 |
|
Classification from the structural point of view
Structurally morphemes fall into three types:
§ free morphemes,
§ bound morphemes,
§ semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes.
A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend — of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend.
A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-, dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease, to decipher). Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes. Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory, theoretical, etc., barbar- in barbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive inconceive, perceive, etc.
Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.
Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of morphemes should be specially mentioned.
1. To the first group belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called combining forms, e.g. telephone, telegraph, phonoscope, microscope, etc. The morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, micro-, phone- are characterised by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic reference: tele- means ‘far’, graph-means ‘writing’, scope — ’seeing’, micro- implies smallness, phone- means ’sound.’. On the other hand, words like phonograph, seismograph, autograph may create the impression that the second morpheme graph is a suffix and the first — a root-morpheme. This undoubtedly would lead to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix which runs counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is only one solution to this problem; these morphemes are all bound root-morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of-speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes evidences their status as roots.
2. The second group embraces morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.
The root-morpheme man- found in numerous words like postman, fisherman, gentleman in comparison with the same root used in the words man-made andman-servant is, as is well-known, pronounced, differently, the [æ] of the root-morpheme becomes [э] and sometimes disappears altogether. The phonetic reduction of the root vowel is obviously due to the decreasing semantic value of the morpheme and some linguists argue that in words like cabman, gentleman, chairman it is now felt as denoting an agent rather than a male adult, becoming synonymous with the agent suffix -er.