Morphology Morphological Units Word-form Morpheme English Morphemics 1

Morphology. Morphological Units: Word-form, Morpheme. English Morphemics. 1. a) Word-form. Morpheme. Morphemics as a Branch of Grammar. b) Types of Morphemes: Positional and Functional Classifications. c) Morpheme in Descriptive Linguistics. Environment and Distributional classification. 2. Grammatical Category. Grammatical Oppositions. 3. Types of Word-form Derivation. Structural Types of Languages.

1(a) Word-form. Morpheme. Word-form – the expression side of the word, either phonological or orthographical. Grammatical word – a complete two-sided sign with specified grammatical content as well as lexical content and orthographical form. Lexeme – a set of grammatical words associated with the same lexical meaning. Morphemics – a branch of Grammar that studies, classifies and describes morphemes and their functions.

1 b) Types of Morphemes: Positional and Functional Classifications. Positional Classification: - roots - affixes - prefixes - suffixes - inflections (grammatical endings) Functional Classification: - derivative - inflectional

1 c) Environment and Distribution - Environment of a morpheme- adjoining elements in the text. Distribution – environment in generalised terms of classes or categories. Types of Morphemic Distribution: contrastive; non-contrastive; complementary.

Distributional Classification of Morphemes Degree of self-dependence: bound / free Formal presentation: covert / overt Segmental relation: segmental / supra-segmental Grammatical alternation: additive / replacive Linear characteristic: continuous / discontinuous

2) Grammatical Category Grammatical category – a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. Paradigm – an ordered set of grammatical forms expressing a categorial function.

Opposition - a generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed. Types of oppositions: - qualitative - privative - gradual - equipollent - quantitative - binary - ternary - quaternary, etc. The most important type: binary privative opposition

Oppositional Reduction Neutralization - usu – weak member is used instead of the strong one; - stylistically neutral. Transposition - usu – strong member is used instead of the weak one; - stylistically coloured.

Classification of Grammatical Categories Referent relation: immanent (declensional) / reflective (conjugational) e. g. number in nouns / number in verbs Changeability: constant / variable e. g. gender / number in nouns

3) Types of Word-form Derivation Synthetic Types - affixation; - grammatical inflection; - root combination; - sound alternations. Analytical Types Suppletive Formations

Morphological Classification of Languages Flective languages - mainly synthetic; - mainly analytical. Agglutinative languages Isolating languages Incorporating languages