WORD FORMATION 1 2 3 4 5 6

WORD FORMATION 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Word structure. Segmentation of Words into Morphemes. Principles of Morphemic Analysis. Types of Word Segmentability. Classification of Morphemes. Word-Formation. Definition. Types of word-formation. Productivity of Word-Formation.

Word structure Segmentation of Words into Morphemes Ø many words have a composite nature and are made up of smaller units, each possessing sound-form and meaning

Ø Morphemes are the smallest further indivisible two-facet language units

Ø Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern Ø Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word

Remember: Ø morphemes may have different phonemic shapes e. g: please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant [pli: z] in please, pleasing, [pleз] in pleasure and [plez] in pleasant.

In such cases we say that they ear allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants. Thus [pli: z, plez] and [рlез] are allomorphs of оnе and the same morpheme

Principles of Morphemic Analysis. Types of Word Segmentability Structurally English words fall into two classes: 1. segmentable words: allow segmentation into morphemes, e. g. agreement, information, fearless; 2. non-segmentable words: do not allow such segmentation, e. g. house, girl, woman

WHAT IS MORPHEMIC ANALYSIS? The morphemic analysis aims at splitting a segmentable word into its constituent morphemes — the basic units at this level of word-structure analysis — and at determining their number and types

Types of segmentability of words Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished: complete, conditional and defective

Ø COMPLETE: the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough, individual morphemes clearly stand out easily to be isolated: Ø driver, agreement

Ø CONDITIONAL: segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons: like retain, contain, detain or receive, deceive, Ø the sound-clusters [ri-], [di-], [кэn-] seem to be singled out quite easily BUT they have nothing in common with the phonetically identical morphemes re-, de- as found in words like rewrite

Ø DEFECTIVE: the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words: ringlet, leaflet BUT hamlet.

Classification of Morphemes may be classified: from the structural point of view Ø from the semantic point of view Ø

Ø Structurally morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, semi-free (semi- bound) morphemes.

Ø A free morpheme coincides with the stem or a word-form: friend in friendship is a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend.

Ø A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are bound morphemes, they always make part of a word, e. g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, ise (-ize), etc. , the prefixes un, dis

Ø Root-morphemes can be bound too. Unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes: theor- in theory, theoretical, etc. , barbar- in barbarism, barbarian

Semi-bound morphemes can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. Well and half occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, halfdone

Semantically: Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: rootmorphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes

Derivationally all words form two structural classes: simplexes, i. e. simple, non-derived words and complexes, or derivatives. Derivatives fall into: suffixal derivatives, prefixal derivatives, conversions and compounds

WAYS OF FORMING WORDS Word-Formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns.

Ø Word-formation is that branch of Lexicology which studies the derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language builds new words

Types of word-formation in Modern English: word- derivation and wordcomposition.