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defective segmentability signals
a
relatively complex character of the
morphological system of the language in question, reveals the existence of
various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary.
Morphemes may be classified:
a)
from the
semantic point of view,
b)
fr om t he st r uct ur a l point of
vi ew.
a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: r o o t -
m o r p h e m e s and n o n - r o o t or a f f i x a t i o n a l m o r -
p h e m e s . Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes
due to the different roles they play in word-structure.
Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished
and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words
help-
less, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill,
etc.: the root-morphemes
help-,
hand-, black-, London-, -fill
are understood as the lexical centres of the
words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is
inconceivable.
T h e r o o t - m o r p h e m e is the lexical nucleus of a ward, it
has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the
language. Besides it may also possess all other types of meaning proper to
morphemes
1
except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in
roots. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of
words making up a word-cluster, for example the morpheme
teach-
in to
teach, teacher, teaching, theor-
in
theory, theorist, theoretical,
etc.
N o n - r o o t m o r p h e m e s include inflectional morphemes or
inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only
grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-
forms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stems —
the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout i t s paradigm. Lexi-
cology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.
A f f i x e s are classified into p r e f i x e s and s u f f i x e s : a
prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows i t . Affixes besides
the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning
and a generalised lexical meaning.
b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: f r e e mor-
p h e m e s , b o u n d m o r p h e m e s , s e m i - f r e e ( s e m i -
b o u n d ) m o r p h e m e s .
A f r e e m o r p h e m e is defined as one that coincides with the
stem
2
or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes,
for example, the root-morpheme
friend
— of the noun
friendship
is natu-
rally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the
forms of the noun
friend.
A b o u n d m o r p h e m e occurs only as a constituent part of a
word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part
of a word, e.g. the suffixes
-ness, -ship, -ise (-ize),
etc., the prefixes
un-,
1
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 13-16, pp. 23-25.
2
See ‘Word-Structure’, § 8, p. 97.
92
§ 3. Classification
of Morphemes
dis-, de-,
etc.
(e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to
displease, to decipher).
Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes
which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with ‘
roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes.
Such are the root-morphemes
theor-
in
theory, theoretical,
etc.,
barbar-
in
barbarism, barbarian,
etc.,
-ceive
in conceive,
perceive,
etc.
Semi-bound ( s e m i - f r e e ) m o r p h e m e s
1
are morphemes that
can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free mor-
pheme. For example, the morpheme
well
and
half
on the one hand occur
as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utter-
ances like
sleep well, half an hour,”
on the other hand they occur as
bound morphemes in words like
well-known, half-eaten, half-done.
The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes dis-
cussed above can be graphically presented in the following diagram:
Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of
morphemes should be specially mentioned.
To t h e f i r s t g r o u p belong morphemes of Greek and Latin
origin often called c o m b i n i n g f o r m s , e.g.
telephone, telegraph,
phonoscope, microscope,
etc. The morphemes
tele-, graph-, scope-, mi-
cro-, phone-
are characterised by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar
stylistic reference:
tele-
means ‘far’,
graph-
means ‘writing’,
scope
—
’seeing’,
micro-
implies smallness,
phone-
means ’sound.’ Comparing
words with
tele-
as their first constituent, such as
telegraph, telephone,
telegram
one may conclude that
tele-
is a prefix and
graph-, phone-,
gram-
are root-morphemes. On the other hand, words like
phonograph,
seismograph, autograph
may create the impression that the second mor-
pheme
graph
is a suffix and the first — a root-morpheme. This undoubt-
edly would lead to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain
no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix which runs
counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is
only one solution to this problem; these morphemes are all bound root-
morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up of
bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of-
speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes evidences their status
as roots.
2
1
The Russian term is относительно связанные (относительно свободные).
2
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 15, 16, p. 24, 25.
93
T h e s e c o n d g r o u p embraces morphemes occupying a kind of in-
termediate position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.
