The notion of a morpheme

1. The idea and the definition of a morpheme.
2. The terms ‘morph’ and ‘allomorph’.
3. Types of morphemes.
4. Problems connected with the notion of a morpheme.
5. Characteristic features of inflectional morphology and types of word-form derivation.

1. The idea and the definition of the morpheme

It is common knowledge in modern linguistics that “an important feature of human language is the fact that larger units are composed of smaller units, and that the arrangement of these smaller units is significant” [Kroeger 2006: 7]. Reasoning of this kind leads to a conclusion that, similarly, words can further be segmented into smaller meaningful elements.

E.g. WATCHED – two bits of meaning are explicit: WATCH (expressing the meaning “to look at sb/sth”) + -ED (expressing the idea of the past tense);

UNHELPFUL – can be divided into 3 bits of meaning: UN- (expressing negation), HELP (expressing the meaning ‘aid’, ‘assistance’), -FUL (indication of the part of speech).

The unit of grammar which is smaller than the word is called a morpheme. In fact, the term was introduced in the late XIX^th century by Boduin de Courteney and has been in wide use since then. American structuralists made it the core element of their linguistic description keeping it for minimum meaningful linguistic unit.

L. Bloomfield (1926) describes the morpheme as a “recurrent (meaningful) form which cannot in turn be analyzed into smaller recurrent forms. Hence any unanalyzable word or formative is a morpheme”. Thus basic features to single out in morphemes are (1) meaning, and (2) distribution. By distribution he understands an immediate environment of the word. This approach to the definition of a morpheme is considered to be classical, but other linguists also tried to work out their own definitions.

Often quoted is Charles Hockett’s definition of a morpheme: “Morphemes are the smallest individually meaningful elements in the utterances of the language” (1958). Paul Kroeger underlines two crucial aspects of this definition. First, morphemes are meaningful. Second, morphemes are the minimal meaningful elements in the sense that they cannot be further subdivided into smaller meaningful units [Kroeger 2006: 12-13]. This definition helps us distinguish between morphemes and phonemes (e.g. though the difference between t and d in mat ÷ mad is significant, the phonemes in question do not have any inherent meaning whereas the morpheme does).

Gleason’s definition emphasizes other basic properties of a morpheme: “A morpheme is a minimal unit in the plane of expression which relates to some unit in the plane of content”. Gleason considers a morpheme to be a unit of grammar. This definition underscores the fact that the morpheme has its form and meaning, and it is the smallest of the kind.

Very close to this definition is the one given by A.I. Smirtitsky. According to the Russian linguist, the morpheme is the smallest language unit comprising both the outer (sound) and the inner (sense) aspects. Thus A.I. Smirnitsky stresses the idea that the morpheme possesses essential features of language signs: the inner and outer forms.

In the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary edited by V.N. Yartseva the morpheme is defined as an abstract invariant getting its manifestation in concrete variants (morphs or allomorphs). Thus this definition emphasizes the idea of an abstract character of a morpheme and introduces its concrete manifestations: morphs or allomorphs. The morph is the smallest sequence of phonological units into which words are divided in an analysis of morphemes. It can be defined as a concrete manifestation of a morpheme. Thus the form [Λnstret∫t] (unstretched) will be divided into the morphs [Λn], realizing a negative morpheme; [stret∫], realizing the root morpheme “stretch”; and [t], realizing, for instance, the past-tense morpheme. In grammatical description we deal with abstract ideas as, for one, the negative, plural, and past-tense morphemes. They are not real forms. The real forms that represent them are { in-/un-/im-/il-/ab-/ir/etc.; -s/suppletive forms/etc.; -ed/suppletive forms/etc.}. These are allomorphs representing the subsequent morphemes. An allomorph is ‘one of several alternative forms of a morpheme’ [Dixon 2009: 331]. In other words, an allomorph is one of a set of forms which realizes a morpheme. Thus, an allormorph presupposes the idea of variation. E.g. –[ən] in taken and –[d] in removed are among the allomorphs of the “past participle” morpheme. Similarly, [t], [d], [id] (e.g. liked, played, fitted) are allomorphs of the past tense morpheme. Allomorphs can be phonemically conditioned [z, s, iz] or morphemically conditioned (feet).

1. Types of morphemes

According to different classifications the meaning and status of morphemes are different. There are a number of classifications of morphemes built according to various principles.

