complicated by the relations of homonymy. These morphemes are the following:
1) the segments - (e) s [-z,-s,-iz]: the plural of nouns, the possessive case of nouns, the third person singular present of verbs;
the segments - (e) d [-d,-t,-id]: the past and past participle of verbs;
the segments-ing: the gerund and present participle;
the segments-er,-est: the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs.
The auxiliary word-morphemes of various standings should be interpreted in this connection as "semi-bound" morphemes, since, being used as separate elements of speech strings, they form categorial unities with their notional stem -words.
On the basis of formal presentation, "overt" morphemes and "covert" morphemes are distinguished. 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 (see further). p align="justify"> For instance, the word-form clocks consists of two overt morphemes: one lexical (root) and one grammatical expressing the plural. The outwardly one-morpheme word-form clock, since it expresses the singular, is also considered as consisting of two morphemes, ie of the overt root and the co ert (implicit) grammatical suffix of the singular. The usual symbol for the covert morpheme employed by linguists is the sign of the empty set: 0. p align="justify"> On the basis of segmental relation, "segmental" morphemes and "supra-segmental" morphemes are distinguished. Interpreted as supra-segmental morphemes in distributional terms are intonation contours, accents, pauses. p align="justify"> The said elements of language, as we have stated elsewhere, should beyond dispute be considered signemic units of language, since they are functionally bound. They form the secondary line of speech, accompanying its primary phonemic line (phonemic complexes). On the other hand, from what has been stated about the morpheme proper, it is not difficult to see that the morphemic interpretation of suprasegmental units can hardly stand to reason. Indeed, these units are functionally connected not with morphemes, but with larger elements of language: words, word-groups, sentences, supra-sentential constructions. p align="justify"> On the basis of grammatical alternation, "additive" morphemes and "replacive" morphemes are distinguished. Interpreted as additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, since, as a rule, they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation. Cf. look + ed; small + er, etc. In distinction to these, the root phonemes of grammatical interchange are considered as replacive morphemes, since they replace one another in the paradigmatic forms. Cf. dr-i-ve - dr-o-ve - dr-i-ven; man - men; etc.
It should be remembered that the phonemic interchange is utterly unproductive in English as in all the Indo-European languages. If it were productive, it might rationally be interpreted as a sort of replacive "infixation" (correlated with "exfixation" of the additive type). As it stands, however, this type of grammatical means can be understood as a kind of suppletivity (ie partial suppletivity). p align="justify"> On the basis of linear characteristic, "continuous" (or "linear") morphemes and "discontinuous" morphemes are distinguished.
By the discontinuous morpheme, opposed to the common, ie uninterruptedly expressed, continuous morpheme, a two-element grammatical unit is meant which is identified in the analytical grammatical form comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix. These two elements, as it were, embed the notional stem; hence, they are symbolically represented as follows:
be ... ing - for the continuous verb forms (eg is going), have ... en - for the perfect verb forms (eg has gone); be ... en - for the passive verb forms (eg is taken)
It is easy to s ee that the notion of morpheme applied to the analytical form of the word violates the principle of the identification of morpheme as an elementary meaningful segment: the analytical "framing" consists of two meaningful segments, ie of two different morphemes. On the other hand, the general notion "discontinuous constituent", "discontinuous unit" is quite rational and can be helpfully used in linguistic description in its proper place. br/>
CHAPTER III. CATEGORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD
words, first of all verbs and nouns, possess some morphemic features expressing grammatical (morphol...
