Morphology and morphemes. Morphology Morphology is a branch

Morphology and morphemes

Morphology Morphology is a branch of grammar studying the form of a word. A word is the main unit of morphology. A word can be defined as «a minimal unit of a language possessing the positional independence» U.S. Maslov (the definition of a word for flexical languages)

It means: the ability of a word to take different positions in the sentence a word is the smallest discrete unit a word is the smallest unit capable of syntactic functioning and the largest unit of morphology

A word is a generalized representative of all word forms in which it can be performed. The word «река» means all possible wordforms – «реку, рекой, реки» etc. A wordform is a private form of wordchanging, a word is a representative of all possible wordforms.

Theory of analytical word. Speaking of analytical word, sometimes are meant word – combinations of the type «put on, take hold» formally discrete but making up a single semantic unit. But it is possible to insert the third word between the members of such word combinations (to put it on, to take form hold) The word borders turned out to be smashed.

Morpheme A. E. Smirnitsky defines morpheme as the smallest language unit possessing the language features, thus having outer (sound) and inner (semantic) facets. Morpheme is the smallest linear meaningful unit having a sound form. I. A. Boduen de Curtene defined a morpheme as a generalized nomination of linear components of a word – a root and affixes.

morpheme affixes root prefixes suffixes

in the process of word building serve for making different forms of one and the same word for word changing (derivation) Affixes are used: Prefixes in English have word building functions Suffixes are subdivided into word building and into derivational. The last ones serve the grammar system of the language

Root morpheme V.N. Jartseva defines a root morpheme as what is common to a set of words making up a word-cluster and belonging to different lexico - grammatical sets. (black – blackish – blacken – here black is a root morpheme.

Stem V.N. Jartseva defines a stem as what is common in all word forms included in one lexico – grammatical set The stem in English coincides with its initial form (street- street, walk – to walk) The cases of discrepancy are very rare (man – men, child – children) and some forms of irregular verbs. In most cases the stem and initial forms are identical in sound form. The function of the stem is in the frame of a wordform.