Word structure in modern english

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:  [frendl?-]  recurring  in  the  adjectives

friendly-looking and friendly and [-n?s] found in  a  countless  number   of

nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC  [-n?s]  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 [frendl?-] is next broken into the ICs [-l?] 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 [r?-], [d?-] 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 [r?-] or  [d?-],  nor

the [-te?n] or [-s?:v] possess any lexical or functional  meaning  of  their

own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning  because

[r?-] distinguishes retain from  detain  and  [-te?n]  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.