Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Bound and free Morphemes. Allomorphs. 
Our morphological knowledge has two components: knowledge of the individual mor-
phemes and knowledge of the rules that combine them. One of the things we know about 
particular morphemes is whether they can stand alone or whether they must be attached to a 
host morpheme. Accordingly, linguists differentiate free and bound morphemes. 
Morphemes, 
that can constitute words by themselves, are free morphemes. Free morphemes can only be 
represented by root morphemes.
For instance, morphemes like 
boy
, 
desire
, 
gentle
, 
man
are free 
morphemes. 
Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as 
component segmental parts of words
. That’s why they are always represented by affixal 
morphemes (prefixes, suffixes and inflexions). For instance, in the word 
handful
the root hand 
is a free morpheme, while the suffix 
-ful
is a bound morpheme.
Morphemes may have different shapes under different circumstances. E.g., the plural 
morpheme in English is sometimes pronounced [s] as in 
cats
[k
æ
ts], sometimes [z] as in 
dogs 
[dogz], and sometimes [iz] as in 
faces
[feisiz], or -en in 
children, oxen
. For such cases, linguists
use the term allomorph or morpheme alternant. 
If two or more morphemes have the same 
meaning (function) and the difference in their form is explained by different environments, 

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof. 
Nino Kirvalidze
17
these morphs are said to be in complementary distribution and they are considered to be the 
allomorphs of the same morpheme.
Cf. the allomorphs of the plural morpheme [s], [z] and [iz] 
which stand in phonemic complementary distribution, while the plural allomorph 
–en
in 
oxen
and 
children
stand in morphemic complementary distribution.