MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS

Morphemes and Words WORD MORPHEME particular sound form 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

is the smallest meaningful language unit MORPHEME is 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 south – southern e.g. poor – poverty south – southern wide - 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 BOUND 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

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 e.g. cold water, to water flowers 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 STEM is 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 teacher have a part-of-speech meaning e.g. to change – changeable to organize – organization are dependent on the root they modify (bound)

A SUFFIX a derivational morpheme follows the stem or root forms 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. sleepy – actor) Productive & non-productive (e.g. disappoint – childhood) Frequent & non-frequent (e.g. harmful) Noun-forming, adjective-forming, etc. (e.g. mobster, awake, untie, 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) Ungentlemanly Un- + gentlemanly (unnatural, untimely) Un- +gentleman- + -ly (womanly, masterly) Un- + gentle- + -man- + -ly (noble) Un- + -gent- + -le- + -man- + -ly

STRUCTURAL TYPES OF WORDS

MONOMORPHIC WORDS Simple words (root words) = one root morpheme + (functional affix) e.g. seldom, dog, asked, chairs

POLYMORPHIC WORDS Affixed (derived) words or derivatives = one root morpheme + one or more derivational affixes + (functional affix) e.g. acceptable, outdo, dislikes, discouragement

POLYMORPHIC WORDS Compound words = two or more root morphemes + (functional affix) e.g. baby-moons, eye-ball, stick-and-carrot (policy)

POLYMORPHIC WORDS Compound-affixed words (derivational compounds or compound derivatives) = two or more root morphemes + one or more derivational affixes + (functional affix) e.g. job-hopper, pen-holder, light-mindedness