Morphology

1. Allomorphs and Word
Formation
MA English
Paper II English Langauge
Unit I Morphology

2. Allomorphs
⚫ Allomorphs are the group of morphs that are
the realization of the same morpheme.
⚫ Just as allophones are the variants of a phoneme,
so allomorphs are the variants of a morpheme.
⚫ Examples: singular verb morpheme and singular
noun morpheme.
⚫ Such as past tense of –ed is realized as /t/, /d/
and /ɪd/ are the allomorphs of past tense
morpheme.
⚫ Example: stopped /stɒpt/, flowed/fləʊd/,
planted /plɑːntɪd/

3. Allomorphs
⚫ Plural s is realized as /s/, /z/ and /z/
⚫ As in cats /kæts/ dogs/dɒɡzand boys /ˈbɔɪz/
⚫ These alternate variants are called allomorphs or
morpheme alternant or morpheme variant.
⚫ Allomorphs are in complimentary distribution.
⚫ They have the same meaning and function but they do not
occur in the same environment.
⚫ Bloom field called the zero mopheme as zero alternant or
zero allomorph as in sheep, deer, put, cut and postman.

4. Replacive Morphs
⚫ Bloomfield considered the analysis of forms such as
goose-geese, know-knew, man-men as substitution
alternants.
⚫ Substituion is alternant of normal plural suffix.
⚫ Some linguists regarded this feature as replacive
morphs as it involves a replacement of a vowel.

5. Words and lexeme
⚫ Bloomfield defined words as minimal free units.
⚫ Word is used in two different senses: physical unit and
semantic entity.
⚫ These physical entities, the written or spoken form of
words are called word forms.
⚫ In other words, word forms are the physical
realization of lexemes.
⚫ The include all the inflected forms of a lexeme.
⚫ For example, ‘sit’, ‘sat’ and ‘sitting’ are different forms
of the word ‘sit’.

6. Lexeme
⚫ Lexeme is used to denote the usage of
word to refer the semantic entity.
⚫ It is normally defined as the
vocabulary items listed in a dictionary.
⚫ A lexeme includes all inflected forms
of a word.
⚫ Example SIT- ‘sit’, ‘sat’ and ‘sitting’,
‘sit’; WALK- ‘walking’, ‘walks’, ‘walked’,
‘walk’.

7. Process of Word Formation
⚫ Derivation
⚫ Compound Formation
⚫ Duplication
⚫ Back formation
⚫ Conversion
⚫ Clipping
⚫ Acronym
⚫ Blending
⚫ Word Manufacture
⚫ Multiple function

8. Process of Word Formation
⚫ Derivation- Example: Defrost etc
⚫ Compound Formation: When two or more words are
joined to make a new word the process is known as
compound as formation.
⚫ Example- Manpower (Compound Noun)
⚫ Myself (Compound Pronoun)
⚫ Duplication- Sometimes new words are formed in
English by repeating an item with a little change which
can take place initially, medially or finally.
⚫ Example- Tip-top, Brain- drain

9. Word Formation
⚫ Back formation: Back formation is the formula of
words by the deletion of actual or supposed affixes in
longer words:
⚫ Ex. Housekeeping Housekeep
⚫ Service Serve
⚫ Conversion: When a word of one grammatical class is
used as a word of another class without change in its
form the process is known as conversion.
⚫ Ex- Service - That garage services my car. (Noun
used as verb)
⚫

10. Word Formation
⚫ Clipping: The process by which a word is curtailed by
retaining only its initial and recognizable part without
effecting any change in meaning and grammatical class is
called clipping.
⚫ Ex. - Perambulator – Pram
⚫ Telephone – Phone
⚫ Acronym: Pronounceable word coined from initial letters
of the words in a name (mostly of an organization), title or
phrase.
⚫ Ex- TOEFL – Teaching of English as Foreign Language
⚫ WHO- World Health Organization

11. Word Formation
⚫ Blending: When a new word is formed by combining
the meaning and also partly the sound of two words.
⚫ Ex. - Brunch (blend of breakfast and lunch meaning
a late meal between breakfast and lunch).
⚫ Coinage- A new word is created either deliberately or
accidentally without using the other word formation
processes and often from seemingly nothing.
⚫ Ex.- Xerox, Google, hubby, hanky etc.