Chapter 3 Morphological Structure of English Words
We have discusd the historical, cultural and social factors that facilitate (使……容易；推动) the development of the English vocabulary. Borrowing, as we e, has been playing an active role in the expansion of vocabulary. In modern times, however, vocabulary is mainly enlarged on an internal basis. That is, we u word-building material available in English to create new words. But before we discuss the actual ways and means to make new words, we need to have a clear picture of the structure of English words and their components (成分) —word-forming elements. This chapter will discuss morphemes(语素；词素), their classification(分类) and identification(辨别), the relationship between morphemes and word-formation(构词法).
3.1 Morphemes
Traditionally, words are usually treated as the basic and minimal units of a language to make ntences, which are combinations of words according to syntactic rules大副收据(句法规则). Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit becau many words can be parate
d into even smaller meaningful units. Take decontextualization for example. This is one word, but can be broken down into gre报名费de-, con-, text, -a/ , -iz(e), -ation , each having meaning of its own. The gments (部分) cannot be further divided; otherwi, none of them would make any n. Though -ation has a number of variants (变体) such as -tion, -sion, -ion四六级准考证号, they belong to the same suffix as they have the same meaning and grammatical function and occur owing to (因为；根据) different sound environment. The minimal meaningful units are known as morphemes (morphe is the Greek word for 'form'; -eme as in 'phoneme' (音素) means 'class of' 日语报名网站). In view of word-formation, the morpheme is en as 'the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words' (Crystal 1985). Syntactically(唯一英文从句法上看), however, a morpheme is the minimal form of grammatical analysis (语法分析). For instance, each of the word-forms studies, studying, studied, consists of the morpheme study + ; the forms -es in studies, -ing in studying, -ed in studied are morphemes, which express grammatical concepts (语法概念) instead of deriving new words (See Classifying Morphemes).
3.2 Morphs and Allomorphs(词素变体)
Morphemes are abstract units, which are realized in speech by discrete units (具体单位) known as morphs (形素). 'They are actual spoken, minimal carriers of meaning' (Bolinger and Sears 1981:43). In other words the phonetic or orthographic strings(语音串或拼写字串) or gments (切分成分；节) which realize morphemes are termed 'morphs' (Bauer 1983:15). The morpheme is to the morph what a phoneme (音位) is to a phone (音素). Most morphemes are realized by single morphs like bird, glittertree, green , sad, want, desire, etc. . The morphemes coincide (巧合) with words as they can stand by themlves and function freely in a ntence. Words of this kind are called mono-morphemic words. Some morphemes, however, are realized by more than one morph according to their position in a word. For instance, the morpheme of plurality {-s} has a t of morphs in different sound context, e. g. in cats /s/, in bags /z/, in matches /iz/. The alternates (作为替换的事物) /s/, /z/ and /iz/ are three different morphs. The same is true of the link verb morpheme {be}. Its past ten is realized by two distinct orthographic forms was , were, each of which happens to be a word-form, realizing {preterit} and {singular}, and {preterit} and {plural} respectively and each has its own phonetic form /wo
z/ or /wə:/. Therefore, both was, were and their phonetic forms /woz/ and /wə: / are morphs (See discussion in Bauer, p15).
An allomorph refers to a member of a t of morphs, which reprent one morpheme. Just as we class phones(音素) together as allophones (音位变体) of a single phoneme(音位), so we class morphs together as allomorphs of a single morpheme. Take the plural morpheme {-s} again. Phonetically, it is realized by /s/, /z/, /iz/, all of which are allomorphs. In English, many morphemes can have more than one allomorph, particularly tho freestanding morphemes which are functional words in their own right. Once they occur in connected speech, they may be realized by different forms, depending on whether they are accented or weakened (Look at the data in the table).
Morpheme | Allomorph |
Strong | Weak |
{am} | /aem/ | /əm/, /m/ |
{ was} | /woz/ | /WəZ/ |
{have } | /haev/ | /həv/, /v/ |
{would } | /wud/ | /wəd/, /əd/, /d/ |
{he} | /hi:/ | /i:/, /i/ |
{his} | /hiz/ | /iz/ |
{for} | /fo:/ | /fə/ |
{to} | /tu:/ | /tu/, /tə/ |
| | |
Then what is the difference between morphs and allomorphs? The relationship can be illustrated by the diagram below.
Morpheme
{would}
christian balemorph morph morph morph → allomorph
/wud/ /wəd/ /əd/ /d/
3.3 Classifying Morphemes
Morphemes vary in function. Accordingly, we can classify morphemes into veral general categories: free versus bound, derivational versus inflectional, and lexical versus grammatical. However, their boundaries are not as clear-cut as they appear to be due to some overlapping(重叠). For the sake of discussion, we shall define each type in terms of its characteristics.
1. Free versus Bound Morphemes(自由词素与粘着词素)
This is the easiest and most preferred classification in morphological studies, discusd in Hatch and Brown (1995), Crystal (1985), Fromkin and Rodman (1983), Bauer (1983), Bolinger and Sears (1981) and Matthews (2000). Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are free. The morphemes have complete meanings in themlves and can be ud as free grammatical units in ntences. They are identical with (与……完全相同) words, for example, man, earth, wind, car and anger.
Morphemes which cannot occur as parate words are bound. They are so named becau they are bound to other morphemes to form words or to perform a particular grammatical function. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words (派生词). Let us take recollection, idealistic blockoutand ex-prisoner for example. Each of the three words compris three morphemes: recollection (re- collect-ion) , idealistic (ideal-ist-ic) , ex-prisoner (ex- prison -er). Of the nine morphemes, collect, ideal and prison can
stand by themlves and thus are free morphemes. All the rest re-, -ion , -ist, -ic, ex-and -er are bound as none of them are freestanding units.
Free morphemes are all roots, which are capable of being ud as words or as word-building elements to form new words like collect, ideal, prison , whereas bound morphemes consist of either roots or affixes, most of which can be ud to create new words like -dict- , -ced- (danger接近；去), re-, -ion, -ist, -ic and ex-(前). But there are a few affixes which can only indicate such grammatical concepts as ten, aspect, number and ca, for example, the -ing in watching, -er in easier, -s in books, and -ed in worked.
