THE
ASSIGMENT OF LINGISTICS
MORPHOLOGY
By :
Hikmah
Oky Pravitasari
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
LANGUAGES AND ARTS FACULTY
STATE UNIVERSITY OF SURABAYA
2008
PREFACE
Linguistics
may be defined as the scientific study of language. Like any other scientific
study. Language analysis is done systematically within the framework of some
general theory of language structure. The linguist tries to verify the theory
by making objective observations of actual language data and modifies the
theory in the light I\of what he perceives to be the patterns or regularizes
underlying the data. The description of language that emerges depends on the
theoretical framework that the linguist started with. Hence we have different
“schools” of linguistics.
When
and how did linguistics begin to make an impact on language teaching? It is not
possible to make general statement that will be applicable to all the countries
concerned because of differences in educational systems. In Western Europe,
there were attempts to make language-teaching reforms in the last decade of the
nineteenth century by people like Henry Sweet and Otto Jespersen. What the
latter recommended in 1904 in How to Teach a Foreign Language was not
very different from what Bloomfield advocated in 1942 in his Outline Guide for
the Practical Study of Foreign Language, which had great influences on language
teaching in America in and after the Second World War. (Boey, 1997:5).
MORPHOLOGY
1.
Introduction
Language is a system made up two subsystems. One of song and the
other of meanings. We have looked at the system of sound in section on
phonemics. In this section we will study the system of meaningful units. (Boey,
1997:3).
Morphology or morphemic is a branch of linguistics dealing with
the organization of phonemes into meaningful groups called morph. It is also
concerns with the organization of this morph into morpheme and the distribution
of morpheme into words. (Soekemi, 1995:13).
The basic elements of English pronunciation were shown to be
forty-six phonemes. By describing these in detail and stating the
characteristics distribution of each (which was merely hinted at), a great deal
can be said about the English language by recording the phonemes occurring
units, any possible English utterance can be identified as to be exactly
repeatable from the written record alone.
A phonologic study of language, no matter how detailed, can tell
us nothing short meaning, because the phonemes themselves have no direct
convection with content. They are merely the units by which the speaker and
hearer identify the morphemes. For any further study of language, the morpheme
and combinations of morphemes must be examined when this is done, the analysis
of language structure proceeds on a fundamentally different plane. (Gleason,
1995:51)
2.
Morph
2.1 Definition
of Morph
A morph is a meaningful group of phones which can not be
subdivided into smaller meaningful units. (Francis, 1958:170).
Let us define it as the level on which the sound-units or
phones, recognized as belonging to various families, or phonemes are combined
into the smallest meaningful unit’s speech because these units have no
recognizable shape. We call them morph, a name derived from the Greek word for
shape or form. A morph then is a combination of phones that has a meaning. Not
that each morph, like each phone, each person or each day, happens only
once and then it is gone. Another very similar combination of very similar
phones many come along right after it. If so we will call this second
combination another morph similar to the first one. If we are sure
enough of the similarity, which must include similarity of both the phones and
the meaning, we can say that the two morphs belong to the same morph-type or
allomorph. (Francis, 1958:164).
The Example of Morph
Morph is the smallest meaning part of a language when we break
down a word into the smallest meaningful parts: Skill-fu-ly each part is a
morph. (Soekemi, 1995:19)
1.
Weakness : weak/ness/es.
(Each of these parts is a morph).
2.
Books : Book/es.
(Each of these parts is a morph).
3.
Saltpeter : salt/peter
(Each of these parts is a morph).
4.
Holiday : Holy/day
(Each of these parts is a morph).
It is clear that the question whether words can be segmental
into part or not is not important. The morpheme is not a segment of the words
at all: it has no position in the word. When the word can be segmented into
parts. These segments are referred to as morph. Thus the word bigger is
segmented into two morph which can be written orthographically as big
and er and in phonological transcription as /big/ and /ęr/. Each morph represents a
particular morpheme.
3.
Morpheme
3.1
Definition of Morpheme
A morpheme is a group of morph that are semantically the same and in
complementary distribution. (Soekemi, 1995:19).
As we suggested in the little of this chapter, morpheme are the
building block out of which the meaningful utterances of speech are put
together. A morpheme is a group of allomorphs, each of which is a
combination of phonemes. But as we pointed out in the first chapter, in
structure of the kind that language shares with many other natural and men-made
phenomena, the whole is more than the sum of all its part (Francis, 1958:173).
