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LECTURE 14

MORPHONOLOGY



Plan

1. 
   Phoneme and stress alternations .
   
2. 
   The aspects of morphonology.
   
3. 
   The morphological function of the English words.
   

Key words: morphonology, morpheme, phoneme, aspects of morphonology, morphonological functions, phonology, monomorphemic word, stress alternations

In English there are many cases when a phoneme or phonemes within the morpheme may be replaced by another phoneme or other phonemes. These substitutions of phonemes may or may not be determined by a certain position of stress. The position of stress may also vary in different word derivatives formed from one base morpheme. The substitution of phonemes by one another and the change of the position of stress within morphemes are called phoneme and stress alternations. Theory of phoneme alternations suggested by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay was very important in further development of linguistics. It has contributed to the formation of a new branch of linguistics – “morphonology” (or “morph phonology”, “morphophonemics”) which is defined differently by various linguists. In the formation of morphonology much credit goes to N.S.Trubetzkoy who defined it as (1) a part of word phonology which studies the phonological structure of morphemes, as (2) a division of grammar, as (3) a linking branch between morphology and phonology. Among these definitions the first and the third can be accepted. Morphonology has not got its own unit, though some linguists introduced the term “morphoneme” which does not exits at all. Morphonology uses the terms phoneme and morpheme borrowed from other linguistic levels and studies phoneme and stress alternations, performing morphonological functions.

Variations of the formal structure of English morphemes may take place, owing to phonemic and accentual distinctions. As the morpheme is a meaningful unit of a language, it may be used as a word, if it is a monomorphemic word, or as a part of a word, if it is a composite word. Usually morphonological alternations occur in composite words, between their morpheme boundaries or within a morpheme, e.g. Neptune \’neptju:n\- Neptunian \nep’tju:niәn\, placid \’plǽsid\, placidity \plǽsiditi\, fruit \fru:t\ - fruitarian \fru:’tәriәn\.

Like other linguistic levels, morphonology is determined paradigmatically, i.e. the members of alternation may be distinguished as phonologically distinctive units – phonemes, and syntagmatically, i.e. the alternations take place in certain position which do not depend on the context or other factors. For example, the English suffix –ion which is the affixal morpheme may be represented as.

Questions

1.What does morphonology study?

2.Explain the morphonological alternations (with examples)

3.What is the relationship between phonology and morphology?

4.Explain the morphonological function of word stress.