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The following may be perceived as the main causes accounting for the
loss of motivation of free word-groups:
a)
When one of the components of a word-group becomes archaic or
drops out of the language altogether the whole word-group may become
completely or partially non-motivated. For example, lack of motivation in
the word-group
kith and kin
may be accounted for by the fact that the
member-word
kith
(OE.
cÿth)
dropped out of the language altogether ex-
cept as the component of the phraseological unit under discussion. This is
also observed in the phraseological unit
to and fro,
and some others.
b)
When as a result of a change in the semantic structure of a polyse-
mantic word some of its meanings disappear and can be found only in cer-
tain collocations. The noun
mind,
e.g., once meant ‘purpose’ or ‘intention’
and this meaning survives in the phrases
to have a mind to do smth., to
change one’s mind,
etc.
c)
When a free word-group used in professional speech penetrates into
general literary usage, it is often felt as non-motivated.
To pull (the)
strings
(wires), e.g., was originally used as a free word-group in its direct
meaning by professional actors in puppet shows. In Modern English, how-
ever, it has lost all connection with puppet-shows and therefore cannot be
described as metaphorically motivated. Lack of motivation can also be
observed in the phraseological unit
to stick to one’s guns
which can be
traced back to military English, etc.
Sometimes extra-linguistic factors may account for the loss of motiva-
tion,
to show the white feather
— ‘to act as a coward’, e.g., can be traced
back to the days when cock-fighting was popular. A white feather in a
gamecock’s plumage denoted bad breeding and was regarded as a sign of
cowardice. Now that cock-fighting is no longer a popular sport, the phrase
is felt as non-motivated.
1
d)
When a word-group making up part of a proverb or saying begins to
be used as a self-contained unit it may gradually become non-motivated if
its connection with the corresponding proverb or saying is not clearly per-
ceived.
A new broom,
e.g., originates as a component of the saying
new
brooms sweep clean. New broom
as a phraseological unit may be viewed
as non-motivated because the meaning of the whole is not deducible from
the meaning of the components. Moreover, it seems grammatically and
functionally self-contained and inseparable too. In the saying quoted above
the noun
broom
is always used in the plural; as a member- word of the
phraseological unit it is mostly used in the singular. The phraseological
unit
a new broom
is characterised by functional inseparability. In the say-
ing
new brooms sweep clean
the adjective
new
functions as an attribute
to the noun
brooms,
in the phraseological unit
a new broom (e.g. Well,
he is a new broom!)
the whole word-group is functionally inseparable.
e)
When part of a quotation from literary sources, mythology or the
Bible begins to be used as a self-contained unit, it may also lose all con-
nection with the original context and as a result of this become non- moti-
vated. The phraseological unit
the green-eyed monster
(jealousy)
1
See sources of English idioms in:
Logan Smith.
Words and Idioms. London, 1928.
87
can be easily found as a part of the quotation from Shakespeare “It is
the
green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”
(Othello,
II, i. 165). In Modern English, however, it functions as a non-motivated
self-contained phraseological unit and is also used to denote the T.V. set.
Achilles heel
— ‘the weak spot in a man’s circumstances or character’ can
be traced back to mythology, but it seems that in Modern English this
word-group functions as a phraseological unit largely because most Eng-
lish speakers do not connect it with the myth from which it was extracted.
1. The final criterion in the semantic approach
is idiomaticity whereas in the functional ap-
proach syntactic inseparability is viewed as the final test, and in the con-
textual approach it is stability of context combined with idiomaticity of
word-groups.
2.. The concept of idiomaticity is not strictly defined. The judgement
as to idiomaticity is passed sometimes within the framework of the Eng-
lish language and sometimes from the outside — from the point of view of
the mother tongue of the investigator.
It is suggested here that the term i d i o m a t i c i t y should be in-
terpreted as an intralingual notion and also that the degree of idiomaticity
should be taken into consideration since between the extreme of complete
motivation and lack of motivation there are numerous intermediate groups.
3.
Each of the three approaches has its merits and demerits. The tradi-
tional semantic approach points out the essential features of all kinds of
idiomatic phrases as opposed to completely motivated free word- groups.
The functional approach puts forward an objective criterion for singling
out a small group of word-equivalents possessing all the basic features of
words as lexical items. The contextual approach makes the criterion of sta-
bility more exact.
