3. Allomorphism and Isomorphism in the Morphological Structure of the Word in the Contrasted Languages

The morphological systems of the English and Ukrainian languages are characterized by a considerable number of isomorphic and by some allomorphic features. The isomorphic features are due to the common Indo-European origin of the two languages while allomorphisms have been acquired by them in the course of their historic development and functioning as independent national languages.

One of the typological constants of the morphological level is the morpheme which is endowed in both contrasted languages with some minimal meaning. The morpheme as a minimal meaningful unit can be, in the contrasted languages, either free or bound. Free or root morphemes stand alone and are not dependent on other morphemes in a word. Bound morphemes can not stand alone: they are bound to the root or to the stem consisting of the root morpheme and of one or more affixal morphemes.

Every notional word in different languages may have two rows of forms:

1. form-building row which consists of words having form - changing morphemes (case inflexions, personal inflexions, etc.)

Cf.: in Ukrainian – хата, хату, хатині

дивитися-дивлюсь-дивиться

in English – town – towns

take-takes-took-taking-taken

large-larger-the largest

2) word-forming row consisting of derivational morphemes (prefixes, suffixes) which change or alter the main meaning of the root morpheme and form new words

own-owner-ownership

хата – хатинка

So, in the morphological structure of the notinal word we can distinguish the following morphemes: root morpheme – R

suffixal morphemes – S₁S₂

prefixal morphemes – p₁ p₂

Due to its historical development English has a much larger number of morphologically unmarked words i.e. regular root morphemes, than in Ukrainian.

Consequently, the number of inflexions expressing morphological categories is much smaller in English than in Ukrainian. In English, as a rule, the root morphemes form the stem, because on the present stage of development English is characterizied by one – morpheme word structure.

C f.: friendship friend – Root morpheme = Stem

ship – suffix added to the root/stem

The corresponding Ukrainian word друг has the root morpheme друг -, but the stem друж-, to which the suffix -б- is added and then the inflexion morpheme –a.

In accordance with their morphological structure the words in the contrasted languages can be divided into the following types:

1. Type R – a word consists only of one root morpheme.

This type is represented in the contrasted language by the functionals: prepositions, conjunctions and by most of pronouns.

2. Type S – a word consists of a stem which coincides with an independent word in its sound representation.

In English this type is represented by the bulk of notionals – nouns, adjectives, verbs, numerals.

Unlike English, Ukrainian notionals are characterized by two morpheme structure – they consist of a stem and a form-building morpheme.

вулиц- я, пісн-я, яблук-о, сонц-е

Even the notionals which in their nominative case seem to have only one morpheme, are really two-morphemed, because the absence of the form-building morphemes (or inflexions) points to the category of case (nominative, accusative). Cf: стіл, двір. That’s why these words should be considered as having two- morphemes:

a stem and a zero morpheme which denotes grammatical category.