most ancient lexemic elements. By this feature, the whole family of Indo-European languages ​​is identified in linguistics as typologically "inflexional". p align="justify"> Inner inflexion (grammatical "infixation", see above) is used in English in irregular verbs (the bulk of them belong to the Germanic strong verbs) for the formation of the past indefinite and past participle; besides, it is used in a few nouns for the formation of the plural. Since the corresponding oppositions of forms are based on phonemic interchange, the initial paradigmatic form of each lexeme should also be considered as inflexional. Cf.: Take - took - taken, drive - drove - driven, keep - kept - kept, etc.; Man - men, brother - brethren, etc. p align="justify"> Suppletivity, like inner inflexion, is not productive as a purely morphological type of form. It is based on the correlation of different roots as a means of paradigmatic differentiation. In other words, it consists in the grammatical interchange of word roots, and this, as we pointed out in the foregoing chapter, unites it in principle with inner inflexion (or, rather, makes the latter into a specific variety of the former).
Suppletivity is used in the forms of the verbs be and go, in the irregular forms of the degrees of comparison, in some forms of personal pronouns. Cf.: Be - am - are - is - was - were; go - went; good - better; bad - worse; much - more; little - less; I - me; we - us; she - her.
In a broader morphological interpretation, suppletivity can be recognised in paradigmatic correlations of some modal verbs, some indefinite pronouns, as well as certain nouns of peculiar categorial properties (lexemic suppletivity - see Ch. IV, В§ 8 ). Cf.: Can - be able; must - have (to), be obliged (to); may - be allowed (to); one - some; man - people; news - items of news; information - pieces of information; etc .
The shown unproductive synthetical means of English morphology are outbalanced by the productive means of affixation (outer inflexion), which amount to grammatical suffixation (grammatical prefixation could only be observed in the Old English verbal system).
In the previous chapter we enumerated the few grammatical suffixes possessed by the English language. These are used to build up the number and case forms of the noun; the Person-number, tense, participial and gerundial forms of the verb; the comparison forms of the adjective and adverb. In the oppositional correlations of all these forms, the initial paradigmatic form of each opposition is distinguished by a zero suffix. Cf.: Boy + Гё - boys; go + Гё - goes; work + Гё - worked; small + Гё -smaller; etc.
Taking this into account, and considering also the fact that each grammatical form paradigmatically correlates with at least one other grammatical form on the basis of the category expressed (eg the form of the singular with the form of the plural), we come to the conclusion that the total number of synthetical forms in English morphology, though certainly not very large, at the same time is not so small as it is commonly believed. Scarce in English are not the synthetical forms as such, but the actual affixal segments on which the paradigmatic differentiation of forms is based. p align="justify"> As for analytical forms which are so typical of modern English that they have long made this language into the "canonised" representative of lingual analytism, they deserve some special comment on their substance.
The traditional view of the analytical morphological form recognises two lexemic parts in it, stating that it presents a combination of an auxiliary word with a basic word. However, there is a tendency with some linguists to recognise as analytical not all such grammatically significant combinations, but only those of them that are "grammatically idiomatic", ie whose relevant grammatical meaning is not immediately dependent on the meanings of their component elements taken apart. Considered in this light, the form of the verbal perfect where the auxiliary "have" has utterly lost its original meaning of possession, is interpreted as the most standard and indisputable analytical form 'in English morphology. Its opposite is seen in the analytical degrees of comparison which, according to the cited interpretation, come very near to free combinations of words by their lack of "idiomatism" in the above sense [Смирницький, (2), 68 і сл.; Бархударов, (2), 67 і сл.]. *
The scientific achievement of the study of "idiomatic" analytism in different languages ​​is ...
