Immediate constituents.

IC-analysis, like many other ideas employed in the study of the morphemes, was developed by an American linguist, Leonard Bloomfield, and his followers within the framework of an approach known as Descriptive Linguistics (or, Structural Linguistics).

A word consisting of one morpheme (gentle) is of one part. A word of two morphemes (gentleman) is obviously composed of two parts with a cut between them. But a word of three or more morphemes is not made up of a string of individual parts. It’s built with a hierarchy of pairs.

Example: gentle/man/ ly – three morphemes, two constituents.

Every time we analyze a word we divide it into two parts called immediate constituents. If to continue to cut the word using the method of immediate constituents one can reduce the word to its ultimate (basic) constituents. That’s to the elementary morphemes of which it is composed.

There are three recommendations on IC division:

1. If a word ends in grammatical suffix (an inflexion) the first cut is between this suffix and the rest of the word.

2. One of the elements of IC division should be if possible a free morpheme. Here are some examples of wrong and right first cuts (en/largement (w) – enlarge/ment (r); independ/ent (w) – in/dependent (r)).

3. The meanings of IC should be related to the meaning of the word.

(rest/rain (w) – both parts are meaningful but they have nothing to do with the word RESTRAIN).

Examples:

[Ad un [Ad [N [Adj gentle] man] ly]] ungentlemanly

[N [V [Adj inter [Adj [ N nation] al]] ize] ation] internationalization

Unfriendliness

Disagreement

Container

Configuration (con=com=together, with, jointly)

The abstract complete morphemic model of the English word.

The morphemic composition of modern English words has a wide range of varieties. In every day speech the common morphemic types are root stems (work, bedroom) or one-affix stems (worker, bedrooms).

The abstract complete morphemic model of the English word is the following:

prefix + root + lexical suffix + gram. suffix

The syntagmatic connections of the morphemes within this model form 2 types of structures:

1. Words of the first type (W1):

W1 { [Pr + (R + L) ] + Gr} immortals

2. Words of the second type (W2):

W2 { [ (Pr + R) + L] + Gr} undertakers

Distributional analysis

In accord with the allo-emic theory lingual units may be described by means of 2 types of terms allo-terms & eme-terms. Eme-terms denote the generalized invariant: phonemes, morphemes. Allo-terms are concrete manifestations of variants: allo-forms, allomorphes. A set of allo-units is one eme-unit.

The allo-emic identification of lingual elements is achieved by means of distributional analysis.

The aim of this analysis is to fix and study the language unit in relation to the textual environment. The environment of the unit may be right or left.

Example: un-pardon-able (The left environment of the root is the negative prefix –un, the right environment of the root is the qualitative suffix –able. Respectively, the root –pardon- is the right environment for the prefix, and the left environment for the suffix).

The analysis is conducted in 2 stages:

1. The analyzed text is divided into segments consisting of phonemes. They are called morphs.

2. We establish the environment of the morphs and define the type of distribution.

There are 3 main types of distribution:

· contrastive (the environments of the morphs are the same, but meanings (functions) are different). Such morphs constitute different morphemes.

Example: the suffixes -(e)d and -ing in the verb-forms returned, returning.

· non-contrastive (the environments of the morphs are the same as well as their meaning). Such morphs constitute "free alternants", or "free variants" of the same morpheme.

Example: the suffixes -(e)d and -t in the verb-forms learned, learnt.

· complementary (different environments of formally different morphs which are united by the same meaning (function). Such morphs are considered to be allomorphs of the same morpheme

Example: the plural morpheme (e)s /-s/, /-z/, /-iz/ – phonemic complementary distribution;

dogs-oxen – morphemic complementary distribution

the indefinite article a-an: The usages an apple and a bear are grammatical. But the usages *a apple and *an bear are ungrammatical (marked with "*" in linguistics).

The form an is used "in the environment" before a word beginning with a vowel sound. "__ V".

The form a is used in the environment before a word beginning with a consonant sound. "__ C".

The "distribution" (usage according to environments) of the forms an and a is "complementary" because of three factors ---

(1) an is used where a is not used;

(2) a is used where an is not used;

(3) when you take the environment where an is used, and the environment where a is used, the two environments together cover every legitimate potential environment for the word.

The forms an and a function to work together like a team, in order to take care of every instance (environment) where the English indefinite article is needed. This is why we say that they are two different "forms" of the same "word", instead of saying that they are "two different words".

Replacive and additive morphemess.

As a result of the application of distributional analysis to the morphemic level, different types of morphemes have been discriminated which can be called the "distributional morpheme types".

On the basis of the degree of self-dependence, "free" morphemes and "bound" morphemes are distinguished.

On the basis of grammatical alternation, "additive" morphemes and "replacive" morphemes are distinguished.

Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, since, as a rule, they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation.

Example: look+ed; small+er, etc.

The root phonemes of grammatical interchange are considered as replacive morphemes, since they re-place one another in the paradigmatic forms.

Example: dr-i-ve — dr-o-ve — dr-i-ven; m-a-n — m-e-n; etc.

It should be remembered that the phonemic interchange is utterly unproductive in English as in all the Indo-European languages.

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