Morpheme

Word.

Morphology and Syntax.

Morphology studies grammatical classes and groups of words, grammatical categories and the system of forms in which these categories actually exist.

Syntax studies phrases and sentences, the ways in which words may be combined and the relations between the words in combination.

The central element of morphology is word.

Word is a grammatical unit that has its form and meaning. Word is a minimal unit of language, that has its positional independence (Maslov); a minimum free form (Bloomfield); a minimal unit that is characterized by its ability to functioning, the largest unit of morpholody (Ivanova).

Word is a sign, a naming unit, a unit of information in the communication process, the articulate sound-symbol, the grammatically arranged combination of sound with meaning; is formed by morphemes, the uninterrupted string of morphemes, an indivisible elementary component of the lexicon of language, the

elementary component of the sentence. Word is an autonomous unit of language, in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound complex and which is capable of a particular grammar employment and able to form a sentence by itself (Arnold).

The constituent parts of the word are morphemes. Morpheme is a minimal meaningful unit of language without positional independence: un-law-ful (un - the negative prefix, law - the lexical meaning, ful - the adjectival suffix). Morpheme is a minimal lineal meaningful unit with its sound pattern (Smirnitzky). Morpheme is an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern, a constituent part of a word (Arnold).

Morphemes are classified into roots and affixes. According to their porition affixes are divided into prefixes (im-polite) and suffixes (teach-er-s). According to their functional meaning the suffixes may be subdivided into derivational (acquit+tal) and functional or grammatical (judge+s). The lexical meaning is expressed by the stem (the part of the word without derivational and functional affixes). The stem also expresses the part of speech meaning (Soboleva): Friend — friends, friendly, friendship have the stem friend-.

Functional affixes convey grammatical meaning (build different forms of one and the same word, i.e. a paradigm of the word). Paradigm is the system of all grammatical forms characteristic of the word:

testify - ies - ied - ing;

lawyer - lawyers; nice - nicer - nicest.

"Zero" morpheme (Smirnitzky) or "zero exponent" (Maslov): стіл-, стол-а, стол-ом, стол-у; teach-er, teach-er-s.

As the word teacher may have the suffix -s in the plural form, Smirnitzky finds 3 morphemes in it (teach+er+zero morpheme). But there is no sound image, no graphical representation of the zero morpheme, it can't be separated from the word, the "meaningful absence of the morpheme" is derived from the context but the latter can't express the meaning of the "zero exponent". As there is no graphical representation, no sound image, no meaning of its own, we can't distinguish any "zero morpheme or exponent".

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23