MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS

Morphemes and Words

WORD particular meaning particular sound form capable of a particular

grammatical employment

able to form a sentence autonomous

MORPHEME particular meaning particular sound form not autonomous constituent part of a

word not divisible into smaller

meaningful units

MORPHEME

is the smallest meaningful language unitis the smallest meaningful language unit

Words are subdivided into two classes:

Non-segmentable (to) teach (to) bear drive

Segmentable teacher, teaching unbearable driver

ALLOMORPHS

Variants of one and the same morpheme

e.g. poor – povertysouth – southernwide - width

ALLOMORPH

is a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment characterized by complimentary distribution

Complementary distribution

(allomorphs) Two linguistic variants

cannot appear in the same environment

E.g. –ion/-sion/-tion/-ation

im-/il-/ir-/in- (impossible/ illegal/irresistible/indirect

long - lengh

Contrastive distribution

(morphemes) Two language units can

appear in the same environment

They signal different meanings

E.g. –able (measurable)-ed (measured)

FREE morphemes Coincide with a word-

form May stand alone without

changing its meaning Can be only roots E.g. sport- in sportive

BOUND morphemes

Do not coincide with separate word-forms

Occur only as a constituent part of words

Are mostly derivational morphemes

E.g. –ive in sportive;eleg- and -ant in elegant

morphemes

roots affixes

DerivationalFunctional (endings or

outer formatives

prefixes

suffixes

infixes

A ROOT MORPHEME

is a lexical center of a word has an individual lexical meaning

common to a set of semantically related words (word-family)

e.g. to write, writer, writing

A ROOT MORPHEME

does not possess a part-of-speech meaning

e.g. cold water, to water flowers is often homonymous to words

e.g. find, bear, land, man is an ultimate constituent at a

morphological level of analysis

A STEMis what remains of a word when a

derivational or functional affix is removed from the word

e.g. hearty, heart - hearts

A STEM

expresses lexical and part-of-speech meaning

e.g. develop- (verbal stem) + -ment = development (noun stem)

A STEM

remains unchanged throughout a word’s paradigm

e.g. hearty – heartier – (the) heartiest;

to ask – asks – asked – asked- asking;

singer – singer’s – singers – singers’

FUNCTIONAL AFFIXES

Convey grammatical meaning

e.g. –s –the plural of nouns – boys

-er – comparative degree of adjectives - smaller

FUNCTIONAL AFFIXES

build different forms of one and the same word (a word-form)

e.g. boy- boys, boy’s – boys’;

take – takes;

hearty – heartier – (the) heartiest

DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES

build new words

e.g. to teach - a teacherhave a part-of-speech meaning

e.g. to change – changeable

to organize – organizationare dependent on the root they

modify (bound)

A SUFFIX

a derivational morphemefollows the stem or rootforms a new derived word in a

different part of speech or a different word class

e.g. heart – hearty, heartless, hearten

A PREFIX

a derivational morpheme

stands before the root or stem

modifies the word meaning

e.g. hearten – dishearten

AN INFIX

is placed within the word

e.g. stand

to-us-ward (toward us)

A SEMI-AFFIX

occupies an intermediate position between roots and affixes

is a root morpheme which functions as a derivational affix

e.g. well-done, well-fed

fireman, spaceman

ill-dressed, ill-housed

lady-like, business-like

CLASSIFICATION OF AFFIXES

Native & borrowed (e.g. sleepe.g. sleepyy – act – actoror)

Productive & non-productive ((e.g. e.g. disdisappoint appoint – child– childhoodhood))

Frequent & non-frequent (e.g. harme.g. harmful)ful)

Noun-forming, adjective-forming, etc. (e.g. e.g. mobstmobsterer, , aawake, wake, ununtie, etc.)tie, etc.)

CLASSIFICATION OF AFFIXES

transpositive (change the lexico-grammatical meaning of the word) & non-transpositive (do not change the lexico-grammatical meaning)

e.g. non- + stop (v.) = non-stop (adj.)

employ (v.) + -ee = employee (n.)

CLASSIFICATION OF AFFIXES

polysemantic (possess several connected meanings) & monosemantic (possess only one meaning)e.g. un- 1) to reverse action: untie

2) to deprive of: unhive, unearth

-less, without: colorless

ANALYSIS INTO IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS (анализ по непосредственным составляющим)

Ungentlemanly1. Un- + gentlemanly (unnatural,

untimely)

2. Un- +gentleman- + -ly (womanly, masterly)

3. Un- + gentle- + -man- + -ly (noble)

4. Un- + -gent- + -le- + -man- + -ly

STRUCTURAL TYPES OF WORDS

According to the number of morphemes words may be

monomorphic polymorphic

affixed (derived) compound compound-affixedsimple

MONOMORPHIC WORDS

Simple words (root words)Simple words (root words) = one root morpheme + (functional affix)

e.g. seldom, dog, asked, chairs

POLYMORPHIC WORDS

Affixed (derived) wordsAffixed (derived) words oror derivativesderivatives = one root morpheme + one or more derivational affixes + (functional affix)

e.g. acceptable, outdo, dislikes, discouragement

POLYMORPHIC WORDS

Compound wordsCompound words = two or more root morphemes + (functional affix)

e.g. baby-moons, eye-ball, stick-and-carrot (policy)

POLYMORPHIC WORDS

Compound-affixed words Compound-affixed words (derivational compounds (derivational compounds oror compound derivatives)compound derivatives) = two or more root morphemes + one or more derivational affixes + (functional affix)

e.g. job-hopper, pen-holder, light-mindedness