One way to treat differences in inflectional morphemes is by proposing variation in morphological realization rules. In order to do this, we draw an analogy with some processes already noted in phonology (Chapter 4). Just as we treated phones as the actual phonetic realization of phonemes, so we can propose morphs as the actual forms used to realize morphemes. For example, the form cats consists of two morphs, cat +-s, realizing a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme (“plural”). The form buses also consists of two morphs (bus + -es), realizing a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme (“plural”). So there are at least two different morphs (-s and -es, actually /s/ and /əz/) used to realize the inflectional morpheme “plural.” Just as we noted that there were “allophones” of a particular phoneme, so we can recognize the existence of allomorphs of a particular morpheme. That is, when we find a group of different morphs, all versions of one morpheme, we can use the prefix allo- (= one of a closely related set) and describe them as allomorphs of that morpheme.

Take the morpheme “plural.” Note that it can be attached to a number of lexical morphemes to produce structures like “cat + plural,” “bus + plural,” “sheep + plural,” and “man + plural.” In each of these examples, the actual forms of the morphs that result from the morpheme “plural” are different. Yet they are all allomorphs of the one morpheme. So, in addition to /s/ and /əz /, another allomorph of “plural” in English seems to be a zero-morph because the plural form of sheep is actually “sheep + ø.” When we look at “man + plural,” we have a vowel change in the word (æ → ɛ) as the morph that produces the “irregular” plural form men.

There are a number of other morphological processes at work in a language like English, such as those involved in the range of allomorphs for the morpheme “past tense.” These include the common pattern in “walk + past tense” that produces walked and also the special pattern that takes “go + past tense” and produces the “irregular” past form went.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الإعلام يشارك في الاجتماع التحضيري لمناقشة الخطة الإعلامية لزيارة عاشوراء

بحضور متوليها الشرعي.. العتبة العباسية المقدسة تواصل إقامة المجالس الحسينية لإحياء شهر المحرم

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق برنامجه التبليغي في أكثر من 20 دولة إفريقية

شعبتا الخطابة النسوية والتوجيه الديني تواصلان إقامة المجالس الحسينية في مرقد أبي الفضل العباس (عليه السلام)

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

دراسة تكشف علاقة خطيرة بين عمر الأم وصحة مولودها

دراسة تحذر.. اضطراب نوم بسيط قد يسبب الموت المبكر ؟

الاستحمام بالماء الساخن.. راحة مؤقتة وأضرار دائمة للبشرة

ماذا يحدث للجسم عند تخطي وجبة الإفطار؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

كيف تساعد الصيانة الوقائية في الحفاظ على كفاءة التكييف في سيارتك ؟

في ظاهرة غريبة حيرت العلماء.. كوكبنا قد يسجل أقصر يوم في التاريخ هذا الصيف!

السد الصيني العملاق يعيق دوران الأرض ويغيّر شكلها ؟

السعودية تطلق 10 تجارب علمية إلى محطة الفضاء الدولية

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Mirror in nominal morphology

Appendix 2: Hapax legomena from the Cobuild corpus

Appendix 1: 20th century neologisms from the OED

Morphological Productivity Structural Constraints in English Derivation Conclusion

Verbal derivation and the separation hypothesis

The separation hypothesis

Theoretical implications: Against the separation of form and meaning in morphology

Rival morphological processes 4: Where have all the rivals gone? Summary

Conversion vs. -ize, -ify and -ate

Rival morphological processes -ize vs. -ate

Rival morphological processes -ize vs. -ify

Rival morphological processes 4: Where have all the rivals gone?