Word Structure

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Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Segmentation of Words into Morphemes

2. Principles of Morphemic Analysis. Types of Word Segment ability

3. Classification of Morphemes

4. Procedure of Morphemic Analysis

5. Morphemic Types of Words

6. Derivative Structure

7. Derivative Relations

8. Derivational Bases

9. Derivational Affixes

10. Semi-Affixes

11. Derivational Patterns

12. Derivational Types of Words

13. Historical Changeability of Word-Structure

Conclusions

Material for Reference

Introduction

Although the ordinary 'speaker is acutely word-conscious and usually finds no difficulty either in isolating words from an utterance or in identifying them in the process of communication, the precise linguistic definition of a word is far from easy to state; no exhaustive definition of the word has yet been given by linguists.

The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit possessing both form and content or, to be more exact, sound form and meaning. Neither can exist without the other. For example, [?imbl] is a word within the framework of the English language primarily because it has the lexical meaning -- `a small cap of metal, plastic, etc. worn on the finger in sewing.' - (russ. наперсток) and the grammatical meaning of the Common case, singular. In other languages it is not a word, but a meaningless sound-cluster.

When used in actual speech the word undergoes certain modification and functions in one of its forms.

The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its paradigm. The lexical meaning of а word is the same throughout the paradigm, i.e. all the word-forms of one and the same word are lexically identical. The grammatical meaning varies from one form to another (cf. to take, takes, took, taking or singer, singers, singers, singers'). Therefore, when we speak of the word singer or the word take as used in actual utterances (cf., His brother is a well-known singer or I wonder who has taken my umbrella) we use the term word conventionally, because what is manifested in the speech event is not the word as a whole but one of its forms which is identified as belonging to one definite paradigm.

There are two approaches to the paradigm: (a) as a system of forms of one word it reveals the differences and relationships between them; (b) in abstraction from concrete words it is treated as a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its forms, thus serving to distinguish one part of speech from another. Cf. the noun paradigm -- ( ), -'s, -s, -s' as distinct from that of the regular verb -- ( ),-s, -ed1, -ed2, -ing, etc.

Besides the grammatical forms of words, i.e. word-forms, some scholars distinguish lexical varieties which they term variants of words. Distinction is made between two basic groups of variants of words.

In actual speech a word or to be more exact a polysemantic word is used in, one of its meanings. Such a word in one of its meanings is described as lexico-semantic variant. Thus Group one comprises lexico-semantic variants, i.e. polysemantic words in each of their meanings, as exemplified by the meaning of the verb to learn in word-groups like to learn at school, cf. to learn about (of) smth, etc.

Group Two comprises phonetic and morphological variants. As examples of phonetic variants the pronouncing variants of the adverbs often and again can be given, cf. ['o:fn] and ['o:ftэn], [э'gein] and [э'gen]. The two variant forms of the past indefinite tense of verbs like to learn illustrate morphological variants, cf. learned [-d] and learnt [-t]. Parallel formations of the geologic -- geological, phonetic -- phonetical type also enter the group of morphological variants.

It may be easily observed that the most essential feature of variants of words of both groups is that a slight change in the morphemic or phonemic composition of a word is not connected with any modification of its meaning and, vice versa, a change in meaning is not followed by any structural changes, either morphemic or phonetic. Like word-forms variants of words are identified in the process of communication as making up one and the same word. Thus, within the language system the word exists as a system and unity of all its forms and variants.

1. Segmentation of Words into Morphemes

Close observation and comparison of words clearly shows that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of smaller units, each possessing sound-form and meaning. These are generally referred to as morphemes defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units. For instance, words like boiler, driller fall into the morphemes boil-, drill- and -er by virtue of the recurrence of the morpheme -er in these and other similar words and of the morphemes boil- and drill- in to boil, a boil, boiling and to drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press, etc. Likewise, words like flower-pot and shoe-lace are segmented into the morphemes flower-, pot-, shoe- and lace- (cf. flower-show, flowerful, etc., shoe-brush, shoeless, etc., on the one hand; and pot-lid, pottery, etc., lace-boots, lacing, etc., on the other).

Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.

Morphemes cannot be segmented into smaller units without losing their constitutive essence, i.e. two-facetedness, association of a certain meaning with a given sound-pattern, cf. the morpheme lace- denoting 'a string or cord put through small holes in shoes', etc.; 'to draw edges together' and the constituent phonemes [l], [ei], [s] entirely without meaning.

Identification of morphemes in various texts shows that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes.

