The main units of derivational analysis. Derivational patterns

The morphological structure of the word. Morphemes and allomorphs. The morphological meaning of the word.

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.

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; it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units. 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.

Allomorphes are the phonemic variants of the given morpheme. The meaning remains the same, the sound can vary. e.g. il-, im-, ir-, are the allomorphes of the prefix in- (illiterate, important, irregular, inconstant).

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into:

1. monomorphic (root-words) consist of only one root-morpheme

e.g. small, dog, make

2. polymorphic are classified according to the number of root-morphemes into:

a. monoradical (one-root words):

1) radical –suffixal(корень-суффикс) (consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes)

e.g. acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.

2) radical-prefixal (consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme)

e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc.

3) prefixo-radical-suffixal (consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes)

e.g. disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.

Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes.

b. Polyradical (words which consist of two or more roots):

1) polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes

e.g. book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc.

2) words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes

e.g. safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness

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.

Types of morphological mgs:

1. lexical – it’s defined in the dictionary

2. p-of-sp – typical affixes, not roots. – er shoulder-surfer – подглядывающий номер телефона.

3. differential – to distinguish one word from another: re-do, over-do

4. distributional – shows the arrangement of morphemes in a word: skylight – light sky.

 

 

3. The main principles of morphemic analysis.Classification of morphemes.

The morphemic analysis may be carried out on the basis of two principles:

1. the root principle -the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identificatio n of a root- morpheme within a set of words

e.g. 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-.

2. 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.

e.g. the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless, hopeless, merciless, etc., into the suffixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a word-cluster.

As a rule, the application of one of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

Classification of morphemes.

I. Morphemes may be classified:

a) from the semantic point of view

b) from the structural point of view

Semantically morphemes fall into two classes:

1. root-morphemes

2. non-root or affixational morphemes.

Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

The root-morpheme - the lexical nucleus of a word, it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. It is the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster (teach: teacher, teaching)

Non-root morphemes:

1. inflectional morphemes or inflections

- carry only grammatical meaning

- relevant only for the formation of word-forms

2. affixational morphemes or affixes

- relevant for building various types of stems (the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm)

Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.

Affixes:

1. prefixes (precedes the root-morpheme)

2. suffixes (follows the root-morpheme).

Structurally morphemes fall into:

1. free morphemes (coincide with the stem or a word-form)

e.g. friend coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend

2. bound morphemes (occur only as a constituent part of a word)

e.g. affixes, prefixes, cranberry morphemes, the morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, micro-, phone- (of Latin or Greek origin)

3. semi-free (semi -bound) morphemes (can function both as an affix and as a free morpheme).

e.g. well and half occur as free morphemes (sleep well, half an hour) and as bound morphemes (well-known, half-eaten), the morpheme -man as the last component may be qualified as semi-free (postman, gentleman)

II. On the level of morphemic analysis linguists operate with two types of morphemes:

Full morphemes

2. pseudo (quasi-)/ cranberry morphemes:

A cranberry morpheme cannot be assigned a meaning nor a grammatical function, but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word from the other.

· mit in permit, commit, and submit

· ceive in receive, perceive, and conceive

· twi in twilight

· spick and span in spick-and-span

· fro in to and fro

III.

· Inflectional morphemes modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on (-s, -ed, -ing).

· Derivational morphemes can be added to a word to create (derive) another word.

4. Procedure of morphemic analysis. Morphemic types of words.

All English words fall into 2 large classes:

1. segmentable, those allowing of segmentation into morphemes

2. non-segmentable

The aim of the morph analysis is to state the number & type of morphemes that make up a w.

The morphemic analysis deals with segmentable words. It aims at splitting a segemetable word into its constituent morphemes and at determining their number and types. The method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents - the procedure employed for the purposes of segmenting words into the constituent morphemes.

This method is based on a 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 (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed 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 elements 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

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 root principle and the affix principle. 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 example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless, hopeless, merciless, etc., into the suffixational 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 segmentation of words.

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic and polymorphic.

Monomorphiс or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All pоlуmоrphiс words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: monoradical (or one-root words) and polyradical words, i.e. words which consist of two or more roots. Monoradical words fall into two subtypes: 1) radical-suffixal words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes, e.g. acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.; 2)radical-prefixal words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc. and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal, i.e. words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g. disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.

Polyradical words fall into two types: 1) polyradical 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 contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes, e.g. safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc.

5. The main aim,principles and methods of derivational analysis.

Derivational level of analysis aims at finding out the derivative types of ws, the interrels ↔ them & at finding out how dif types of derivatives are constructed. Der analysis enables one to understand how new ws appear in the lang.

The derivational level of analysis study the derivative & the derivative rels.

