Page 294 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes • It frequently happens that a particular morpheme is not represented everywhere by the same
morph, but by different morphs in different environments. The alternative phonological
manifestation or representations of such a morpheme are called allomorphs or ‘morpheme
alternants’ or ‘morpheme variants’. An allomorph, therefore, is a non-distinctive variant of a
morpheme. Or, it may be called a family or class of morphs which are phonemically and
semantically identical, that is, an allomorph is “a family of morphs which are alike in two
ways: (i) in the allophones of which they are composed and, (ii) in the meaning which they
have”.
• The allomorphs are phonologically conditioned. Their forms are dependent on the adjacent
phonemes. Or else, they are morphologically conditioned. That is, when morphemes are affected
by their phonolgical environment ‘sandhi’, they become allomorphs. For example, /-z/,/-s/,
/-iz/ and / ∅ / are the various allomorphs of the plural morpheme {-z} in English.

21.11 Key-Words

1. Phonemics : The study and description of phonemes, i.e., the set of basic units of sound
used in a language and phonemic systems.
2. Phonetics : The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission,
and perception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription.
The science or study of speech sounds with respect to their role in
distinguishing meanings among words.
3. Phonology : The study of the history and theory of sound changes in a language or in
two or more languges comparatively.
4. Psycholinguistics : The studyof the relationships between language and the behavioral
mechanisms of its users, especially in language learning by children.
21.12 Review Questions

1. What is meant by morphology?
2. Distinguish between phonologically and morphologically conditioned allomorphs.
3. What is zero morph?
4. What is the ‘cranbery, morph’ problem?
5. Distinguish between a morpheme and an allomorph.
6. Distinguish between a phoneme and a morpheme?
7. Distinguish between inflection and derivation.
8. Distinguish between free and bound morphemes.
9. Explain briefly (i) the motivations for a morphological analysis; (ii) the formation of plural in
English and in your mother tongue; (iii) the functions of past tense form in English and in your
mother tongue.
10. What do you understand by morphological analysis?
Give examples of both ‘free’ and ‘bound’ morphemes.
11. Write a short note on phoneme, morpheme and grapheme.
21.13 Further Readings

1. Verma, S.K., V.N. Krishnaswamy. Modern Linguistics: An Introduction.
2. An Introduction to Linguistics, John Lyon.
3. Peter Roach: English phonetics and phonology. Cambridge University Press.
4. Encyclopedia of Linguistic Science Edited By V. Prakasam, Allied Pub.,
New Delhi.

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