Chapter 3 MorphologyWord格式.docx

1、 How is a word structured? What is the basic component part of a word? How are the component parts put together to form words? What are the word-formation processes in a language? How is the form of a word affected when it is used with other words or in a sentence? 3.2 The words of languageIt is dif

2、ficult to define the term “word”. For some people, words are physically definable units, whose boundaries are usually recognized by spaces in writing or slight pauses in speech. For others, a word is a unit of meaning and a unit of sound. There are still others who regard words as grammatical units

3、that can function in a sentence. Stockwell & Minkova （2001: 56） characterize a word as the smallest unit that one thinks of as being basic to saying anything. It is the smallest unit of sentence composition and the smallest unit that we are aware of when we consciously try to create sentences. To pu

4、t things together, we can define a word as the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech and writing （Richards et al., 1985: 311）. For example, care, careless and careful are smallest linguistic units in speech and writing, so they are all words. Some people may argue tha

5、t careless and careful are not smallest, because careless is made up of care and -less, and careful is made up of care and -ful. However, in speech and writing we do not use care and -less, or care and -ful separately. Some people may also argue that many words like the, so, of can hardly occur on t

6、heir own, because they are almost always used with other words in speech and writing. This is true, but in this definition, “stand on its own” means that distinct from units like -less and -ful, a word is an individual unit of meaning that is not bound to any other units. This definition may not be

7、perfect, but it captures the basic characteristics of a word. That is, a word is a sound-meaning unit and a fundamental unit of speech and writing.In discussing words, the following terms are also frequently used, and sometimes distinctions are made as follows: Lexis: the vocabulary of a language, i

8、n contrast to its grammar or syntax. Lexicon: the set of all the words and idioms of any language, often used interchangeably with vocabulary. Lexeme: the smallest unit in the meaning system of a language, an abstract unit that remains constant. For example, give is the lexeme of its variants gave,

9、given, giving. Vocabulary: A complete inventory of the words in a language.Words can be classified into content words and function words. Content words are words which refer to a thing, quality, state, or action and which have stable lexical meaning or semantic content. They mainly include nouns, ve

10、rbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Content words are also called lexical words or full words. Content words are also “open-class” words, because new words can be added to theses classes.Function words are words whose role is primarily to express grammatical relationships and such words have little meanin

11、g on their own except their grammatical meaning. They mainly include conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries and articles. Function words are also called form words, empty words, grammatical words, structural words or structure words. Function words are “closed-class” words because new words are not

12、 usually added to these classes.3.3 The structure of wordsAlthough words are the smallest of the linguistic units in speech and writing, they have an internal structure. That is, they are said to be made up of meaningful units of their own, as exemplified in the following:careful care + fulsadness s

13、ad + nessrealize real + izedisobey dis + obeyunthinkable un + think +ableThese examples show that a word can be analyzed into minimal units of meaning. In disobey, there are two minimal units of meaning, one being dis- （meaning “not”）, the other being obey.When words are used in sentences, the word-

14、forms such as works, worked, working can also be analyzed into minimal units of meaning. In this case, the word-forms consist of one element work, and a number of other elements such as -s, -ed, -ing, which indicate various grammatical meanings.Thus, a word can be analyzed into the most elemental un

15、its of meaning. Some words are composed of one unit of meaning, like help, the, happy, apple. Some words consist of two or more than two units of meaning. For example, happily contains two minimal units of meaning, and ungentlemanliness contains five minimal units of meaning. The minimal unit of mea

16、ning is traditionally called morpheme. Thus, it can be said that a word is composed of at least one morpheme and it may be composed of more than one. Words that are formed by one morpheme only and cannot be analyzed into parts are called opaque words. Words that consist of more than one morpheme and

17、 can be segmented into parts are called transparent words.3.4 Morpheme, morph and allomorphA morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit that cannot be further segmented. For example, the word morpheme itself contains two morphemes, morph-, meaning “form”, and -eme, meaning “unit”. We someti

18、mes can predict the meanings of a word by identifying its morphemes. A morpheme is an abstract concept. The concrete form of a morpheme is called morph. That is to say, morphs are the actual forms used to realize morphemes. A morpheme may take different shapes or forms, which are called allomorphs.

19、Thus, an allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme.Why is there an abstract-concrete distinction here? One possible answer is that such a distinction is necessitated by morphological description. For example, the following group of words have one grammatical meaning in common: dogs, buses,

20、 sheep, men, geese, children, phenomena. They are all plural forms expressing the grammatical meaning of “more than one ” The plural meaning is expressed by -s in dogs, but by -es in buses. Things become more complicated when we look at the other words: what makes sheep the plural of sheep, or geese

21、 the plural of goose? Can we say that the plural meaning in all these words is expressed by different morphemes? Certainly not. There is only one morpheme involved here, and we may call it the morpheme “plural”. It can be attached to a number of lexical morphemes to produce structures like “dog + pl

22、ural”, “sheep + plural”, “goose + plural”, and so on. The morpheme “plural” takes different forms in actual realization, called morphs, and they are all allomorphs of the one morpheme. We can say that “dog + plural”, “sheep + plural”, “goose + plural” are abstract analyses at the morpheme-level, and

23、 are realized as dogs, sheep, geese at the morph-level （Yule, 2000: 79）. This two-level analysis makes morphological description much easier, but very often the term “morpheme” is used for convenience when we actually refer to a morph. So many people refer to forms like -s and -ed, which are morphs,

24、 as morphemes.3.5 Classification of morpheme3.5.1 Free morphemes and bound morphemesA free morpheme is a morpheme which can stand by itself as an independent word, e.g. water, child, attack, and berry. A bound morpheme is a morpheme which cannot stand on its own as a word, but which is typically att

25、ached to another form, e.g. -dom in freedom, -hood in childhood, -ship in friendship and un- in undo. One the morphemic level, words can be classified into simple words, compound words and complex words according to the number and type of morphemes words contain: A simple word consists of a single m

26、orpheme （which is certainly a free morpheme）, e.g. hill, walk, great, element. A compound word is composed of two or more free morphemes, e.g. blackboard, sunset, headstrong, forget-me-not. A complex word consists either of a free morpheme together with one or more than one bound morpheme, or of two

27、 bound morphemes, e.g. cats, careful, unfriendly, contain, conceive, prelude.3.5.2 Roots and affixesA root is the basic unchangeable part of a word, and it conveys the main lexical meaning of the word. It is the part of a word remaining when all affixes have been removed. A root can be a free morphe

28、me, e.g. work in worker, think in unthinkable, or a bound morpheme, e.g. ceive in perceive, tain in retain, vit in vital.An affix is a bound morpheme that is used only when added to another word or morpheme. It is used to mark the grammatical function of a word or create a new word. Affixes can be f

29、urther classified into inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes.3.5.3 Inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemesWhen a word appears in a variety of forms depending on its grammatical role in the sentence we say that it inflects or undergoes inflection （Radford et al., 2000: 154）. Thu

30、s, an inflectional morpheme is an affix that indicates aspects of the grammatical function of a word, such as -s for plurality of countable nouns, -ed for past tense of verbs, -er and -est for the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives or adverbs. An inflectional morpheme does not form a

31、new word when it is added to another word, nor does it change the part of speech of the word to which it is affixed （with a few exceptions like -ing and -ed, as in the learning of a language, and the golden-haired woman）. The part of a word to which an inflectional affix is added is called a stem, e.g. talk in talked, farmer in farmers, classmate in classmates.A derivational morpheme is one that is used to form a new word. For example, -ment is added to move and the new word movement is derived. English is a language rich in