Morphological Structure of the Word

Morpheme isthe elementary meaningful lingual unit built up from phonemes and used to make words. It has meaning, but its meaning is abstract, significative, not concrete, or nominative, as is that of the word. Morphemes constitute the words; they do not exist outside the words. Studying the morpheme we actually study the word: its inner structure, its functions, and the ways it enters speech.

Morphemes may have different phonetic shapes. In the set please, pleasure, pleasant the root is represented by different phonetic shapes. All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of the morpheme or morpheme variants. For example, the prefix - in has several positional variants: il legal, ir regular, im balance.

The study of the morphemic structure of the word is based on two criteria: the positional criterion – the location of the morphemes with regard to each other, and the semanticcriterion –the contribution of the morphemes to the general meaning of the word, as diagramed below.

Diagram 12.

Morphemes

root morphemes affixes

lexical (word-building) grammatical (word-changing)

According to semantic criterion morphemes are divided into root-morphemes (roots) and affixal morphemes (affixes). Roots express the concrete, “material” part of the meaning of the word and constitute its central part. Affixes express the specificational part of the meaning of the word: they specify, or transform the meaning of the root. Affixal specification may be of two kinds: of lexical or grammatical character. So, according to the semantic criterion affixes are further subdivided into lexical, or word-building (derivational) affixes, which together with the root constitute the stem of the word, and grammatical, or word-changing affixes, expressing different morphological categories, such as number, case, tense and others. With the help of lexical affixes new words are derived, or built; with the help of grammatical affixes the form of the word is changed.

According to the positional criterion affixes are divided into prefixes, situated before the root in the word, suffixes, situated after the root, infixes, situated within the root in the word, foot – feet, interfixes, situated between roots of a compound word (handicraft, speedometer, statesman, паровоз), inflexions (inflections, inflectional endings), grammatical suffixes situated after the stem. Suffixes and infixes in English may be either lexical (food – feed) or grammatical (foot – feet), and prefixes in English are only lexical.

Word-building affixes are primarily studied by lexicology with regard to the meaning which they contribute to the general meaning of the whole word. They form word-building (derivational) paradigms of words united by a common root, cf.: to decide – decision – decisive – decisively; to incise – incision – incisive – incisively. Word-changing, or functional affixes, change the word according to its grammatical categories and serve to insert the word into an utterance.

According to their structure,morphemes are divided into free and bound morphemes and semi-bound/ semi-free morphemes (semi-affixes).

A freemorpheme is a morpheme which coincides with a word-form of an independently functioning word. Free morphemes can be found only among roots, e.g.: in the word ‘hands’ hand- is a free morpheme.

A bound morpheme is a morpheme which can appear only as a part of a word, i.e. it cannot function independently, e.g.: in the word ‘hands’ -s is a bound morpheme. Bound morphemes include all affixes and some bound roots, e.g. terr- in the word terror, purp- in the word purple.

A semi-bound/ semi-free morpheme (semi-affix)is a morpheme which stands midway between a root and an affix. A semi-bound morpheme can function as an independent full-meaning word and at the same time be very close to an affix, cf.: ill -fed, ill -dressed, ill -bred – to speak ill of somebody; water proof, kiss proof, fool proof – to be proof against water.

Combining form (completive) is a bound form which should not be confused with an affix. A combining form can be distinguished from an affix historically; it is always borrowed from Latin or Greek in which it existed as a free form i.e. a separate word, or also as a combining form. Thus, cyclo- or its variant cycl- are derived from Greek word kuklos “circle” giving the English word cyclic. Combining forms differ from other borrowings in that they occur in compounds and derivatives which didn’t exist in their original language but were formed only in modern times in English, Russian, etc., e.g. polyclinic, stereophonic, television. They are mostly international.

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic (with one root) e.g. eye, and polymorphic (more than one root), e.g. eyeball.