THE STRUCTURE OF WORDS

§ 7. One of the main properties of a word is its double nature. It is material because it can be heard or seen, and it is immaterial or ideal as far as its meaning is concerned. We shall regard the material aspects of the word (written and oral) as its forms, and its meanings as its content. When defining the word as "the smallest naming unit" (§ 1), we refer primarily to its content, whereas in pointing out the most characteristic features of words (§ 6) we deal chiefly with the form.

§ 8. The word books can be broken up in two parts: book- and -s. The content of the first part can be rendered by the Russian книг- and the meaning of the second part is 'plurality'. So each of the two parts of the word books has both form and content. Such meaningful parts of a word are called morphemes. If we break up the word books in some other way, e.g. boo-ks, the resulting parts will not be morphemes, since they have no meanings.

§9. There is an important difference between the morpheme book- and the word book besides that of a part and the whole. The word book contains the meaning of "singular number", which the morpheme does not. The meaning of "singularity" is acquired by the word book because there exists the word books with the morpheme of "plurality" -s. So the absence of -s in book is interpreted as "singular number". Thus, we may say that the word book contains the morpheme book-plus a zero morpheme with the meaning of "singular number".

N o t e. Zero refers only to the form of the morpheme. The morpheme -s having a positive form may be called a positive morpheme.

§ 10. The morphemes book- and -s differ essentially:

a) In their relations to reality and thought. Book- is directly associated with some object of reality, even if it does not name it as the word book does (cf. bookish). The morpheme -s is connected with the world of reality only indirectly, through the morpheme it is linked with. In combination with the morpheme book- it means "more than one book". Together with the morpheme pot- it refers to "more than one pot". But alone it does not remind us of the notion "more than one" in the same way as, for instance, the morpheme plural- does.

b) In their relations to the word of which they are part. Book- is more independent than -s. As we have seen, book- makes a word with a zero morpheme added, -s cannot make a word with a zero morpheme. It always depends on some positive morpheme.

c) In their relations to similar morphemes in other words. The meaning of -s is always relative. In the word books it denotes "plurality", because books is opposed to book with the zero morpheme of "singularity". In the word news -s has no plural meaning because there is no "singular" opposite to news. Or, to take another example, the morpheme -s in wants shows the meaning of "present tense" in relation to the morpheme -ed of wanted, but it shows the meaning, of "third person, singular" in relation to the zero morpheme .of want. Now we cannot say that book- has one meaning when contrasted with table- and another meaning when contrasted with chair-.

The meanings of the morphemes -s, -ed, relative, dependent and only indirectly reflecting reality, are grammatical meanings of grammatical morphemes.

Morphemes of the book- type and their meanings are called lexical.

§ 11. The lexical and grammatical morphemes of a word are linked together so closely that sometimes it seems impossible to separate them. The relation between foot and feet is similar to the relation between book and books. But how are we to separate the "plural" morpheme in feet from the lexical morpheme? In a general way, we can say that everything distinguishing the form of feet from that of foot expresses "plurality". But the answer can be more elaborate. We may regard /f..t/ as a discontinuous form of the lexical morpheme, /-u-/ as the form of the grammatical morpheme of "singularity", and /-i:-/ as that of the morpheme of "plurality". Then /.-u-/ and /-i:-/ are grammatical morphemes inserted into a lexical one, and we deal with internal inflection. We may also assume that the 'singular' meaning in foot is, as usual, not marked, i.e. we have there a zero morpheme. The word feet contains the lexical morpheme foot- and the grammatical morpheme of "plurality" whose form is /u > i:/, i.e. the change of the vowel /u/ to the vowel /i:/. Thus "plurality" is expressed by vowel change.

§ 12. It is not uncommon in English that the function of a grammatical morpheme is discharged by an apparent word. The lexical meanings of the words invite, invited and the combination shall invite (I invite you. 1 invited you. I shall invite you.) are the same. The main difference in content is the "present" meaning in invite, the "past" meaning in invited and the "future" meaning in shall invite. These meanings are grammatical. By comparing the relations of invite – invited and invite – shall invite we can see that the function of shall is similar to that of the grammatical morpheme -ed. Thus, shall is a kind of contradiction. Formally, it is a word, since it has the looseness (§ 6) of a word (I shall come. I shall certainly come. Shall I come? I shall.). As to its content, it is not a word, but a grammatical morpheme:

a) Unlike a word, it has no lexical meaning in We shall arrive to-morrow.

b) The meaning of -(e)d in arrived and that of shall in shall arrive are homogeneous.

c) The meaning of shall is relative like that of grammatical morphemes. Shall invite shows the "future" meaning when it is opposed to invite with the "present" meaning. But when it is contrasted with will invite, it shows the meaning of "first person".

d) The meaning of shall is only indirectly connected with reality, through the word it is linked with. It does not denote "futurity" in general, but the futurity of the action denoted by invite, arrive, etc.