In the word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes: [pli:z] in please, pleasing, [plez] in pleasure and [plez] in pleasant. In such cases we say that the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants. Thus [pli:z, plez] and [рlез] are allomorphs of одеand the same morpheme.

The root-morphemes in the word-cluster duke, ducal, duchess, duchy or poor, poverty may also serve as examples of the allomorphs of one morpheme.

2. Principles of MorphemicAnalysis. Types of WordSegmentability

As far as the complexity of the morphemic structure of the word is concerned all English words fall into two large classes. To Class I belongsegmentable words, i.e. those allowing of segmentation into morphemes, e.g. agreement, information, fearless, quickly, door-handle, etc. To Сlass II belong non-segmentable words, i.e. those not allowing of such segmentation, e.g. house, girl, woman, husband, etc.

The operation of breaking a segmentable word into the constituent morphemes is referred to in present-day linguistic literature as the analysis of word-structure on the morphemic level. The morphemic analysis aims at splitting a segmentable word into its constituent morphemes -- the basic units at this level of word-structure analysis -- and at determining their number and types. The degree of morphemic segment-ability is not the same for different words.

Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished: complete, conditional and defective.

Complete segmentability is characteristic of a great many words the morphemic structure of which is transparent enough, as their individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word lending them easily to isolation.

As can be easily seen from the examples analysed above, the transparent morphemic structure of a segmentable word is conditioned by the fact that its constituent morphemes recur with the same meaning in a number of other words. There are, however, numerous words in the English vocabulary the morphemic structure of which is not so transparent and easy to establish as in the cases mentioned above.

Conditional morphemic segmentability characterises words whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons. In words like retain, contain, detain or receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [ri-], [di-], [кэn-] seem, on the one hand, to be singled out quite easily due to their recurrence in a number of words, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical morphemes re-, de- as found in words like rewrite, re-organise, deorganise, decode; neither the sound-clusters [ri-] or [di-] nor the [-tern] or [-si:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. The type of meaning that can be ascribed to them is only a differential and a certain distributional meaning: the [ri-] distinguishes retain from detain and the [-tern] distinguishes retain from receive, whereas their order and arrangement point to the status of the re-, de-, con-, per- as different from that of the -tain and -ceive within the structure of the words. The morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability thus differ from morphemes making up words of complete segmentability in that the former do not rise to the full status of morphemes for semantic reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in linguistic literature: such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes or quasi-morphemes. It should be mentioned that there is no unanimity on the question and there are two different approaches to the problem. Those linguists who recognise pseudo-morphemes, i.e. consider it sufficient for a morpheme to have only a differential and distributional meaning to be isolated from a word regard words like retain, deceive, etc. as segmentable; those who deem it necessary for a morpheme to have some denotational meaning qualify them as non-segmentable words.

Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words. One of thecomponent morphemes is a unique morpheme in the sense that it does not, as a rule, recur in a different linguistic environment.

A unique morpheme is isolated and understood as meaningful because the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational meaning. There is no doubt that in the nouns streamlet, ringlet, leaflet, etc. the morpheme -let has the denotational meaning of diminutiveness and is combined with the morphemes stream-, ring-, leaf-, etc. each having a clear denotational meaning. Things are entirely different with the word hamlet. The morpheme -let retains the same meaning of diminutive-ness, but the sound-cluster [h?m] that is left after the isolation of the morpheme -let does not recur in any other English word with anything like the meaning it has in the word hamlet. It is likewise evident that the denotational and the differential meaning of [h?m] which distinguishes hamlet from streamlet, ringlet, etc. is upheld by the denotational meaning of -let. The same is exemplified by the word pocket which may seem at first sight non-segmentable. However, comparison with such words as locket, hogget, lionet, cellaret, etc. leads one to the isolation of the morpheme -et having a diminutive meaning, the more so that the morphemes lock-, hog-, lion-, cellar-, etc. recur in other words (cf. lock, locky; hog, hoggery; lion, lioness; cellar, cellarage). At the same time the isolation of the morpheme -et leaves in the word pocket the sound-cluster [роk] that does not occur in any other word of Modern English but obviously has a status of a morpheme with a denotational meaning as it is the lexical nucleus of the word. The morpheme [роk] clearly carries a differential and distributional meaning as it distinguishes pocket from the words mentioned above and thus must be qualified as a unique morpheme.

The morphemic analysis of words like cranberry, gooseberry, strawberry shows that they also possess defective morphemic segmentability: the morphemes cran-, goose-, straw- are unique morphemes.