1). On the basis of the type of meaning they convey, morphemes can be lexical and grammatical. Alongside these morphemes recognized by all linguists B.S. Khaimovich and B. Rogovskaya suggested the existence of free lexico-grammatical morphemes (e.g., give in, give up, there’s much similarity in origin and function between the second element and separable prefixes in German) and lexico-grammatical word-morphemes (e.g., auxiliaries shall, do).

2). On the basis of distribution morphemes can be classified differently. Distribution of the word is the total of all its environments.

• Linguists single out contrastive, non-contrastive and complementary distribution. The morphs are said to be in contrastive distribution if their meanings are different. Such morphs constitute different morphemes (e.g.: ed ÷ ing: returned ÷ returning). The morphs are said to be in non-contrastive distribution if their meaning is the same. Such morphs are free variants (or free alternants) of the same morpheme, e.g.: learned/learnt. Complimentary distribution concerns different environments of formally different morphs which are united by the same meaning (function): -en in oxen, children, like [s, z, iz] to express plurality. That is why L.S. Barkhudarov defines a morpheme as a number of morphs which are characterized by complementary distribution.

• According to the degree of dependence morphemes are divided into free (independently used, or those which can build up new words) and bound (which cannot be used independently). These types were suggested by L. Bloomfield.
• According to grammatical alternation morphemes can be additive and replacive. Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, e.g. –ed, -ing, etc. Replacive morphemes replace one another in a paradigm (drive-drove), i.e. it is the process of meaningful replacement (alternation) of phonemes within a root morph.

• According to their linear characteristics morphemes are divided into continuous (uninterruptedly expressed) and discontinuous (be … ing, have … en, be …en). This type was originally singled out by Z. Harris.
• L.S. Barkhudarov singled out fused (included into the structure of two adjacent morphs: really ['rıəlı]) and amalgamated (one morpheme performing the function of 2 morphemes: girls’ [gə:lz]).
• Linguists also single out portmanteau morphemes, i.e. single affixes marking two or more grammatical categories at once [Kroeger 2006: 22] (play - s simultaneously expresses grammatical categories of tense, person and number).

Thus distributional morpheme types comprise different distributional characteristics.

3). On the basis of formal representation morphemes can be overt and covert (zero or null). Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up new words. In covert (zero or null) morphemes the absence of the morpheme is meaningful, it has no sound form. This terminology was worked out by M.Y. Blokh. L.S. Barkhudarov divides morphemes into positive (books) and zero (book Ø).

4). On the basis of word-building function morphemes are divided into roots and affixes, or affixal morphemes. Affixes are further subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and inflexions. Inflexions are devoid of any lexical meaning and only have a grammatical meaning as they express morphological categories. The root is obligatory for any word, while affixes are not obligatory. Roots may be used in isolation whereas affixes are always bound. Roots belong to an open class, i.e. there are many of them in any language and new ones can be either coined or borrowed from other languages. Affixes are part of a closed class, i.e. they are limited in number.

5). On the basis of the ability of morphs to build new words or to change forms of the words morphs are divided into derivational and i nflectional. I.B. Khlebnikova calls them respectively word-building (e.g., -ment in government, -less in jobless) and form-building (e.g.: -ed of the Past). Derivational morphology changes one word (or lexeme) into another, while inflectional morphology creates different forms of the same lexeme [Kroeger 2006: 247], cf.: believ-er, un-believ-able ÷ believe-s, believ-ed (base: believe).

6). On the basis of segmental relations, i.e. in relation to the boundaries of the word, morphemes are s egmental, expressed within a word, and supersegmental, going beyond the word (intonation, stress, word-order, agreement). This distinction was supported by Zellig Harris, Charles Hockett, Vendriez. Supersegmental elements cannot be segmented or isolated and directly observed in the text as they are not reflected in their written representation [Хлебникова 2001: 12].

1. Problems connected with the notion of a morpheme

Though the notion of a morpheme is recognized by linguists it does not deprive this phenomenon of a number of disputable issues. Thus L. Bloomfield defines the morpheme as a recurrent meaningful elementary linguistic unit. The question which arises is, what is meaningful? In this case, the reference to the famous cranberry morph has become traditional. “Words such as blueberry, blackberry, cloudberry, cranberry etc. are clearly compounds of berry, but what does cran mean?” [Handbook of Linguistics 2004: 227]. Compare the following words: disarrange, disorganize ↔ discuss, discern, disappoint. According to the formal criterion, dis- should be recognized as a morpheme. But in the second set it is devoid of the meaning it has in the first set. Bolinger and after him Haas (1960) also emphasized the difficulty of trying to identify morphemes on a purely formal (distributional) basis: cat in pussycat / cattle, re- in religion / recall. Thus, the question arises whether it should be only distribution which is to be taken into account. Traditionally these morphemes are called quasi morphemes.

