CHAPTER 1 THE WORD

The Morphology - a branch of grammar together with syntax, phonetics and semantics. These are the basic units of linguistics. Morphology studied the word and constitutes morphemes (a meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided,  e.g., in , come , -ing , forming incoming).

The Syntax - studies the structure of the phrase and the sentence.

The Phonetics - the study and classification of speech sounds.

The Semantics - the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

1.1. Morphemic structure of the word

Morphemes constitute words. We can identify morphemes as part of words, e.g. apples – s (plural grammatical endings of words), - s (the third personne singular of the present simple). Function is equal to meaning in Linguistic. We can identify the meaning of the lingual units by the function. 

The word is decomposable into morphemes. The morpheme is identifiable only as part of the word. The functions of the morpheme are constituent functions of the word. For example, the comparative degree form of the adjective is constructed by means of the grammatical ending – er. But it is identified as such only when it is attached to the stem of an adjective. The grammatical form produced in this way functions in a ternary opposition with the common degree form (bare stem) and the superlative degree form (built up by means of the grammatical ending -est): e.g. fast – faster – fastest

In other linguistic environment, however, the morpheme –er is identifiable as a word-building suffix. Attached to the stem of a verb, it helps produce a noun denoting the doer of the verbal action: e.g. to teach – a teacher

Two positional varieties of morphemes can be distinguished – central morphemes (root) and marginal morphemes (affixes and grammatical endings). Roots, affixes and grammatical endings perform different functions, which means that they express different meanings (in grammar, “function” is synonymous to “meaning”). Roots bear the concrete part of the meaning of the word. Affixes denote information concerning the grammatical class to which the word belongs. Grammatical endings express different grammatical meanings. For example, the word form “enables” is decomposable into the following morphemes:

- en – affix producing verbs

- able – root bearing the concrete part of the meaning

- s – grammatical ending, present tense, 3^rd person

e.g. enables = makes able

There are three types of morphemes:

- root morphemes – bear the lexical meaning of the word;

- affix (es) – word building morphemes. Contain an information about the word class to which a word belongs. Affixes can be subdivided to prefix, infix and suffix, attached after the root. For example: dis-like – prefix that changes the meaning without changes word class (stay again verb); Example of suffix: like-ness (change word class). Infix – no longer productive in English.

- grammatical ending – denote information related to the grammatical categories typical to given class.

Affixes - can be subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes according to their location in relation to the root. Prefixes occupy a position before the root morpheme: e.g. dislike – dis + like.

Suffixes - are placed after the root morpheme: e.g. widen – wid + en. Infixes are inserted into the root morpheme: e.g. stand – n – was inserted into the Latin root “sisto”.

Derives stems - contain one root morpheme and some affix (es): e.g. childless, immortal

Compound stems - include two or more root morphemes: e.g. do-it-yourself

The correlation between the form and function of morphemes is exposed by the “allo-emic” theory of Descriptive Linguistics. This theory describes lingual units by means of allo-terms and eme-terms. Eme-terms refer to the invariant units of language at each level of language description: phoneme, morpheme, syntagmeme, lexeme. Allo-terms refer to the variants (specific realizations) of the invariant units in different environments: allophone, allomorph, allolex. The allo-emic theory is put into practice through the distributional analysis. The distribution of a lingual unit is a concept covering the environments of that unit. Analysing the distribution of a lingual unit on the morphemic level with reference to form, we have to discriminate phonemic distribution of morphemes. With phonemic distribution of morphemes, the choice of a morpheme depends on the preceding phoneme: e.g. books, boxes. With morphemic distribution of morphemes, the choice of a morpheme depends on the preceding morpheme: e.g. boxes, oxen

Three types of distribution of a lingual unit should be distinguished with reference to function: contrastive, non-contrastive and complementary. Morphemic units distributionally uncharacterized are called morphs. Two morphs are in contrastive distribution if their environments are identical but their meanings (functions) are different: e.g. loves – loved. Such morphs belong to different morphemes: -s denotes 3^rd person singular Present tense, - ed denotes Past tense. Two morphs are in non-contrastive distribution if their environments are identical and their meaning (function) is the same. Such morphs are free variants of the same morphemes: e.g. burned = burnt – Past tense. Two formally different morphs are in complementary distribution if their environments are different but their meaning (function) is the same. Such morphs are considered to be allomorphs of the same morpheme. A well-know example is the plural morpheme of English nouns. A well-known example is the plural morpheme of English nouns with its allomorphs: books, boxes, oxen, etc.

1.2. Categorial Structure of the word 

Grammatical elements express grammatical meanings. Grammatical meanings are abstract. They characterize a whole class of words Each grammatical form of the word expresses some individual grammatical meaning, which is compatible with the lexical meaning of the word. All the grammatical forms of the word constitute its grammatical paradigm. The individual grammatical meanings of correlated paradigmatic forms expose categorial meaning through their functional oppositions. Categorial meanings are most generalized. The grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. This correlation is exposed by the grammatical opposition.

1.3. Grammatical classes and functional series of words

Words are divided into grammatical classes, which are discriminated on the basis of three criteria: semantic, formal and functional.

- The semantic criterion deals with the most generalized meaning characterizing all the words in a class.

- The formal criterion shows the specific word-building patterns and the grammatical forms of the words in a given grammatical class.

- The functional criterion relates to the syntactic positions of words belonging to a particular class.

On the basis of these criteria, words are divided into notional grammatical classes and functional series of words.

1. To the notional (also called lexical) classes belong the noun, the verb, the adjective, the adverb and the numeral. Notional words are words of full nominative value with self-dependent syntactic functions. They are morphologically changeable units of language. Grammatical classes are open in the sense that they have a large number of members and can freely add new members.

- verb – denotes: action – some situation can be action; event - an event that can not be prevented. They suggest development in time; state - no change (temporary or permanent);

- noun – denotes entity (concrete, animate and abstract things);

- adjective – denotes noun referent (qualities)

- adverb – denotes peculiar circumstances related to verbal situations

2. To the functional series of words belong: 
- the article, 
- the preposition, 
- the particle, 
- the pronoun, 
- the conjunction and 
- the interjection. 

Functional words are of complete nominative value and non-self-dependent functions in the structure of the phrase or the sentence. Functional words constitute close systems: they have few members and resist new additions. Their members are mutually defining from semantic point of view and mutually exclusive from functional point of view.