Lecture the place of english in morphological and genetic typology of languages problems to be discussed

Step 3. Omitting doubtful cases, morphs are classed on the basis of shape and canonical forms are tentatively determined.

Step 4. Two or more morphs are grouped into a single morpheme if they fit the following grouping - requirements:

they have the same meaning;

they are in non-contrastive distribution;

the range of resultant morpheme is not unique.

Step 5. It is very important to remember that if in this procedure one comes across to alternative possibilities, choice must be based upon the following order of priority:

tactical simplicity

morphophonemic simplicity

conformity to canonical forms.

Thus the first cut of utterance into the smallest meaningful units is called morph. The morphs that have identical meanings are grouped into one morpheme. It means the morphs and morphemes are speech and language units that have both form (or shape) and meanings. The smallest meaningful unit of language is called a morpheme while the smallest meaningful unit of speech is called a morph. There’s a notion of allomorph in linguistics. By allomorphs the linguists understand the morphs that have identical meanings and that are grouped into one morpheme. There may be another definition of the allomorphs: the variants (or options, or alternants) of a morpheme are called allomorphs.

Compare the above said with Harris’s opinion.

Some morphs, however, and some may be assigned simultaneously to two (or more) morphemes. An empty morph, assigned to no morpheme. (All the empty morphs in a language are in complementary distribution and have the same meaning (none). They could if there were any advantages in it, be grouped into a single empty morpheme (but one which had the unique characteristic of being tactically irrelevant), must have no meaning and must be predicable in terms of non-empty morphs. A portmanteau morphs must have the meanings of two or more morphemes simultaneously, and must be in non-contrastive distribution with the combination of any alternant of one of the member morphemes and any alternant of the other (usually because no such combination occur).

The difference in the phonemic shape of morphs as alternants of morphemes are organized and stated; this (in some cases already partly accomplished in Step 1) constitutes morphophonemics.

In particular, portmanteaus are compared with the other alternants of the morphemes involved, and if resemblances in phonemic shape and the number of cases warrant, morphs of other than overt phonemic content are recognized, some of the portmanteaus being thus eliminated.