Download Part 3 Word Formation I We have discussed the historical, cultural

Part 3 Word Formation I We have discussed the historical, cultural and social factors that facilitate the development of the English vocabulary. Though borrowing has been playing an active role in the expansion of vocabulary as indicated, in modern times, however, vocabulary is largely enriched on an internal basis. That is, we use existing material available in English, whether native or foreign, to create new words. Before we actually deal with the means of word­formation, we need to analyse the morphological structures of words and gain a working knowledge of the different word­forming elements which are to be used to create new words. 3.1 Morphemes It seems to be generally agreed that a word is the smallest unit of a language that stands alone to communicate meaning. Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit because many words can be separated into even smaller meaningful units. Take denaturalization for example. This is one word, but can be broken down into de­, nature, ­al, ­ize, ­ation, each having meaning of its own. These fragments cannot be further divided; otherwise, they would not make any sense. Though ­ation has a number of variants such as ­tion,­sion, ­ion, they belong to the same suffix as they have the same meaning and grammatical function. These different forms occur owing to different sound environment. These minimal meaningful units are known as morphemes. In other words, the morpheme is 'the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words'. 3.2 Allomorphs Morphemes are abstract units, which are realized in speech by discrete units known as morphs . 'They are actual spoken, minimal carriers of meaning'. The morpheme is to the morph what a phoneme is to a phone. Most morphemes are realized by single morphs like bird, tree, green, sad, want, desire , etc. These morphemes coincide with words as they can stand by themselves and function freely in a sentence. Words of this kind are called mono­morphemic words. Some morphemes, however, are realized by more than one morph according to their position in a word. Such alternative morphs are known as allomorphs. For instance, the morpheme of plurality {­s} has a number of allomorphs in different sound context, e.g. in cats /s/, in bags /z/, in matches /iz/. Allomorphs as such do not occur at random, but are phonetically conditioned and thus predictable. The plural morpheme {­s} is realized by /s/ after the sounds /t, p, k/ as in packs, cheats, shapes ; by /z/ after /d, b, g, l/ as in beds, bottles, fads and by /iz/ after /s, z, ∫, t∫, d3/ as in classes, dishes, garages, damages , etc. There are cases where the allomorphs of the plural morpheme are unusual. It can be realized by the change of an internal vowel as in foot­feet, man­men, goose­geese or by zero morph as in deer­deer, fish­fish . The same is true of the past tense marker {­ed}, which is realized by /t/ after a verb ending with /p, k/ as in worked, helped; by /d/ after vowels and sounds like /m, n, ­, l/ as in tried, warmed, lived, enabled, and by /id/ after /t, d/ as in wanted, landed, etc. This is also applicable to affixational morphemes. The prefix {in­} has allomorphs such as /im, ir, il/ depending on the first sound of the base
to which the prefix is added. If the first sound is /p, b, m/, the realization is /im/ as in improper, immovable, imbalance, but /ir/ with the sound /r/ as in irreconcilable, and /il/ with the sound /l/ as in illegible, and so on. 3.3 Types of Morphemes There are different ways of classifying morphemes. The popular method is to group them into free morphemes and bound morphemes. 3.3.1 Free Morphemes Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are considered to be free. These morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences. They are identical with root words, as each of them consists of a single free root, for example, man, earth, wind, car, anger. Therefore, we might as well say that free morphemes are free roots. 3.3.2 Bound Morphemes Morphemes which cannot occur as separate words are bound. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words. Let us take recollection, idealistic and ex­prisoner for example. Each of the three words comprises three morphemes, recollection (re + collect + ion), idealistic (ideal + ist + ic), ex­prisoner (ex + prison+ er). There are altogether nine morphemes, of which only collect, ideal and prison can exist by themselves. These are free morphemes. All the rest re­, ­ion, ­ist, ­ic, ex­ and ­er are bound as none of them are freestanding units. The English language possesses a multitude of words made up of merely bound morphemes, e.g. antecedent, which can be broken down into ante­, ­ced­, ­ent. Among them, ­ced­ is a root meaning 'approach, go to', ante­, a prefix meaning 'before' and ­ent, a noun suffix meaning 'a person, a thing', thus the whole word antecedent meaning 'something that goes before'. These examples show clearly that bound morphemes include two types: bound root and affix. 1. Bound root. As illustrated by the example antecedent, a bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. Unlike a free root, it is a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make words. Take ­dict­ for example. It is a Latin root which conveys the meaning of 'say or speak', but it is not a word in its own right. Yet with affixes, it can form quite a number of words. For example, with the prefixes contra (=against) and pre (=before) we obtain the verbs contradict meaning 'speak against' and predict meaning 'tell beforehand'; with the suffix ­ion, we form contradiction and prediction; with the suffix ­or, we have contradictor and predictor. Apart from these, dictum, dictate, dictation, dictator, diction, dictionary are all derived from the root ­dict­. In English, bound roots are either Latin or Greek. Although they are limited in number, their productive power is amazing. They give birth to thousands and thousands of derived words in modern English. 2. Affixes. Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word elements to modify meaning or function. Almost all affixes are bound morphemes because few can be used as independent words. According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional and derivational affixes.
1) Inflectional affixes. Affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. Modern English is an analytic language. Most endings are lost, leaving us only a few inflectional affixes. There is the regular plural suffix ­s (­es) which is added to nouns such as machines, fridges, desks, radios, potatoes. The same forms ­s (­es) can be added to verbs to indicate the simple present for the third person singular, e.g. like ­ likes, work ­ works, go ­ goes. The form ­`s is another one used to indicate the possessive case of nouns such as the children's library, the man's role, a waitress's voice, the mother­in­law's complaints. We have also the suffixes ­er, ­est which are usually attached to simple adjectives or adverbs to show their comparative or superlative degrees, e.g. happy ­ happier ­ happiest, hard ­ harder ­ hardest. Apart from these, there is the past tense marker ­ed as mentioned above, and the ­ing form added to verbs to form present participles or gerunds. The number of inflectional affixes is small and stable, which makes English one of the easiest languages to learn. 2) Derivational affixes. As the term indicates, derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes come before the word and the suffixes after the word, for instance, pre+war, sub+sea, north+ward, blood+y. Of these word­building morphemes, pre­ and sub­ are prefixes as they each appear before the base word whereas ­ward and ­y are suffixes as they are fixed at the end of each word (Refer to Word­formation for detailed discussion). Based on our discussion, we can sum up the types of morphemes in the following diagram. 3.4 Root and Stem Before we begin our actual discussion of word­building processes, there are some related concepts which need clarifying as these concepts may frequently be referred to in due course. The affixation and compounding involve different word­forming elements affixes and root or stem. Indeed, some people use root or stem interchangeably. In this book, these two terms are used differently. A root is the basic form of a word which cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity. As mentioned earlier, the root, whether free or bound, generally carries the main component of meaning in a word. In the word internationalists, removing inter­, ­al, ­ist, ­s leaves the root nation. If we further divide nation as *an/tion/ or *at/ion,[3] though ­tion and ­ion coincide with the noun suffix, the other part is meaningless and the original lexical identity is totally lost. In terms of derivational and inflectional morphology, a 'root is that part of a wordform that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed'. A stem may consist of a single root morpheme as in iron or of two root morphemes as in a compound like handcuff. It can be a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes as in mouthful, underestimate. Therefore, a stem can be defined as a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. Look at internationalists again. In this word, nation is a root and a stem as well. All the rest national, international, internationalist are stems. To be safe, in the discussion of means of word­formation, we will use stem only because it can replace root and also refer to any form which is
larger than a root.