Morphemic structure of the word

The word is the main unit of morphology. The word is the main expressiveunit of human language which ensures the thought-forming function of the language. It is also the basic nominative unit of language with the help of which the naming function of language is realized. As any linguistic sign the word is a level unit. In the structure of language it belongs to the upper stage of the morphological level. It is a unit of the sphere of ‘language’ and it exists only through its speech actualization. One of the most characteristic features of the word is its indivisibility. Thus, the word is the nominative unit of language built up by morphemes and indivisible into smaller segments as regards its nominative function. The morphological system of language reveals its properties through the morphemic structure of words. So, it is but natural that one of the essential tasks of morphology is to study the morphemic structure of the word.

Traditional Classification of Morphemes

In traditional grammar the study of the morphemic structure of the word is based upon two criteria – positional and semantic (functional).

The positional criterion presupposes the analysis of the location of the marginal morphemes in relation to the central ones (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7

The semantic or functional criterion involves the study of the correlative contribution of the morpheme to the general meaning of the word (Fig. 8, Fig. 9) .

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Allo-emic Classification of Morphemes

Descriptive Linguistics put forward the “allo-emic” theory. According to this theory, lingual units are described by means of two types of terms: “allo-terms” and “eme-terms” (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10

Eme-terms denote the generalized invariant units of language characterized by a certain functional status, e.g., phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, phrasemes, etc. Allo-terms denote the concrete manifestations or variants of the eme-units. Typical examples of allo-units are allophones and allomorphs.

The allo-emic identification of lingual elements is the basis for the so-called “distributional analysis”.

In the distributional analysis three main types of distribution are discriminated: contrastive distribution, non-contrastive distribution, and complementary distribution (Fig. 11).

Types of Distribution

Contrastive Non-contrastive Complimentary

distribution distribution distribution

	Contrastive	Non-contrastive	Complimentary
Environment	Identical	Identical	Different
Meaning	Different	Identical	Identical
Example	Worked – working	Learned – learnt	Boys – men – mice – oxen

different morphemes free variants allomorphs

Fig. 11

The morphs are in contrastive distribution if their environments are identical and their meanings are different, such morphs constitute different morphemes.

The morphs are in non-contrastive distribution if their environments and meanings are identical; such morphs constitute “'free variants” of the same morpheme.

The morphs are in complementary if their environments are different and their meanings are identical; such morphs are termed “allo-morphs”.

There exist five criteria of classifying morphemes (Fig. 12). According to the classification suggested by Descriptive Linguistics there are the following “distributional morpheme types”.

On the basis of the degree of self-dependence, “free” morphemes and “bound” morphemes are distinguished. Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words (Fig. 13).

Degree of

Self-dependence