The root-morpheme
man-
found in numerous words like
postman
[
'poustmэn],
fisherman [
fi∫эmэn],
gentleman
['d3entlmэn] in comparison
with the same root used in the words
man-made
['mænmeid] and
man-
servant
['mæn,sэ:vэnt] is, as is well-known, pronounced, differently, the
[æ] of the root-morpheme becomes [э] and sometimes disappears alto-
gether. The phonetic reduction of the root vowel is obviously due to the
decreasing semantic value of the morpheme and some linguists argue that
in words like
cabman, gentleman, chairman
it is now felt as denoting an
agent rather than a male adult, becoming synonymous with the agent suf-
fix
-er
. However, we still recognise the identity of [man] in
postman,
cabman
and [mæn] in
man-made, man-servant.
Abrasion has not yet
completely disassociated the two, and we can hardly regard [man] as hav-
ing completely lost the status of a root-morpheme. Besides it is impossible
to say
she is an Englishman (or a gentleman)
and the lexical opposition
of
man
and
woman
is still felt in most of these compounds (cf. though
Madam Chairman
in cases when a woman chairs a sitting and even
all
women are tradesmen).
It follows from all this that the morpheme
-man
as the last component may be qualified as semi-free.
The procedure generally employed for the
purposes of segmenting words into the con-
stituent morphemes is the method of I m m e d i a t e and U l t i -
m a t e C o n s t i t u e n t s . This method is based on a binary principle,
i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word imme-
diately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as
the Immediate Constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is
in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is com-
pleted when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e.
morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are referred to as the
Ultimate Constituents (UCs). For example the noun
friendliness
is first
segmented into the IC
friendly
recurring in the adjectives
friendly-
looking
and
friendly
and the
-ness
found in a countless number of nouns,
such as
happiness, darkness, unselfishness,
etc. The IC
-ness
is at the
same time a UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any smaller ele-
ments possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC
friendly
is next
broken into the ICs
friend-
and
-ly
recurring in
friendship, unfriendly,
etc. on the one hand, and
wifely, brotherly,
etc., on the other. Needless to
say that the ICs
friend-
and
-ly
are both UCs of the word under analysis.
The procedure of segmenting a word into its Ultimate Constituent
morphemes, may be conveniently presented with the help of a box-like
diagram
94
§ 4. Procedure of Morphemic
Analysis
In the diagram showing the segmentation of the noun
friendliness
the
lower layer contains the ICs resulting from the first cut, the upper one
those from the second, the shaded boxes representing the ICs which are at
the same time the UCs of the noun.
The morphemic analysis according to the IC and UC may be carried
out on the basis of two principles: the so-called r o o t p r i n c i p l e
and the a f f i x p r i n c i p l e . According to the affix principle the
segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the
identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words; for ex-
ample, the identification of the suffixational morpheme
-less
leads to the
segmentation of words like
useless, hopeless, merciless,
etc., into the suf-
fixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a word-cluster;
the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words
agreeable,
agreement, disagree
makes it possible to split these words into the root
-
agree-
and the affixational morphemes
-able, -ment, dis-.
As a rule, the
application of one of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic seg-
mentation of words.
According to the number of morphemes words
are classified into monomorphic
and polymorphic. M o n o m o r p h i с or root-words consist of only one
root-morpheme, e.g.
small, dog, make, give,
etc. All p о l у m о r p h i с
words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two
subgroups: m o n o r a d i c a l (or one-root words) and p o l y r a d i -
c a l words, i.e. words which consist of two or more roots.
M o n o r a d i c a l words fall into two subtypes: 1) r a d i c a l -
s u f f i x a l words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and
one or more suffixal morphemes, e.g.
acceptable, acceptability, blackish,
etc.; 2 ) r a d i c a l - p r e f i x a l words, i.e. words that consist of one
root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g.
outdo, rearrange, unbut-
ton,
etc. and 3) p r e f i x o - r a d i c a l - s u f f i x a l , i.e. words
which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g.
dis-
agreeable, misinterpretation,
etc.