Since shall has the properties of both a word and a gram­matical morpheme, we shall call it a grammatical word-morpheme.

Let us now compare the two units: works and will work. They contain the same lexical morpheme work- and different grammatical morphemes -s and will. The grammatical morpheme -s is a bound morpheme: it is rigidly connected with the lexical morpheme. The grammatical morpheme will is a free morpheme or a word-morpheme: it is loosely connected with the lexical morpheme. Owing to the difference in the forms of the grammatical morphemes, there is a difference in the forms of the units works and will work. Works has, the form of one word, will work that of a combination of words.

Units like works, with bound grammatical morphemes, are called synthetic words. They are words both in form and in content.

Units like will work, with free grammatical morphemes, or grammatical word-morphemes, are called analytical words. They are words in content only. In form they are combinations of words.

Since the difference between synthetic and analytical words is a matter of form, not content, we may speak of synthetic and analytical forms.

Analytical forms are much more characteristic of English than of Russian. Especially rich in analytical forms is the English verb where they greatly exceed the synthetic forms in number.

Owing to the prevalence of analytical forms, English is usually spoken of as an analytical language, and Russian, Latin, Greek, in which synthetic forms prevail, as synthetic languages.

N o t e. This is but one of the distinctive features of the analytical structure of Modern English. As to the functions of grammatical word-morphemes in the structure of the English sentence, see Syntax.

§ 13. Besides lexical and grammatical morphemes there exist some intermediate types.

The first morphemes in the words de-part, for-give, and the second morphemes in the words fly-er, home-less resemble grammatical morphemes in their dependence on lexical morphemes. But they, differ from grammatical morphemes in not being relative. True, one can say that in the pair merciful – merciless the morpheme -less is correlated with -ful, but in homeless, jobless, etc. -less retains its meaning though it is not contrasted with -ful.

Like grammatical morphemes, de-, for-, -er, -less are attached only to certain classes of lexical morphemes. The morpheme -er, for instance, is usually attached to morphemes like sing-, read-, speak- which are associated with the grammatical morphemes -s, -ing and the grammatical word-morphemes shall, will. But like lexical morphemes they determine the lexical meanings of words. Cf. part and depart, give and forgive. Besides, together with their lexical morphemes, de-, for-, -er, -less make units whose co-occurrence with grammat­ical morphemes is similar to that of simple lexical morphemes. Cf. home – homes, reader – readers', boy – boy's, reader – reader's; give – gives – giving – shall give, forgive – forgives – forgiving – shall forgive.

Owing to their double or intermediate nature, we shall call them lexico-grammatical morphemes.

§ 14. De-, for-, -er,. -less are bound morphemes. English possesses also free lexico-grammatical morphemes, or lexico-grammatical word-morphemes.

Units of the type stand up, give in, find-out resemble analytical words in each having the form of a combination of words and the content of a word. But there is an essential difference between shall give and give in. Shall does not introduce any lexical meaning, while in does. Shall give differs from give grammatically, while give in differs form give lexically. In this respect give in is similar to forgive. In resembles for- also in being associated with the class of lexical morphemes attaching the same set of grammatical morphemes: -s, -ing, shall, will, etc. Cf. gives in, forgives; giving in, forgiving; will give in, will forgive.

There is much similarity in origin and function between the second elements of stand up break out^l and the so-called separable prefixes of the corresponding German verbs aufstehent – stand auf, ausbrechen – brack aus. All of them are lexico-grammatical morphemes. But in German they are only partly free, whereas in English they are wholly free morphemes, or word-morphemes.

The extensive use of lexico-grammatical word-morphemes is, as L.P.Smith puts it, "one of the most striking idiosyncrasies" of English. It is an inalienable part of its analytical structure.

Units of the give in type containing lexico-grammatical word-morphemes will be treated here as composite words.

§ 18. In accordance with their structure the following four types of stems are usually distinguished:

1. Simple, containing only the root, as in day, dogs, write, wanted, etc.

2. Derivative, containing affixes or other stem-building elements, as in boyhood, rewrite, strength, speech (cf. speak) transport, etc.

3. Compound, containing two or more roots, as in whitewash, pickpocket, appletree, motor-car, brother-in-law, etc.

N o t e: The stems of blue-eyed, lion-hearted, etc. are both compound and derivative and are sometimes called compound derivatives'.

4. Composite, containing free lexico-grammatical word-morphemes or otherwise having the form of a combination of words, as in give up, two hundred and twenty-five, at last, in spite of, etc.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 1060