Lecture 4-《英语词汇学》第四章教案

Lecture 4

讲授题目：Morphological Structure of English Words

所属章节：《现代英语词汇学概论》之第2章

计划学时：2 periods

教学方法：传统讲授法

参考资料：《英语词汇学教程》、《英语词汇学》

教学目的和要求：通过本单元的学习，学生对词的

形态结构、词的构成要素—词素、词干、词根有基本的了解和认识。

?教学重点：

1) Morpheme;

2) Types of morphemes.

教学难点：

1) Concept of morpheme;

2) Morpheme、stem 、root.

Lecture 4

Before we actually deal with the means of word-formation, we need to analyze the morphological structure of words and gain a working knowledge of the different word-forming elements which are to be used to create new words.

Morphological Structure of English Words

1. Morpheme (词素/语素/形位)

It seems to be generally agreed that a word is the smallest unit of a language that stands a lone to communicate meaning. Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit because many words can be separated into even smaller meaningful units. Look at the following items:

Morphological Structure of English Words

? yes yes

? unhappiness un-happi-ness

? horses horse-s

? talking talk-ing

Yes has no internal grammatical structure. We could

analyze its constituent sounds, [ j ]、[ e ]、[ s ], but none of these has a meaning in isolation. So the three sounds are called phonemes rather than morphemes. By contrast, horse, talk and happy plainly have a meaning, as do the elements attached to them: un-carries a negative meaning; -ness expresses a state or quality; -s expresses plural; and –ing helps to convey a sense of duration. These minimal meaningful units are known as morphemes. In other words, ①the morpheme is ?the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words‘ (crysta l 1985)

?②The morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms.

?What is usually considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more morphemes:

?One morpheme---nation

?Two morphemes---nation-al

?Three morphemes---nation-al-ize

?Four morphemes---de-nation-al-ize（使…非国有化）

?More than four morphemes---de-nation-al-iz-ation

2. Allomorphs(词素词素变体/语素变体/形位变体)

―An allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned（受制约）by pos ition or adjoining sounds‖ (Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language).

Allomorphs do not occur at random, but are phonetically conditioned and thus predictable:

?①The plural morpheme ｛-s｝is realized by [s] after the sounds [ t, p，k ] as in packs, cheats, maps; by [z] after [ b, d, g] as in beds, bottles, fads and by [ -iz ]after / s, z, ∫, З, t∫, dЗ/ as in classes, dishes, damages, etc.

?②There are cases where the allomorphs of the plural morpheme are unusual. It can be realized by the change of an internal vowel as in foot-feet, man-men, woman-women, goose-geese or by zero morph as in deer – deer, fish-fish. ?③The same is true of the past tense marker ｛-ed｝, which

is realized by [ t ] after a verb ending with | p，k | as in worked, helped; by [ d ] after vowels and sounds like |m, n, η|, as in tried, warmed, enabled, and by [ id ] after | t, d | as in wanted, landed, etc.

④This is also applicable to affixational morphemes. The prefix ｛in｝has allomorphs such as | im, ir, il | depending on the sound context. If the first sound is [p. b. m ], the realization is | im | as in improper, immovable, imbalance, but | ir | with the sound [ r ] as in irresponsible, and | il | with the sound [ l ]as in illegal.

3. Types of Morphemes

There are different ways of classifying morphemes. The popular method is to group them into free morphemes and bound morphemes.

①Free morphemes:A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning. Free morphemes fall into two categories:

※The first category is that set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs which we think of as the words which carry the ―content‖ of messages we convey. These free morphemes are called lexical morphemes and some examples are: boy, man, house, sad, long, yellow, open, look, etc.

The other group of free are called functional morphemes. Examples are: and, but, when, because, on, in, the, that, it. This set consists largely 0f the functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns.

Free morphemes are identical with root words, as each of them consists of a single free root, e.g. man, earth, wind, car. Therefore, we might as well say that free morphemes are free roots. (Root words are words that only have one morpheme, and such words are also called Monomorphemic words.)

②Bound Morphemes (粘附词素)

Morphemes which can mot occur (stand alone) as separate words are bound morphemes. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words. All the affixes in English are bound morphemes. Let‘s take recollection, idealistic and ex-prisoner for example.

?recollection (re + collect + ion)

?idealistic (ideal + ist + ic )

?ex-prisoner (ex + prison +er)

Each of the three words comprises three morphemes, there are altogether nine morphemes, of which only collect, ideal and prison can exist by themselves. They are free morphemes.

All the rest re-,-ion, -ist, -ic, ex- and –er are bound morphemes as none of them are freestanding units.

?※Bound morphemes include two types: bound root and affix.

①Bound root —— a bound root is that part of word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. Unlike a free root, it is a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make words.

e.g. a. antecedent (ante + ced + ent)

before approach /go to a person, a thing thus the whole word antecedent meaning something that goes before.

b. contradict (contra + dict)

= against + say/ speak

c. predict (pre + dict)→pre (before) →prefix

In English, bound roots are either Latin or Greek. Although they are limited in number, their productive power is amazing. The following bound roots are frequently used:

?※– ced –去，到antecedent ( 先行词)

– dict –说，讲contradict , predict

?toler- 容忍、忍受tolerate, tolerance,

tolerable

?t ele- 遥远telephone, telegram,

telescope

?-phone 声音microphone, megaphone

?-gram 书写或描绘出来的东西

telegram, chromatogram 色谱图

?-scope 观察的仪器，……镜

microscope, stethoscope 听诊器

?cred- 信任credit, credence, incredible

?d ur- 持续during, duration,

durable

?hydro- 水：dehydrate, hydraulic

?chron- 时间：chronological, chronicle

(编年史)

?demo- 人民：democracy, demography

(人口统计学)

?agr- 耕作：agriculture, agrarian

(耕地的、土地的)

? kilo- 一千：kilometer, kilogram

?-nym 名称：pseudonym (假名), antonym (反义词) ?-ped 足：centipede (蜈蚣), impede 阻止，妨碍?rupt- 破裂：rupture (裂开), abrupt

? -gress 运动：progress, digress –vi 离题、转向

? poly - 多方面的：polygon (多边形), polyglot 通晓多种语言的（人）

? syn –完全相同的：synchronic 共时的, sympathy

?向

?

②Affixes: affixes are forms that are attached to words or

word elements to modify meaning or function ( all affixes are bound morphemes ).

According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional and derivational affixes.

?※a. Inflectional affixes: affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional affixes, and also known as inflectional morphemes.

The main inflectional affixes in English are:

? - (e) s — plural number

? - (e) s — third person singular present tense

? - ing — progressive aspect (进行体)

? - er — comparative degree

? - est — superlative degree

? - ‘s — possessive case

?b. derivational affixes: are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words.

Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes come before the word and the suffixes after the word, for instance: irresponsible, impossible, northward, bloody.

4. Root and stem

①root—a root is that part of a wordform that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed.

In the word internationalists, removing inter-, -al, -ist, -s ,leaves the root nation.

②stem — 1) a stem is that part of a word when an inflectional (not derivational) affix is removed.

2) a stem is a form to which affixes of any kind can be added.

※A stem may consist a single root as in iron or of two root morphemes as in a compound handcuff. It can be a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes as in mouthful, underestimate.

※If a stem consists of a single morpheme it is also called

a root.

※undesirables: undesirable, desirable (stem)

desire (stem, root)

Questions and Tasks

? 1.Explain the following terms and provide examples: ? a. morpheme b. allomorph

? c. free and bound morphemes

? 2. What are the differences between inflectional and derivational affixes?