiss, sizzle, cuckoo.

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