Lecture 2

Theme: “Morphology. Basic

notions”.
Theme: “Morphology.
Basic notions”.
1. Morphemic structure of the word
2. Types of morphemes.
Classification of morphemes
3. Allomorphs
 Literature:
• 1. Блох, М.Я. Теоретическая грамматика
английского языка / М.Я. Блох. - М.:
Высшая школа, 2003. – С. 7-19.
• 2. Ильиш, Б.А. Строй современного
английского языка: учебник / Б.А. Ильиш. –
Ленинград: Просвещение, 1971. – C. 5-18.
• 3. Мороховская, Э.Я. Практикум по
теоретической грамматике / Э.Я.
Мороховская. - Ленинград: Просвещение,
1973. – С. 7-31.
 1. Morphemic
structure of a word:

WORD
Answer the questions:
• What is the minimal unit of
phonetics?
• Is it a meaningful part?
• What is a minimal unit of
grammar?
• Is it a meaningful part?
 The branches of
grammar

GRAMMAR

MORPHOLOGY SYNTAX

Lexicology Pragmatics
Phoneme
Phoneme

Morpheme
Morpheme

Lexeme
Lexeme

Phrase
Phrase

Sentence
Sentence

Text
Text
 The definition of a
morpheme
• the morpheme is the elementary
meaningful lingual unit built up from
phonemes and used to make words.

• What is the function of the

morpheme?
 Function of a
morpheme
• Significative function
• It doesn’t have its concrete
meaning, it indicates a word.
• Ex: plurality of Nouns (dog-dogs),
identification of a part of speech
(worker – suffix –er is a noun-
forming suffix).
2. Types of morphemes.
Classification of
morphemes
 Two criteria of
morpheme
classifications:
• Positional • Functional
criterion criterion
• the location • the
of the contribution of
morphemes the
with regard to morphemes to
each other the general
meaning of the
word.
 ROOT AFFIX
(root- (affixal
morpheme) morpheme)

PREFIX SUFFIX
 Root-morpheme
• What does it express?

• It expresses the concrete,

“material” part of the meaning of
the word and constitute its central
part.
• Ex: worker
 Affixal morpheme
• What does this morpheme
express?
• This morpheme expresses the
specificational part of the meaning
of the word: it specifies, or
transforms the meaning of the root.
• Affixal specification may be of two
kinds: of lexical or grammatical
character.
1. Positional criterion:

Morpheme

Roots Affixes

Prefixes Suffixes

Inflections
(gram.suffix)
 Prefixes
• Situated before the root
• The main function of prefixes in
English is to change the lexical
meaning of the same part of
speech. But the recent research
showed that about twenty-five
prefixes in Modern English form
one part of speech from another.
 Prefixes
• Changing the • Not changing
part of speech the part of
speech

• Collage (N.) – • Satisfy (V.) –

postcollage dissatisfy (V.)
(Adj.) days
 Check yourself. T/F
1. Prefix dis- doesn’t change the part of
speech.
2. Prefix inter- changes the part of
speech.
3. Prefix il- changes the part of speech.
4. Prefix under- doesn’t change the
part of speech.
 Classifications of prefixes:
1. Semantic classification :
a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as
1) dis- (disconnect);
2) un- (unhappy);
3) il- (illogical);
4) im- (immoral)
5) non- (non-official), etc.
Add 2-3 of your own examples
What other negative prefixes can you
give?
Semantic classification
(continuation)
• b) prefixes denoting repetition or
reversal actions, such as:
1) de- (deaccelerate - замедлять);
2) re- (reread).
Semantic classification
(continuation)
• c) prefixes denoting time, space,
degree relations, such as :
1)inter- (interplanetary); - space
2)hyper- (hypertension); - degree
3)ex- (ex-student); - time
4) pre- (pre-election); - time
5) over- (overdo) etc. - degree
 Check yourself!
Analyze the type of the
prefix:
• Ex: underdone – under- is prefix
denoting degree of doing (c-
classification).
• Postreading
• While-watching
• Deforestation
• Immortal
 2. Origin of prefixes:
• a) native (Germanic), such as:
• un-, over-, under- etc.
• b) Romanic, such as :
• in-, de-, ex-, re- etc.
• c) Greek, such as :
• sym-, hyper- etc.
2. Criterion of function/
semantic

