Morphology, Morphemes, and Allomorph

WHATS MORPHOLOGY?

•  Morphology is the study of word structure and word formation. 
•  Words, though impossible to define in absolute terms, can be thought of as the units that are combined to form sentences in a language such as English. 
• Just as sentences can be broken down into smaller units (words), we can break words down into smaller, meaningful parts. 
• The smallest meaningful part of a word is called a morpheme.

MORPHEME 
        Morpheme can be defined as the smallest meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided or analyzed. In other words, morpheme can be described as the minimal units of meaning.

Note:In Linguistics, morphemes are indicated by “brace marks” ({ }).

Examples:

As we know that in English, the case of plurality is indicated by adding “s” to the singular nouns.

          Singular:                                  Plural:

•  Bag                                          bags

 (consists of morpheme {bag} and morpheme {s})

• Table                           tables

 (consists of morpheme {table} and morpheme {s})

• Book                                       books

 (consists of morpheme {book} and morpheme {s})

Thus, in the examples, each word has two morphemes.

Other Examples:

In one of the patterns of tense marker in English grammar is indicated by adding “ed” to the past tense regular verbs:

          Singular:                                  Plural: 

• pick                                         picked

 (consists of morpheme {pick} and morpheme {ed})

• Learn                           learned

 (consists of morpheme {learn} and morpheme {ed})

• deliver                                     delivered

 (consists of morpheme {deliver} and morpheme {ed})

       In these examples, each word also has two morphemes.

KINDS OF MORPHEMES:

There are two kinds of morphemes:

1.       Free morpheme

A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning, such as the words that we saw earlier:

u  {learn}

u  {deliver}

u  {bag}

u  {table}

u  {book}

u  {pick}

All of these morphemes are free morphemes.

2.       Bound morpheme

A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It always added to one or more morphemes to form a word. The following morphemes are taken from the previous examples:

{en}                 in                     brighten

{un}                in                     unable

{er}                 in                     cheaper

{ly}                  in                     cheaply

{re}                  in                     replay

{s}                    in                     plays

All of these morphemes are bound morphemes.

       Whereas “free morphemes” constitute words by themselves, “bound morphemes” are never words but always parts of words.

       Bound morphemes mostly refer to morphemes that can occur as affixes. The affixes which precede free morphemes (words) are called prefixes, and those which follow free morphemes (words) are called suffixes.

Some Examples:

• dis-                                                      -ly
• un-                                                      -ness
• pre-         =      p   prefixes                  -ish           =       suffixes
• trans-                                                   -ity
• bi-                                                        -er

       Bound morphemes come in two varieties, “derivational” and “inflectional”.

The core difference between the two being that the addition of the derivational morphemes creates new words or mostly changes the word classes/identity/category; while the addition of inflectional morphemes merely changes word form.

DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES

u  The basic concept of derivational morphemes is that they derive new words. In the following examples, derivational morphemes are added to produce new words which are derived from the 'parent word’ (root).

ü  Danger – dangerous

                (noun)      (adjective)

ü  beauty – beautiful – beautifully

                (noun)    (adjective)   (adverb)

ü  examine – examination

                 (verb)            (noun)

ü  happy    –    happiness

              (adjective)        (noun)

u  In all cases, the derived word means something different than the root, and the word class may change with each derivation.

u  Derivation does not always cause the change of word class; but in such a case, the meaning of word will usually be significantly different from the root

u  Examples:        visible – invisible

                                                (Adjective)      (Adjective)

                                                create – recreate

                                                (noun)              (noun)

                                                market – supermarket

                                                (noun)              (noun)

                                                terminate – determinate

                                                (verb)                           (verb)

INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES

u  Inflection (the process by which inflectional morphemes are attached to words), allows speakers to morphologically encode grammatical information. See the following example:

            The word “girls” consists of two morphemes:

Ø  the free morpheme “girl” that describes a young female human being; and

Ø  the bound morpheme “s” that denotes plural number.

u  Note that both “girl” (as singular) and “girls” (as plural) are in the same word class that is NOUN

u  English is no longer a highly inflected language. But it has some inflectional endings, such as:

u  -est                              (superlative)

u  -er                                (comparative)

u  -’s                                (possessive)

u  -s                                 (plural)

u  -en                               (past participle)

u  -ing                              (progressive tense)

u  -ed                               (past tense)

u  -s                                 (third person singular present tense)

u  Examples of morphological encoding of other grammatical categories that can be considered as the inflectional markers are:

Ø              Past Tense (regular verb –ed)

                        walk - walked

                        (verb) (verb)

Ø  Progressive (-ing form)

                        walk – walking

                        (verb) (verb)

Ø  Person (the addition of “s” for 3rd person singular)

                        walk – walks

                        (verb) (verb)

Ø  Plurality (the “s” in plural form)

                        car     –   cars

                        (noun)  (noun)

Whether or not word class changes and how significantly meaning is affected, “derivation” always creates new words existing ones; while “inflection” is merely limited to change word form.

ALLOMORPH

       “An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs (the phonetic realization of morpheme), which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments”. (Source: Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) International)

·                    “A morpheme is indicated as one or more morphs (surface forms) in different environments. These morphs are called allomorphs”.

The allomorphs of a morpheme are derived from phonological rules and any morphophonemic rules that may apply to that morpheme.

            Examples of Allomorphs:

• The plural morphemes in English, usually written as {s}, has at least three allomorphs:
• {ɪz}     as in     ‘boxes’            [‘bɒksɪz]
• {z}      as in     ’dogs’              [‘dɒgz]
• {s}       as in     ‘hats’               [‘hæts]
• The past form morpheme {ed} usually has also three allomorphs:
• {t}       as in     ‘slipped’                      [‘slɪpt]
• {d}      as in     ‘slammed’                   [‘slæmd]
• {ɪd}     as in     ‘stilted’                        [‘stɪltɪd]
•  The negative morpheme changes “n” the prefix {in} to the consonant of the word it prefixes:
• {ɪn}     as in     ‘inconsiderate’            [ɪnkən’sɪdərət]
• {ɪr}      as in     ‘irregular’                    [ɪ’regjələ(r)]
• {ɪm}    as in     ‘impatient’                   [ɪm’ peɪʃnt]
• { ɪ l}    as in     ‘illegal’                        [ɪ’li:gl]