The oppositions that the different types of morphemic segmentability are involved in hardly require any comments with the exception of complete and conditional segmentability versus defective segmentability. This opposition is based on the ability of the constituent morphemes to occur in a unique or a non-unique environment. In the former case the linguist deals with defective, in the latter with complete and conditional segmentability. The distinction between complete and conditional segmentability is based on semantic features of morphemes proper and pseudo-morphemes.

Thus on the level of morphemic analysis the linguist has to operate with two types of elementary units, namely full morphemes and pseudo-(quasi-)morphemes. It is only full morphemes that are genuine structural elements of the language system so that the linguist must primarily focus his attention on words of complete morphemic segmentability.

On the other hand, a considerable percentage of words of conditional anddefective segmentabilitysignal a relatively complex character of the morphological system of the language in question, reveals the existence of various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary.

3. Classification of Morphemes

Morphemes may be classified:

from the semantic point of view,

from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, -fill are understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable.

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a ward; it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. Besides it may also possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes¹ except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, for example the morpheme teach-in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor- in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc.

Non-root morphemes include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stem -- the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes. Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalised lexical meaning.

b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, semi-free (semi- bound) morphemes. A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend -- of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend. A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-,dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease, to decipher). Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with `roots or affixes'. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes. Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory, theoretical, etc., barbar-in barbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive in conceive, perceive, etc. Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour,” on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done. The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes discussed above can be graphically presented in the following diagram:

Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of morphemes should be specially mentioned.

To the first group belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called combining forms, e.g. telephone, telegraph, phonoscope, microscope, etc. The morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, micro-, phone- are characterised by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic reference: tele- means `far', graph- means `writing', scope -- 'seeing', micro- implies smallness, phone- means 'sound.' Comparing words with tele- as their first constituent, such as telegraph, telephone, telegram one may conclude that tele- is a prefix and graph-, phone-, gram-are root-morphemes. On the other hand, words like phonograph, seismograph, autograph may create the impression that the second morpheme graph is a suffix and the first -- a root-morpheme. This undoubtedly would lead to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix which runs counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is only one solution to this problem; these morphemes are all bound root-morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of-speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes evidences their status as roots.The second group embraces morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.

The root-morpheme man- found in numerous words like postman ['poustmэn], fisherman [fi?эmэn], gentleman ['d3entlmэn] in comparison with the same root used in the words man-made ['m?nmeid] and man-servant ['m?n,sэ:vэnt] is, as is well-known, pronounced, differently, the [?] of the root-morpheme becomes [э] and sometimes disappears altogether. The phonetic reduction of the root vowel is obviously due to the decreasing semantic value of the morpheme and some linguists argue that in words like cabman, gentleman, chairman it is now felt as denoting an agent rather than a male adult, becoming synonymous with the agent suffix -er. However, we still recognise the identity of [man] in postman, cabman and [m?n] in man-made, man-servant. Abrasion has not yet completely disassociated the two, and we can hardly regard [man] as having completely lost the status of a root-morpheme. Besides it is impossible to say she is an Englishman (or a gentleman) and the lexical opposition of man and woman is still felt in most of these compounds (cf. though Madam Chairman in cases when a woman chairs a sitting and even all women are tradesmen). It follows from all this that the morpheme -man as the last component may be qualified as semi-free.

4. Procedure of Morphemic Analysis

morphemes word relations

The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words into the constituent morphemes is the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on a binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs). For example the noun friendliness is first segmented into the IC friendly recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and the -ness found in a countless number of nouns, such as happiness, darkness, unselfishness, etc. The IC -ness is at the same time a UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC friendly is next broken into the ICs friend-and -ly recurring in friendship, unfriendly, etc. on the one hand, and wifely, brotherly, etc., on the other. Needless to say that the ICs friend-and -ly are both UCs of the word under analysis.

The procedure of segmenting a word into its Ultimate Constituent morphemes, may be conveniently presented with the help of a box-like diagram

In the diagram showing the segmentation of the noun friendliness the lower layer contains the ICs resulting from the first cut, the upper one those from the second, the shaded boxes representing the ICs which are at the same time the UCs of the noun.

The morphemic analysis according to the IC and UC may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root principle and the affix principle. According to the affix principle the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words; for example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless, hopeless, merciless, etc., into the suffixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a word-cluster; the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree makes it possible to split these words into the root -agree- and the affixational morphemes -able, -ment, dis-. As a rule, the application of one of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

5. Morphemic Types of Words

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphicand polymorphic. Monomorphiсor root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All pоlуmоrphiсwords according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: monoradical (or one-rootwords) and polyradical words, i.e. words which consist of two or more roots. Monoradical words fall into two subtypes: 1) radical-suffixal words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes, e.g. acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.; 2)radical-prefixal words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc. and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal, i.e. words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g. disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.