P o l y r a d i c a l words fall into two types: 1) p o l y r a d i c a l
words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes,
e.g.
book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade,
etc. and 2) words which cont a i n a t
l e a s t t w o r o o t s a n d o n e o r m o r e a f f i x a -
t i o n a l m o r p h e m e s , e.g.
safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-
consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder,
etc.
The analysis of the morphemic composition
of words defines the ultimate meaningful
constituents (UCs), their typical sequence and arrangement, but it does not
reveal the hierarchy of morphemes making up the word, neither does it
reveal the way a word is constructed, nor how a new word of similar struc-
ture should be understood. The morphemic analysis does not aim at find-
ing out the nature and arrangement of ICs which underlie the structural
and the semantic type of the word, e.g. words
unmanly
and
discourage-
ment
morphemically are referred to the same type as both are segmented
into three UCs representing one root, one prefixational and one suffixa-
tional morpheme. However the arrangement and the nature
95
§ 5. Morphemic Types of Words
§ 6. Derivative Structure
of ICs and hence the relationship of morphemes in these words is different
— in
unmanly
the prefixational morpheme makes one of the ICs, the
other IC is represented by a sequence of the root and the suffixational
morpheme and thus the meaning of the word is derived from the relations
between the ICs
un-
and
manly-
(‘not manly’), whereas
discouragement
rests on the relations of the IC
discourage-
made up by the combination of
the. prefixational and the root-morphemes and the suffixational morpheme
-ment
for its second IC (’smth that discourages’). Hence we may infer that
these three-morpheme words should be referred to different derivational
types:
unmanly
to a prefixational and
discouragement
to a suffixational
derivative.
The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as
its d e r i v a t i v e s t r u c t u r e . Though the derivative structure of
the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological struc-
ture and often coincides with it, it differs from it in principle.
According to the derivative structure all
words fall into two big classes: sim-
p l e x e s or s i m p l e , non-derived words and c o m p l e x e s or
d e r i v a t i v e s . S i m p l e x e s are words which derivationally
cannot’ be segmented into ICs. The morphological stem of simple words,
i.e. the part of the word which takes on the system of grammatical inflec-
tions is semantically non-motivated
l
and independent of other words, e.g.
hand, come, blue,
etc. Morphemically it may be monomorphic in which
case its stem coincides with the free root-morpheme as in, e.g.,
hand,
come, blue,
etc. or polymorphic in which case it is a sequence of bound
morphemes as in, e.g.,
anxious, theory, public,
etc.
D e r i v a t i v e s are words which depend on some other simpler
lexical items that motivate them structurally and semantically, i.e. the
meaning and the structure of the derivative is understood through the
comparison with the meaning and the structure of the source word. Hence
derivatives are secondary, motivated units, made up as a rule of two ICs,
i.e. binary units, e.g. words like
friendliness, unwifely, school-masterish,
etc. are made up of the ICs
friendly + -ness, un- + wifely, schoolmas-
ter+-ish.
The ICs are brought together according to specific rules of order
and arrangement preconditioned by the system of the language. It follows
that all derivatives are marked by the fixed order of their ICs.
The basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are:
d e r i v a t i o n a l b a s e s , d e r i v a t i o n a l a f f i x e s and
d e r i v a t i o n a l p a t t e r n s which differ from the units of the
morphemic structure of words (different types of morphemes). The rela-
tions between words with a common root but of different derivative struc-
ture are known as d e r i v a t i v e r e l a t i o n s . The derivative and
derivative relations make the subject of study at t h e d e r i v a t i o n al
l e v e l of a n a l y s i s ; it aims at establishing correlations between
different types of words, the structural and semantic patterns
1
See ‘Semasiology’, § 17, p. 25. 96
§ 7. Derivative Relations