The next questionable area is the so-called zero morpheme. Some linguists seriously challenge the viability of zero as a linguistic element. Haas calls zero allomorphs “ghostly components” and Matthews (1974) says incisively “one cannot examine one’s data and determine the distribution of zero”. I.B. Khlebnikova adds more arguments against the notion of a zero morpheme. She points out that the absence of a morpheme is too universal a phenomenon in English to call for special consideration [Хлебникова 2001: 6]. Nevertheless there is a compromise approach to this issue. Thus, grammarians give a peculiar interpretation to the difference between the zero morpheme and the unmarked grammatical form. For instance, the absence of the morpheme of plurality of countable nouns testifies to the fact that the noun is used in the singular. But when it comes to mass nouns (air, wheat, courage, etc.) which do not normally take the plural inflection it seems odd to suggest that they have a zero morpheme. Then, in this case it is more preferable to speak about the singular of nouns as the unmarked categorial form [Kroeger 2006: 18].

I.B. Khlebnikova also believes that L. Bloomfield’s definition of a morpheme as “a minimal meaningful unit” is defective as “it does not specify what kind of meaning is understood and it does not mark out the difference between form-building and word-building morphemes” [Хлебникова 2001: 6].

Another shaky ground is the distinction between suffixes and inflexions. In the broad sense suffixes can cover inflexions and derivation (for instance in the Handbook of Linguistics edited by Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller the element “s” at the end of the form cats is referred to as a suffix [Handbook of Linguistics 2004: 213]). In the narrower sense suffixes can only be derivational and an inflexion is not a special kind of suffix but a morpheme of a different kind having no lexical meaning of its own. This approach is taken by B.A. Ilyish who insists on two distinct terms for these notions. Recognizing different nature of inflections and suffixes, but to some extent following the deeply rooted tradition to use the term suffix to cover all the morphemes placed after the root, some English-speaking grammarians find it convenient to stick to the terms derivational affixes and inflectional affixes [Kroeger 2006: 252]. Thus they refer to different morphological functions these linguistic entities perform.

1. Characteristic features of inflectional morphology and types of word-form derivation

Inflectional morphology is characterized by a number of features.

• it does not change part of speech assignment,
• it has a purely grammatical meaning,
• it is semantically regular; e.g. the plural –s in English always means plural number,
• it is syntactically determined (e.g. the 3^d p.sg. subject requires –(e)s in verbs in the Present Simple),
• it is normally highly productive, i.e. it applies to most or all of the words of the appropriate category,
• it is organized in paradigms,
• it is often expressed with the help of portmanteau morphemes,
• it is attached “outside” derivational affixes
• each grammatical category is expressed in the same word only once [Kroeger 2006: 250-253].

Types of word-form derivation comprise synthetic and analytical means. Synthetic means presuppose changes within the word. Special morphemes (‘s,-s (pl.), -ed, - ing,-er/-est, -s (3 p. sg.) and sound alterations (e.g.: man-men) may be employed in this case. Analytical means presuppose use of auxiliary words. But here grammarians face the problem of differentiating between a word and a phrase (e.g. more interesting, less interesting, get tired).

Ø Recommended literature:

1. Блох М.Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка / М.Я. Блох, Т.Н. Семенова, С.В. Тимофеева. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 45- 64.

2. Блох М.Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 2008. – С. 20-29.

1. Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 77-91.
2. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981. – С.4-9.
3. Ильиш Б.А. Строй современного английского языка. – Л.: Просвещение, 1971. – С. 21-26.

Ø Supplementary literature:

1. Бархударов Л.С. Очерки по морфологии современного английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1975. – С. 6-41.

1. Лингвистический энциклопедический словарь / Гл. ред. В.Н. Ярцева. – М.: Советская энциклопедия, 1990. - С. 311-313.
2. Хлебникова И.Б. Основы английской морфологии. – М.: «ЧеРо», 2001. – С. 5-7.

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