Polyradical words fall into two types: 1) polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes, e.g. book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc. and 2) words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes, e.g. safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc.

6. Derivative Structure

The analysis of the morphemic composition of words defines the ultimate meaningful constituents (UCs), their typical sequence and arrangement, but it does not reveal the hierarchy of morphemes making up the word, neither does it reveal the way a word is constructed, nor how a new word of similar structure should be understood. The morphemic analysis does not aim at finding out the nature and arrangement of ICs which underlie the structural and the semantic type of the word, e.g. words unmanly and discouragement morphemically are referred to the same type as both are segmented into three UCs representing one root, one prefixational and one suffixational morpheme. However the arrangement and the nature of ICs and hence the relationship of morphemes in these words is different -- in unmanly the prefixational morpheme makes one of the ICs, the other IC is represented by a sequence of the root and the suffixational morpheme and thus the meaning of the word is derived from the relations between the ICs un- and manly- (`not manly'), whereas discouragement rests on the relations of the IC discourage- made up by the combination of the. prefixational and the root-morphemes and the suffixational morpheme -ment for its second IC (`smth that discourages'). Hence we may infer that these three-morpheme words should be referred to different derivational types: unmanly to a prefixational and discouragement to a suffixational derivative.

The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word are known as its derivative structure. Though the derivative structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, it differs from it in principle.

7. Derivative Relations

According to the derivative structure all words fall into two big classes: simplexes or simple, non-derived words and complexes or derivatives. Simplexes are words which derivationally cannot' be segmented into ICs. The morphological stem of simple words, i.e. the part of the word which takes on the system of grammatical inflections is semantically non-motivated and independent of other words, e.g. hand, come, blue, etc. Morphemically it may be monomorphic in which case its stem coincides with the free root-morpheme as in, e.g., hand, come, blue, etc. or polymorphic in which case it is a sequence of bound morphemes as in, e.g., anxious, theory, public, etc.

Derivatives are words which depend on some other simpler lexical items that motivate them structurally and semantically, i.e. the meaning and the structure of the derivative is understood through the comparison with the meaning and the structure of the source word. Hence derivatives are secondary, motivated units, made up as a rule of two ICs, i.e. binary units, e.g. words like friendliness, unwifely, school-masterish, etc. are made up of the ICs friendly + -ness, un- + wifely, schoolmaster+-ish. The ICs are brought together according to specific rules of order and arrangement preconditioned by the system of the language. It follows that all derivatives are marked by the fixed order of their ICs.

The basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are: derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns which differ from the units of the morphemic structure of words (different types of morphemes). The relationsbetween words with a common root but of different derivative structure are known as derivative relations. The derivative and derivative relations make the subject of study at the derivational level of analysis; it aims at establishing correlations between different types of words, the structural and semantic patternswords are built on, the study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the language.

The constituents of the derivative structure are functional units, i.e. units whose function is to indicate relationship between different classes of words or differently-behaving words of the same class and to signal the formation of new words. It follows that derivational functions are proper to different linguistic units which thus serve as ICs of a derivative. It must be also noted that the difference between classes of words is signalled by both the derivative structure of the word, or to be more exact by the stem it shapes, and by the set of paradigmatic inflections that this structure presupposes. For example, the nominal class of words to which derivatives like historian, teacher, lobbyist are referred is signalled by both the derivative structure, i.e. the unity of their ICs history+-ian, teach+ + -er lobby + -ist shaping the stems of these words -- and the nominal set of paradigmatic inflections which these stems precondition, i.e. histori-an(O), historian(s), historian('s), historian(s'). The class of words like enrich, enlarge is likewise signalled by their derivative structure (en- + +rich, en-+large) and the verbal set of paradigmatic inflexions. Hence the paradigmatic systems of different classes of words have, among their functions, the function of distinguishing the formal make-up of word classes. It follows that the paradigmatic system of inflections in cases of meaningful absence of the 1Сwhich determines the class membership of the motivated stem functions as the sole indication of its derived nature.

8. Derivational Bases

A derivational base as a functional unit is defined as the constituent to whom a rule of word-formation is applied. It is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the difference between words in one and the same derivative set, for example the individual lexical meaning of words like singer, rebuilder, whitewasher, etc. which all denote active doers of action, is signalled by the lexical meaning of the derivational bases sing-, rebuild-, whitewash- which establish connection with the motivating source verb.