4.
All the three approaches are sufficient to single out the extreme
cases: highly idiomatic phraseological units and free word-groups. The
status of the bulk of word-groups possessing different degrees of idio-
maticity cannot be decided with certainty by applying the criteria available
in linguistic science.
5.
The distinguishing feature of the new approach is that phraseology
is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and not as a part of
lexicology. According to this approach phraseology deals with all types of
set expressions which are divided into three classes: phraseological units,
phraseomatic units and border-line cases.
§ 22. Summary and Conclusions
IV. Word-Structure
Close observation and comparison of words
clearly shows that a great many words have a
composite nature and are made up of smaller
units, each possessing sound-form and meaning. These are generally re-
ferred to as m o r p h e m e s defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet
language units. For instance, words like
boiler, driller
fall into the mor-
phemes
boil-, drill-
and
-er
by virtue of the recurrence of the morpheme
-
er
in these and other similar words and of the morphemes
boil-
and
drill-
in
to boil, a boil, boiling
and
to drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press,
etc.
Likewise, words like
flower-pot
and
shoe-lace
are segmented into the
morphemes
flower-, pot-, shoe-
and
lace- (cf. flower-show, flowerful,
etc.,
shoe-brush, shoeless,
etc., on the one hand; and
pot-lid, pottery,
etc.,
lace-boots, lacing,
etc., on the other).
Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of
a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a morpheme
is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent
part of the word.
Morphemes cannot be segmented into smaller units without losing their
constitutive essence, i.e. two-facetedness, association of a certain meaning
with a given sound-pattern, cf. the morpheme
lace-
denoting 'a string or
cord put through small holes in shoes', etc.; 'to draw edges together' and
the constituent phonemes [l], [ei], [s] entirely without meaning.
Identification of morphemes in various texts shows that morphemes
may have different phonemic shapes.
In the word-cluster
please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant
the root-
morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes: [pli:z] in
please, pleasing,
[plez] in
pleasure
and [plez] in
pleasant.
In such cases we say that 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 alteration are called allomorphs of that morpheme or
m o r p h e m e v a r i a n t s . Thus [pli:z, plez] and [рlез] are allo-
morphs of оде and the same morpheme. The root-morphemes in the word-
cluster
duke, ducal, duchess, duchy
or
poor, poverty
may also serve as
examples of the allomorphs of one morpheme.
As far as the complexity of the morphemic
structure of the word is concerned all English
words fall into two large classes. To Сlass I
belong segmentable words, i.e. those allowing of segmentation into mor-
phemes, e.g.
agreement, information, fearless, quickly, door-handle,
etc. To Сlass II belong non-segmentable words, i.e. those not allowing of
such segmentation, e.g.
house, girl, woman, husband,
etc.
The operation of breaking a segmentable word into the constituent
morphemes is referred to in present-day linguistic literature as the
89
§ 1. Segmentation of
Words into
§ 2. Principles of Morphemic
Analysis. Types of Word
Segmentability
analysis of word-structure on t h e m o r p h e m i c l e v e l . The
morphemic analysis aims at splitting a segmentable word into its constitu-
ent morphemes — the basic units at this level of word-structure analysis
— and at determining their number and types. The degree of morphemic
segment-ability is not the same for different words.
Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished:
c o m p l e t e , c o n d i t i o n a l and d e f e c t i v e .
1
C o m p l e t e segmentability is characteristic of a great many words
the morphemic structure of which is transparent enough, as their individual
morphemes clearly stand out within the word lending themselves easily to
isolation.
As can be easily seen from the examples analysed above, the transpar-
ent morphemic structure of a segmentable word is conditioned by the fact
that its constituent morphemes recur with the same meaning in a number
of other words. There are, however, numerous words in the English vo-
cabulary the morphemic structure of which is not so transparent and easy
to establish as in the cases mentioned above.
