Morpheme

Strictly speaking, the morpheme , being an abstract linguistic unit, is not a sign , but a class of signs. A specific implementation of a morpheme in a text is called a morph or (more recently, more often) a morph .

Moreover, morphs representing the same morpheme can have a different phonetic appearance depending on their environment inside the word form. The set of morphs of one morpheme having the same phoneme composition is called allomorph .

So, in the sentence “ I am running, and you are running, but he is not running” the “run- ” morpheme is represented by three morphs ( run-by-run , run-by-run and beige- run ) and only two allomorphs ( run- and- run - ).

The ratio between morph, allomorph and morpheme is approximately the same as between the background ( sound of speech ), allophone and phoneme. It is important to understand that in order for two morphs to belong to the same allomorph, they do not have to have the exact same sound: only the phoneme composition and stress should be the same.

In everyday life, even among specialists in morphology, the term "morpheme" is often used in the meaning of morphs . Sometimes such indistinguishability in the use of words penetrates even published scientific texts. Care should be taken in this regard, although in the vast majority of cases it is clear from the context which entity — a concrete text morph or an abstract linguistic morpheme — is being discussed.

Roots and Affixes

Morphemes are divided into two main types - root ( roots , or bases ), and affix ( affixes ).

The root is the main meaningful part of the word. The root is a mandatory part of any word - there are no words without a root. Root morphemes can form a word both accompanied by affixes, and independently.

Affix is an auxiliary part of a word, attached to the root and used for word formation and expression of grammatical meanings. Affixes cannot independently form a word - only in combination with roots. Affixes, unlike some roots (such as cockatoos ), are not single, occurring in only one word.

Root Classification

Most root morphemes can be used on their own, without word-forming affixes (for example, the same cockatoo ). Such roots are called free .

Others, as for example in the word rash , are not used without word-forming affixes. They are called related roots , or, according to A. A. Reformed, radixoids . The few unique related roots that are found in the language in only one word (for example, bougain-in-a ) are called uniradixoids .

A similar analysis is carried out synchronously : the root in the word ----считается is considered to be connected despite the fact that diachronically it comes from the now unused Old Russian verb--take ’.

Affix Classifications

Affixes are divided into types depending on their position in the word and on their function.

As for the first classification, two types of affixes are most common in the languages ​​of the world - prefixes located before the root and postfixes located after the root (other types are discussed below). The traditional name of the prefixes of the Russian language is prefixes .

By purpose, non-root morphemes are divided into word-building ( derivational ), which form new words with new meanings (some scientists only call them affixes, but this terminology is not used in the article), and form-forming ( relational ), which form word forms, expressing one or several grammatical categories and indicating a relationship with other members of the sentence.

Form morphemes can express either one grammatical category, or several at once. The first type is mainly used in agglutinative languages , and the second, called inflection, is used in inflectional languages , including Russian. The traditional name for inflections of Russian and most European languages ​​is endings , as they are usually located at the very end of words.

Word-forming and unambiguous form-forming postfixes are called suffixes . For example, once-and-now, the feminine inflection of the singular a follows the formative suffix of the past tense.

Returning to the position of affixes in a word, there are languages ​​that do not use prefixes (Turkic, some Ugro-Finnish), and express the whole grammar with postfixes. Some other languages, such as Swahili (Bantu family, Central Africa), use prefixes and almost no postfixes. Indo-European languages, to which the Russian language belongs, use both prefixes and postfixes, but with a clear advantage in the direction of the latter.

In addition to prefixes and postfixes, there are other types of affixes. Interfixes are official morphemes that do not have their own meaning, but serve to connect the roots in complex words (for example, forehead- o- shake ). Confixes are combinations of a prefix with a postfix that always act together to surround the root (as, for example, in the German word ge -lob- t - “vaunted”). Infixes are affixes inserted in the middle of the root (found in Indonesian languages). Transfixes are affixes that, breaking a root consisting of only consonants, break themselves and serve as a “layer” of vowels among consonants, determining the grammatical meaning of a word (found in Semitic languages, in particular, in Arabic).

• A.A. Reformed . Introduction to linguistics
• Modern Russian language (edited by V. A. Beloshapkova )