Morpheme

Roots Affixes

Word-
Word-building
changing
affixes
affixes
 Suffix
Suffix
Is an affix that is placed after
the root to form a new word
(lexical suffix) or change the
form of the word (inflection –
grammatical suffix)
 Lexical affixes (word-
building affixes)
• They form a new word (part of
speech) or add additional lexical
information to the words.
• Ex: to decide - decision - decisive -
decisively
Classifications
Classifications of
of
suffixes
suffixes
Classifications of suffixes
1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes
which can form different parts of speech:
• a) noun-forming suffixes, such as :
• -er (criticizer), -dom (kingdom), -ism
(socialism), ADD 1-2 of your own
• b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as :
• -able (comfortable), less (useless), -ous
(dangerous), ADD 1-2 of your own
• c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -
ize (computerize) , -ify (identify),
• d) adverb-forming suffixes , such
as- : -ly (friendly), -ward (westward),
• e) numeral-forming suffixes, such
as- -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).
2. Semantic classification .
Suffixes changing the lexical meaning
of the stem can be subdivided into
groups, suffixes can denote:
• a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er
(teacher), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),
• b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -
ese (Japanese), -ish (English),
 Semantic
classification of
suffixes
• c) collectivity, e.g. -dom
(kingdom), -ry (peasantry), -ship
(friendship),
• d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie),
-let (booklet), -ette (kitchenette),
• e) quality, e.g. -ness (kindness), -
ity (answerability).
 Lexico-grammatical
affixes:
• Suffixes which can be added to certain
groups of stems are subdivided into:
• a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such
as : -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), -
able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation
(computerization),
• b) suffixes added to noun stems, such
as : -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism
(adventurism), -ish (childish),
• c) suffixes added to adjective stems,
such as : -en (weaken), -ly (quickly), -ish
(longish), -ness (kindness).
 Other types of
morphemes:
• Infix:
• regular vowel interchange which
takes place inside the root and
transforms its meaning “from within”
can be treated as an infix, e.g.: a
lexical infix – blood – to bleed; a
grammatical infix – tooth – teeth.
 3. Allomorphs
• concrete manifestations of
morphemes, or variants in specific
textual environments; variants of
morphemes are called
• “allo-morphs”.
 Allo-emic theory
• Derived from phonetics (ex: one
phoneme is pronounced in a
different way in different
environments, cf.: you [ju:] - you
know [ju]; in Russian, vowels are
also pronounced in a different way
in stressed and unstressed
syllables, cf.: дом - домой. )
 • In grammar!!!
• Ex: the morpheme of the plural, -(e)s,
sounds differently after
1.voiceless consonants (bats) [s],
2.voiced consonants and vowels (rooms)
[z],
3.and after fricative consonants (clashes)
[iz].
• So, [s], [z], [iz], which are united by the
same meaning (the grammatical
meaning of the plural), are allo-morphs
of the same morpheme, which is
represented as -(e)s in written speech.
Distributional analysis:
• contrastive distribution,
• non-contrastive distribution
• complementary distribution.
Contrastive distribution
(1 opposition):
Started Starts
Non-contrastive distribution
(gradual opposition):
Started = Stopped =
Ate Complementary
distribution
Allo-emic theory-
Started-stopped
Descriptive linguistics
Free Bound Overt Covert

свободные связанные открытые скрытые

Can form Can’t form Have an Don’t have

words by words by explicit such a
themselves themselves shape shape

hand -ful clocks clock

 Questions for self-
control:
• What is a morpheme?
• How does a morpheme differ
from the word?
• Present types of morphemes.
• What are allomorphs? Give
examples.
• What is the bond between
lexical and grammatical
morphemes?
 Practical assignment:
• Analyse the following words using
two types of analysis:
1) Morphemic structure analysis-
linear
2) Distributional analysis (type of a
morpheme)
3) Descriptive analysis
 Example: word
‘irregularities ’
1) Morphemic structure analysis-linear
Ir-regular-ity(i)-ies:
Ir- negative prefix,Germanic
Regular – root
Ity(i) – Noun forming suffix, lexical
suffix (word-building suffix)
Ies – grammatical inflection of plurality.
2) Distributional analysis (type of a
morpheme)
Non-contrastive distribution:
irregularities – cats – oxen, etc.
3) Descriptive analysis
Ir-regular-ity(i)-ies:
Regular – Free, the rest – Bound
Words to be analyzed:
• unexpectedly
• reproductiveness
• babysitter’s
Thank you!!!