The procedure used to discover the sound units may also be
applied in search for the smallest units of meaning. In this case, the method
involves picking out utterances which one minimally different in meaning in the
same way as the linguist picks out pairs that are minimally different in sound
in phonemic analysis.
A morpheme is the smallest syntactic unit in a language, or the minimal
distinctive unit of grammar. Morphemes are the focus of study in the discipline
of morphology in linguist, at first because morphemes are easier to work with
than the ultimately problematic word when comparing languages.
Morpheme are the smallest units of grammatical analysis-the
units of ‘lowest’ rank out of which words, the units of next ‘highest’ rank,
are composed. For example, the English word unacceptable is composed of three
morphemes, un, accept, able, each one of which has a particular
distribution and also a particular phonological (and orthographical) form, or
‘shape’.
The different between morphs and morphemes can be
expressed in terms of substance and form. Like all grammatical
units, the morpheme is an element of ‘form’ related to its; substance’ on the
phonological (or orthographical) level of the language. As we have seen,
morpheme may be represented directly by phonological (or orthographical)
segment with a particular shape (that is by morphs). But they may also be
represented in the substance of the language in other ways. In order to refer
to morphemes. It is customary to use one of the morphs which represents the
morpheme which is represented in phonological substances by /big/ and in orthographic
substance by big; and the word went (phonologically/went), which cannot
be segmented into morph, represents the combination of the two morphemes go
an ed. (Lyons: 59)
3.2
The Examples of morphemes
Let us assume that the linguist looking at his corpus has found
the following utterances:
1.
Look at the cat /kæt/
2.
Look at the dog /d∂g/
3.
Look at the horse /h∂:s/
They differ in
meaning but the difference is minimal. The response of a native speaker of
English will show a different only when he hears the last part of each
utterances, /kæt/, /d∂g/, h∂:s/. They also differ in sound in that cat, dog and horse have a
different combination of phonemes. The different in meaning lies not in any
part of the combination but in the total combination of phonemes. That is /d/
is meaningless and /∂g/ is meaningless but /d∂g/ is meaningful. If the
linguist then elicits from the informant the plural from of cat, dog and horse
within the same utterance, he gets the following:
4.
Look at the cats /kæts/
5.
Look at the dogs /d∂gz/
6.
Look at the horses /h∂:siz/
He then realizes that /kæt/, /d∂g/ and /h∂:s/ carry the
meaning of the word and /s/, /z/ and /iz/. Carry the meaning “plural”. Each of
the words cats, dogs, and horses. Therefore, contains two meaningful units.
Such unit are called morphemes, In order to distinguish them from phoneme,
morphemes are put between braces like these: { }(Boey,1997:37)
According to (Nasr, 1980:53) A morpheme is a unit in language
that carries meaning. It may be composed of one sound or two sounds or several
sounds. The size of the units is not important. What is important is that the
unit should have meaning and that we should not be able to break it down into
smaller unit with meaning. For Example: The word cats is composed of two
units: cat + s. The first unit refers to the animal. The second unit
refers to the number of animals (more than one) now cat itself cannot be broken
down further at has a meaning. Of course, but the meaning of cat is not made up
of c or /k/+at. Here is another example: the word loved. This is
also composed of two units: love+d;the first unit refers to the feeling:
the second units refers to time(past). But not all d sounds have this
meaning; in the word dinner, we have one unit with meaning. The meaning
of dinner comes from the whole unit and not from d+inner.
Each unit, then that carries meaning in language is a morpheme.
3.3 Types of morphemes
There are two
classes of morphemes:
1.
Free morpheme (“stem” or “based”) is morpheme which can meaning
fully occur alone.
e.g.: book, pencil,
elephant, love, give, happy, very, the, pet, house, man.(Boey,1997:38).
Free morpheme (independent
morpheme) is a morpheme that can stand by itself. (Nasr, 1980:53).
2.
Bound morpheme is morpheme that always occurs with a base, and
it cannot occur alone. e.g.: the “plural” morpheme in books cannot occur alone
as s, except in a sentences like the
”s” in “books” expresses plurality. The “present tenses” morpheme in walk(s),
run(s). The “negative” morpheme in happi(ness), sinceri(ty). . (Boey, 1997:38).
Bound morpheme (dependent
morpheme) is a morpheme that cannot stand by itself, it must be attached to
another morpheme.
Foe example: In the word
cat, we have one independent or free morpheme. In the word cats, we have two
morphemes: an independent or free morpheme (cat) and a dependent or bound
morpheme (d). In the word gentleman, we have two independent or free morphemes:
gentle and man. There are no words in English that are composed of two or more
bound morpheme. (Nasr, 1980:53).