Using der analysis we can determine the degree of derivation. The degree shows us the number of der steps. Unthinkable = ⌐ + Ba II step

                  Bv + ^ I step

Der Mng-mng which establishes semantic correlation between a simple wr and a derived one. (suff; conversion) (eatable)

 

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 structure should be understood. The morphemic analysis does not aim at finding out the nature and arrangement of ICs which underlie the structural and the semantic type of the word, e.g. words unmanly and discouragement morphemically are referred to the same type as both are segmented into three UCs representing one root, one prefixational and one suffixational morpheme. However the arrangement and the nature 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 derivative structure. Though the derivative structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, it differs from it in principle.

According to the derivative structure all words fall into two big classes: simplexes or simple, non-derived words and complexes or derivatives. Simplexes 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 inflections 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.

Derivatives 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, schoolmaster+-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: derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns which differ from the units of the morphemic structure of words (different types of morphemes). The relations between words with a common root but of different derivative structure are known as derivative relations. The derivative and derivative relations make the subject of study at the derivational level of analysis; it aims at establishing correlations between different types of words, the structural and semantic patterns

words are built on, the study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the language.

The constituents of the derivative structure are functional units, i.e. units whose function is to indicate relationship between different classes of words or differently-behaving words of the same class and to signal the formation of new words. It follows that derivational functions are proper to different linguistic units which thus serve as ICs of a derivative. It must be also noted that the difference between classes of words is signalled by both the derivative structure of the word, or to be more exact by the stem it shapes, and by the set of paradigmatic inflections that this structure presupposes. For example, the nominal class of words to which derivatives like historian, teacher, lobbyist are referred is signalled by both the derivative structure, i.e. the unity of their ICs history+-ian, teach+ + -er lobby + -ist shaping the stems of these words — and the nominal set of paradigmatic inflections which these stems precondition, i.e. histori-an(O), historian (s), historian ('s), historian (s’). The class of words like enrich, enlarge is likewise signalled by their derivative structure (en- + +rich, en-+large) and the verbal set of paradigmatic inflexions. Hence the paradigmatic systems of different classes of words have, among their functions, the function of distinguishing the formal make-up of word classes. It follows that the paradigmatic system of inflections in cases of meaningful absence of the 1С which determines the class membership of the motivated stem functions as the sole indication of its derived nature.

The main units of derivational analysis. Derivational patterns

The derivational level of analysis aims at establishing correlations between different types of words, the structural and semantic patterns words are built on, the study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the language.

The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word are known as its derivative structure.

Though the derivative structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, it differs from it in principle.

The basic units of the derivational analysis are:

1)bases

2)affixes

3)patterns

A derivational base - the constituent to which a rule of word-formation is applied. It is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical unit that motivates its individual lexical meaning describing the difference between words in one and the same derivative set.

Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes:

1) bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity (ex-filmstar);

2) bases that coincide with word-forms (unsmiling, unknown). This base is usually ‘constituted by verbal forms

3) bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability (blue-eyed, good-for-nothing).

1. Bases of the first class are functionally and semantically distinct from all kinds of stems.

The morphological stem:

- Functionally: the part of the word which is the starting point for its forms

- Semantically: represents all the lexical meanings of a word. 

A derivational base

- Functionally: the starting-point for different words

- Semantically: represents only 1 meaning of the source word or its stem.

e.g. The derivatives glassful and glassy are built on different derivational bases.

Glassful is motivated by the derivational base meaning ‘a container used for drinking’ and glassy by the derivational base meaning ‘a transparent solid substance’, though both represent the same morphological stem of the word glass.

2) The second class of DB is made up of word-forms. This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms – the present and the past participles – which regularly function as ICs of non-simple adjectives, adverbs and nouns

e.g. unknown, dancing-girl

3) The third class of DB is made up of word groups. Free word-groups make up the greater part of this class of bases. Bases of this class allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered, blue-eyed).

Derivational affixes:

Affixes:

1. derivational

2. functional (serve to convey grammatical meaning)

Lexicology is primarily concerned with DAs.

DA – an IC that is added to a DB and that has lexical and part-of-speech meanings.

FAs can be appended, with a few exceptions, to any element belonging to the part of speech they serve.

With DAs is much more intricate. DAs don’t combine so freely and regularly. DAs are attached to DB in a haphazard and unpredictable way.

e.g. lioness, tigress, but she-wolf, she-elephant, she-bear

e.g. Muscovite, Londoner, Viennese, Athenian

A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together to make up a word. A DP is a generalization, a sсheme according to which the type of ICs, their order and arrangement are chosen.

There are two types of DBs:

1. Structural (specify base classes and individual affixes)

2. Structural-semantic (specify semantic peculiarities of bases and the individual mg of the affix).

e.g. gentlemanly vs monthly

Derivational patterns

A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together to make up a word. A DP is a generalization, a sheme according to which the type of ICs, their order and arrangement are chosen.

There are two types of DPs:

1. Structural (specify base classes and individual affixes)

2. Structural-semantic (specify semantic peculiarities of bases and the individual mg of the affix).

e.g. gentlemanly vs monthly