29. Morphemic structure of the word.

Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of the language.

There are may be zero morphemes that is the absence of morpheme. It indicates a certain meanings (book-books).Zero morpheme indicates singular form, s-morpheme plurality.

In traditional grammar the study of the morpheme was conducted in the light of 2 criteria (positional and semantic). The combination of these criteria gives us a classification of morphemes.

According to their position-can be prepositional(prefix),central (root)&postpositional(suffixes&inflexions).

According to semantic criteria roots are the bearers of meaning. Prefix&suffixes-have lexico-semantic function.

Inflexions have no lexical meaning or function, however an inflexion morpheme can get a lexical meaning in some special cases (colour-colours//custom-customs)-lexicalization.

Morphemes can be: -free&bound(Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words. On the contrary, free morphemes can build up words by themselves, i/e/ can be used “freely”.e.g. handful – the root hand is a free morpheme, the suffix –ful is a bound morpheme.)

-overt &covert (Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up words; the covert morpheme is identified as a contrastive absence of morpheme expressing a certain function. The notion of covert morpheme coincides with the notion of zero morpheme in the oppositional description of grammatical categories.

e.g. clock-s - 2 morphemes (a lexical morpheme and a grammatical one)

clock-Ш – 2 morphemes (the overt root and the covert (implicit) zero morpheme Ш)

-segmental&suprasegmental (Supra-segmental morphemes are intonation contours, accents, pauses.)

-additive (Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, as they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation: e.g. look-ed; small-er

On the basis of linear characteristics, “continuous (linear)” morphemes and “discontinuous” morphemes are distinguished.

The discontinuous morpheme is a 2-element grammatical unit, which is the analytical from comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix:e.g. be … ing – is going (continuous)

have … en – has gone (perfect)

be … en – is taken (passive)

Continuous morpheme is uninterruptedly expressed.

30. Categorial structure of the word.

The categorial meaning (f.e. grammatical number) unites the individual meanings of the correlated paradigmatic forms (f.e. singular-plural) and is exposed through them.

As for the grammatical category itself it presents the same as the grammatical «form», a unity of form and meaning and constitutes a certain signemic system.

The ordered set of grammatical forms expressing a categorial function constitutes a paradigm. The paradigmatic correlations are called grammatical oppositions.

Three main qualitative types of oppositions were established in phonology: privative, gradual, and equipollent. By the number of members they were divided into binary and more than binary.

The means employes for building up member-forms of categorial oppositions are traditionally divided into synthetical and analytical; accordingly, the grammatical forms themselves are classed into synthetical and analytical too.

Synthetical grammatical forms are based on inner inflexion, outer inflexion, and suppletivity. From the point of view of referent relation, grammatical categories should be divided into immanent (categories innate for a given lexemic class-substantive-pronominal person, substantive number, tense of the verb, the comparison of the adjectives) and reflective categories (categories of a secondary, derivative semantic value-verbal person, verbal number).

Another essential division of grammatical categories is based on the changeability factor of the exposed feature. The feature can be constant (gender, which divides the class of English nouns into non-human (It), human male (he), human female (she), human common gender names (he/she) or variable (substantive number (singular- plural), degrees of comparison).