C o n d i t i o n a l morphemic segmentability characterises words
whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for se-
mantic reasons. In words like
retain, contain, detain
or
receive, deceive,
conceive, perceive
the sound-clusters [ri-], [di-], [кэn-] seem, on the one
hand, to be singled out quite easily due to their recurrence in a number of
words, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with
the phonetically identical morphemes
re-, de-
as found in words like
re-
write, re-organise, deorganise, decode;
neither the sound-clusters [ri-] or
[di-] nor the [-tern] or [-si:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of
their own. The type of meaning that can be ascribed to them is only a dif-
ferential and a certain distributional meaning:
2
the [ri-] distinguishes
re-
tain
from
detain
and the [-tern] distinguishes
retain
from
receive,
whereas their order and arrangement point to the status of the
re-, de-,
con-, per-
as different from that of the
-tain
and -
ceive
within the structure
of the words. The morphemes making up words of conditional segment-
ability thus differ from morphemes making up words of complete seg-
mentability in that the former do not rise to the full status of morphemes
for semantic reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in
linguistic literature: such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes or
quasi-morphemes. It should be mentioned that there is no unanimity on the
question and there are two different approaches to the problem. Those lin-
guists who recognise pseudo-morphemes, i.e. consider it sufficient for a
morpheme to have only a differential and distributional meaning to be iso-
lated from a word regard words like
retain, deceive,
etc. as segmentable;
those who deem it necessary for a morpheme to have some denotational
meaning qualify them as non-segmentable words.
D e f e c t i v e morphemic segmentability is the property of words
whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words. One
1
The Russian terms are: живое, условное и дефектное морфологическое членение
слов.
2
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 13-16, pp. 23-25.
90
of the component morphemes is a unique morpheme in the sense that it
does not, as a rule, recur in a different linguistic environment.
A unique morpheme is isolated and understood as meaningful because
the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational mean-
ing. There is no doubt that in the nouns
streamlet, ringlet, leaflet,
etc. the
morpheme
-let
has the denotational meaning of diminutiveness and is
combined with the morphemes
stream-, ring-, leaf-,
etc. each having a
clear denotational meaning. Things are entirely different with the word
hamlet.
The morpheme
-let
retains the same meaning of diminutive-ness,
but the sound-cluster [hæm] that is left after the isolation of the morpheme
-let
does not recur in any other English word with anything like the mean-
ing it has in the word
hamlet.
1
It is likewise evident that the denotational
and the differential meaning of [hæm] which distinguishes
hamlet
from
streamlet, ringlet,
etc. is upheld by the denotational meaning of
-let.
The
same is exemplified by the word
which may seem at first sight
non-segmentable. However, comparison with such words as
locket, hog-
get, lionet, cellaret,
etc. leads one to the isolation of the morpheme
-et
having a diminutive meaning, the more so that the morphemes
lock-, hog-,
lion-, cellar-,
etc. recur in other words (cf.
lock, locky; hog, hoggery;
lion, lioness; cellar, cellarage).
At the same time the isolation of the mor-
pheme
-et
leaves in the word
the sound-cluster [роk] that does not
occur in any other word of Modern English but obviously has a status of a
morpheme with a denotational meaning as it is the lexical nucleus of the
word. The morpheme [роk] clearly carries a differential and distributional
meaning as it distinguishes
from the words mentioned above and
thus must be qualified as a u n i q u e m o r p h e m e .
The morphemic analysis of words like
cranberry, gooseberry,
strawberry
shows that they also possess defective morphemic segment-
ability: the morphemes
cran-, goose-, straw-
are unique morphemes.
The oppositions that the different types of morphemic segmentability
are involved in hardly require any comments with the exception of com-
plete and conditional segmentability versus defective segmentability. This
opposition is based on the ability of the constituent morphemes to occur in
a unique or a non-unique environment. In the former case the linguist
deals with defective, in the latter with complete and conditional segment-
ability. The distinction between complete and conditional segmentability
is based on semantic features of m o r p h e m e s p r o p e r and
p s e u d o - m o r p h e m e s .
Thus on the level of morphemic analysis the linguist has to operate
with two types of elementary units, namely full morphemes and pseudo-
(quasi-)morphemes. It is only full morphemes that are genuine structural
elements of the language system so that the linguist must primarily focus
his attention on words of complete morphemic segmentability. On the
other hand, a considerable percentage of words of conditional and
1
Needless to say that the noun ham denoting ‘a smoked and salted upper part of a
pig’s leg’ is irrelevant to the
ham-
in
hamlet.
91