A free morpheme has to pass
two tests:
·
It has to be a content word
·
It cannot contain any other morphemes.
The word “language” is an
example of a free morpheme. It is defined in the dictionary as having lexical
meaning, and it cannot be divided into any other morphemes.
A bound morpheme is defined
by three qualities:
·
It is not a content word
·
It is always bound to another morpheme, either a free morpheme,
or sometimes-another bound morpheme.
The word “language” is an
example of a combination of [free morpheme] + [bound morpheme] = [language +
s]. “Language” is a free morpheme, and “s” is a bound morpheme.
5.
Allomorph
4.1 Definition and examples of Allomorph
Allomorphs are
sub-members of the same morpheme. (Soekemi, 1995:19) as an example, the third
person singular present-tense morpheme, {-es}, has three allomorphs, /-s/,
/-z/, /-iz/. As illustrated in the following sentences:
a.
She cooks /kuks/ well.
b.
She sings /siηz/ beautifully.
c.
She dances /dan:siz/ skillfully.
Just as a
phoneme (a contrastive sound unit) has allophones (non-contrastive phones or
sounds), so a morpheme (a unit with meaning) has allomorph. An allomorph is a
phonemically different form of the morpheme with the same meaning.
For example the words hats, bags, and dishes. These can be
written phonemically /hæt/, /bægz/ and /di∫iz/. Now the independent or
free morpheme (which are all different in meaning) are hat, bag and dish. The
sound /s/ (in hats), /z/ (in bag), and /iz/ (in dishes) all mean more than one.
/-s/, /-z/, /-iz/ are submembers or allomorphs of the same plural morpheme
meaning ’more than one’. Of course, there are other allomorphs of the morpheme
in English, for example, /∂n/ in oxen. (Nasr, 1980:54).
On further examination of sentences 4, 5 and 6, the linguist
guesses that the different form of the plural morpheme /s/, /z/, and /iz/ occur
in accord with the different endings of the preceding base /t/, /g/ and /s/.
The variant /s/ occurs after voiceless stops (e.g. /tæp/, /buks/). The variant
/z/ occurs after viwels, voiced stops, lateral and nasals (e.g./p∂teitouz/, s۸ds/,
/pensilz/, b۸nz/, /s۸mz/, /m۸gz/, /k۸bz/. The variant /iz/ occurs after
fricatives and affricates. for example: /gla:siz/, /di∫iz/, /dit∫iz/. He finds
that where is form appears the other is excluded. Such variant of morpheme are
called allomorph. In other words, allomorphs are variants of a morpheme, and
are in complementary distribution. Where there are allomorph, are often may be
chosen to represent the morpheme in writing. For example, the plural morpheme
is often representing as {z}
CONCLUSION
Morpheme are
abstract, and when a made discrete in language use are known as morphs.
Although most morphemes have only one morph, some have several, in which case
the alternatives are known as allomorphs.
There is
significant variety in allomorphs, but they occur in two forms: phonologically
conditioned and lexically conditioned. An example of a phonologically
conditioned allomorph in English is the plural marker /s/, whose sound is
determined by the preceding phoneme /--z/ after voiced phonemes, as in fleas or
keys; /-s/ after voiceless phonemes, as in nights or chunks; /-iz/ after
sibilant, as in disguises or bushes). A lexical conditioned allomorph is one
whose form follows no rule: oxen as the plural for ox and children for child..
The study of
morpheme are used together is called morphemic, and was previously known as
morph tactics. The English plural is a good example of the fundamental
difficulties confronting this field. Despite creative solutions such as a zero
morph, empty morph, or a portmanteau morph, the field is still struggling with
such problems.
By learning morphemic, we have to know the definition,
examples and type of morph, morpheme and allomorph.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Boey, Lim Kiat. 1997. An Introduction to
Descriptive linguistics for The Language Teacher. Singapore: SEAMEO
Regional English Language Centre.
2. Francis, Nelson. W. 1958. The Structure of
American English. New York: The Ronald Press Company.
3. Fromkin, v, Rodman, R and Hyams, N. 2003. An
Introduction to Language. USA:Heinle.
4. Gleson, H.A. 1995. An Introduction to
Descriptive linguistics. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.
5. Nasr, Raja T. 1980. The Essential of
Linguistic Science. London: Longman.
6. Soekemi. 1995. Linguistic: A work Book.
Surabaya: IKIP Surabaya Press.
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