23 Morpheme as one of the basic linguistic units. Classification of morphemes.

A great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-faced language units. Morphemes are not independent and are found in actual speech only as integral parts of the word. English words are composed of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes.

The root-morphemes include inflectional affixes, which carry only grammatical meaning and are relevant only for formation of word-forms; and derivational affixes, which are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root, which they modify and have the part-of-speech meaning (helpless: help – root-morpheme, less – derivational affix).

Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes. Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. Free morphemes can be found only among roots. (the morpheme boy – in the word ‘boy’ is a free morpheme; in the word ‘undesirable’ there is one free-morpheme -desire-; in ‘pen-holder’ – two free morphemes -pen-/-hold-; in ‘fancy-dress-maker’ three). Bound morphemes are those which don’t coincide with separate word-forms, i.e. all derivational morpheme (-less in ‘helpless’). Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in ‘theory, theoretical’, horr- in ‘horror, horrible’ are bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.

Morphemic types of words.

According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consists of only one root-morpheme (small, dog, make, give). All polymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: 1. derived (monoradical) words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes (acceptable, outdo); 2. compound (polyradical) words contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.

Monoradical words fall into two subtypes: a) radical-suffixal words which consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes (acceptable, acceptability, blackish); b) radical-prefixal words which consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme (outdo, rearrange, unbutton); c) prefixo-radical-suffixal words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes (disagreeable, misinterpretation).

Polyradical words fall into two types: a) polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes (book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade); b) words which consist of two roots and one or more affixational morphemes (safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder).

25 Minor ways of word-formation.

Blending is an intentional process of word-coining; it is the method of merging parts of words into one new word (‘smog’=’smoke’+’fog’, ‘brunch’=’breakfast’+’lunch’). Reduplication is forming new words on the principal of phonetically varied rhythmic twin-words (workie-talkie; handy-dandy). Sound imitation or onomatopoeia. Words are made by imitation by different kinds of sounds produced by animals, birds, human beings (cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo, ducks – quack; frogs – croak). Back-formation is the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure (to beg from begger, to burgle from burglar, to baby-sit from baby-sitter). Mutation (song – to sing, food – to feed). Gradation (use – to use, house – to house). Shifting of stress (‘present – to pre’sent, ‘record – to re’cord). Sound-interchange place rather an important role in English in grammatical changes of a word (know – knew, sing – song).