Classification of Morphemes.

Morphemes may be classified:

1. from the semantic point of view;

2. from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into 2 classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make 2 distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill- are understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable.

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a word, it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. The root morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, for example, the morpheme teach – in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor – in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc.

Non-root morphemes include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes.

Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.

Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes:

1. prefix precedes the root morpheme, a suffix follows it;

2. Structurally morphemes fall into 3 types.

1. free morphemes;

2. bound morphemes;

3. semi-free morphemes.

A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root morpheme friend - of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend.

A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes –ness, -ship, -ize, etc., the prefixes un-, dis-, de-, etc.

Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic-sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide, with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.

L ecture 3

Theme: 1. The system of Word-formation in English language.

2. Affixation.

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. For instance, the noun driver is formed after the pattern v+-er, i.e. a verbal stem + the noun-forming suffix -er. The meaning of the derived noun driver is related to the meaning of the stem drive – “to direct the course of a vehicle” and the suffix -er meaning “an active agent”: a driver is “one who drives”. Likewise compounds resulting from two or more stems joined together to form a new word are also built on quite definite structural and semantic patterns and formulas, for instance adjectives of the snow-white type are built according to the formula n + a, etc.

Two types of word-formation are distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition (or compounding). Words created by word-derivation have in terms of word-formation analysis only one derivational base and one derivational affix, e.g. cleanness (from clean), to overestimate (from to estimate)..

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different types of bases.

Derived words formed by affixation may be the result of one or several applications of word-formation rule and thus the stems of words making up a word-cluster enter into derivational relations of different degrees. The zero degree of derivation is ascribed to simple words, i.e. words whose stem is homonymous with a word-form and often with a root-morpheme, e.g. atom, haste, devote, anxious, horror, etc. Derived words formed by two consecutive stages of coining possess the second degree of derivation, etc., e.g. atomical, hastily, devotional, etc.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech.

Main principles of classification

There are different classifications of suffixes in linguistic literature, as suffixes maybe divided into several groups according to different principles:

1) The first principal of classification that, one might say, suggests itself is the part of speech formed. Within the scope of the part –of- speech classification suffixes naturally fall into several groups such as:

1. noun-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in nouns, e.g.-er, -dom, -ness, ation,etc.( teacher, Londone, freedom, brightness, justification,etc.);

2. adjective-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adjectives, e.g. –able, -less, -full, -ic, ous, etc.( agreeable, doubtfull, poetic, courageous, etc.);

3. verb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in verbs, e.g. –en, -fy, ize ( darken, satisfy, harmonize, etc.);

4. adverb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adverbs, e.g. –ly, ward ( quickly, eastward, etc.)

2) Suffixes may also be classified into various groups according to the lexico-grammatical character of the base the affix is usually added to. Proceeding from this principle one may divide suffixes into:

1. deverbal suffixes (those added to the verbal base), e.g. –er, -ing, -ment, -able, etc. (speaker, reading, agreement, suitable, etc.);

2. denominal suffixes (those added to the noun base), e.g. –less, -ish, -ful, -ist, -some, etc. (handless, childish, mouthful, violinist, troublesome, etc.);

3. de-adjectival suffixes (those affixed to the adjective base), e.g. –en, -ly, -ish, -ness, etc. (blacken, slowly, reddish, brightness, etc.).

3) A classification of suffixes may also be based on the criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. Proceeding from this principle suffixes are classified into various groups within the bounds of a certain part of speech. For instance, noun-suffixes fall into those denoting:

1. the agent of an action, e.g. –er, -ant (baker, dancer, defendant, etc.);

2. appurtenance, e.g. –an, -ian, -ese, etc. (Arabian, Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.);

3. collectivity, e.g. –age, -dom, -ery (-ry), etc. (freightage, officialdom, peasantry, etc.);

4. diminutiveness, e.g. –ie, -let, -ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squirreling, wolfing, etc.).

4) Suffixes are also classified as to the degree of their productivity.