Statives.

Blokh:Among the words signifying properties of a nounal referent there is a leximic set which claims to be recognied as a separate part of speech, a class of words different form the adjectives in its class-forming features. These are words built up by the prefix a- and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid, agog, adrift, ablaze. These are treated as predicative adjectives in traditional grammar.

Scherbs and Vinogradov were the first to identify notional words signifying states and specially used as predicatives. They called the newly identified part of speech the “category of state“ (Russian words: тепло, зябко, одиноко, радостно, жаль, лень).

The term “words of the category of state” being rather cumbersome form the technical point of view was later changed into “stative words” or “statives”.

The part-of-speech interpretation of the statives is not shared by all linguists.

Distributional analysis in studying morphemes.

In accord with the allo-emic theory lingual units may be described by means of 2 types of term allo-terms & eme-terms. Eme-terms denotes the generalized invariant: phonemes, morphemes. Allo-terms are concrete manifestations of variants: allo-forms, allomorphes.

A set of allo-units is one eme-unit. The allo-emic identification of lingual elements is achieved by means of distributional analysis. The aim of this analysis is to fix and study the language unit in relation to the textual environment. The environment of the unit may be right or left. E.x. un-pardon-able (left environment of the root)

The left environment of the root is the negative prefix –un, the right environment of the root is the qualitative suffix –able. Respectively, the root –pardon- is the right environment for the prefix, and the left environment for the suffix.

The analysis is conducted in 2 stages:

The analyzed text is divided into segments consisting of phonemes. They are called morphs

We establish the environment of the morphs and defined the type distribution.

There are 3 main types of distribution:

contrastive (the environment of the morphs are the same, but meaning are different)

non-contrastive (if their meaning is the same suffix ed-t ex.learned-learnt)

complementary (concerns different environments of different morphs, but their meaning ex: dogs-oxen)

Morphemes can be:

free & bound(Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words. On the contrary, free morphemes can build up words by themselves, i/e/ can be used “freely”. e.g. handful – the root hand is a free morpheme, the suffix –ful is a bound morpheme.)

overt &covert (Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up words; the covert morpheme is identified as a contrastive absence of morpheme expressing a certain function. The notion of covert morpheme coincides with the notion of zero morphemes in the oppositional description of grammatical categories.

e.g. clock-s - 2 morphemes (a lexical morpheme and a grammatical one)

clock-Ø – 2 morphemes (the overt root and the covert (implicit) zero morpheme Ø)

segmental & suprasegmental (Supra-segmental morphemes are intonation contours, accents, pauses.)

additive (Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, as they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation: e.g. look-ed; small-er

The sound alternation (replacive morpheme) a way of expressing grammatical category by changing a sound inside the root. Suppletive formation is building a form of a word by different stems: good-better/go-went

On the basis of linear characteristics, “continuous (linear)” morphemes and “discontinuous” morphemes are distinguished.

The discontinuous morpheme is a 2-element grammatical unit, which is the analytical from comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix:

e.g. be … ing – is going (continuous)

have … en – has gone (perfect)

be … en – is taken (passive)