Structurally derivational bases fall into three classes: 1) bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity, e.g. dutiful, dutifully; day-dream, to day-dream, daydreamer; 2) bases that coincide with word-forms; e.g. paper-bound, unsmiling, unknown; 3) bases that coincide with word-grоups of different degrees of stability, e ,g. second-rateness, flat-waisted, etc.

1. Bases built on stems of different degree of complexity make the largest `and commonest group of components of derivatives of various classes, e.g. un-button, girl-ish; girlish-ness, colour-blind-ness, ex-filmstar, etc. Bases of this class are functionally and semantically distinct from all kinds of stems. Functionally, the morphological stem is the part of the word which is the starting point for its forms; it is thepart which semantically presents a unity of lexical and functional meanings thus predicting the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all word-forms; it keeps them together preserving the identity cf the word. Thus the stems in the above-given words are ex-filmstar, unbutton which remain unchanged in all the forms of each word as, e.g., ex-filmstar(O), ex-filmstar(s), ex-filmstar('s), ex-filmstar(s). Stems are characterised by a phonetic identity with the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole (the common case singular, the infinitive, etc.).

A derivational base unlike a stem does not predict' the part of speech of the derivative, it only outlines a possible range and nature of the second IC and it is only the unity of both that determines the lexical-grammatical class of the derivative. A derivational base is the starting-point for different words and its derivational potential outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. The nominal base for example, hand- gives rise to nouns, e.g. hand-rail, hand-bag, shorthand, handful, to adjectives, e.g. handy, or verbs, e.g. to hand. Similarly the base rich- may be one of the ICs of the noun richness, the adjective gold-rich, or the verb to enrich.

Semantically the stem stands for the whole semantic structure of the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base, semantically, is also different in that it represents, as a rule, only one meaning of the source word or its stem. The derivatives glassful and glassy, e.g., though connected with the stem of the same source word are built on different derivational bases,, as glassful is the result of the application of the word-formation rule to the meaning of the source word `drinking vessel or its contents', whereas glassy -- to the meaning `hard, transparent, easily-broken substance'. Derivatives fiery, fire-place, to fire, fire-escape, firearm, all have bases built on the stem of the same source noun fire, but the words like fire-escape fire-engine and fire-alarm are semantically motivated by the meaning `destructive burning', the words firearms, ceasefire, (to) fire are motivated by another meaning 'shooting', whereas the word fiery (as in fiery speech, eyes) is motivated by the meaning 'strong emotion, excited feeling'. The same difference can be exemplified by the words starlet, starry, starlike, starless which are all motivated by the derivational base meaning `a heavenly body seen in the night as distant point of light', as compared to stardom, starlet, to star motivated by the base meaning `a person famous as actor, singer' though both represent the same morphological stem of the word star.

Stems that serve as this class of bases may themselves be different morphemically and derivationally thus forming derivational bases of different degrees of complexity which affects the range and scope of their collocability and their derivational capacity. Derivationally the stems may be:

a) simple, which consist of only one, semantically nonmotivated constituent. The most characteristic feature of simple stems in Modern English is the phonetic and graphic identity with the root-morpheme and the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole.

As has been mentioned elsewhere simple stems may be both monomorphic units and morphemic sequences made up of bound and pseudo-morphemes, hence morphemically segmentable stems in such words as pocket, motion, retain, horrible, etc. should be regarded as derivationally simple.

b) derived stems are semantically and structurally motivated, and are the results of the application of word-formation rules; it follows that they are as a rule binary, i.e. made up of two ICs, and polymorphic, e.g. the derived stem of the word girlish is understood on the basis of derivative relations between girl and girlish; the derived stem of a greater complexity girlishness is based on the derivative relations between girlish and girlishness. This is also seen in to weekend, to daydream which is derived from the nouns week-end and day-dream and is motivated by the derivative relations between the noun and the verb.

Derived stems, however, are not necessarily polymorphic.

It especially concerns derivatives with a zero IC, i.e. meaningful absence of the derivational means in which case the distinction between the stem of the source word and the motivated stem of the derivative is signalled by the difference in paradigmatic sets of inflections which they take.

For example, the stem of the verb (to) parrot, though it consists of one overt constituent and is a one-morpheme word, should be considered derived as it is felt by a native speaker as structurally and semantically dependent on the simple stem of the noun parrot and because it conveys a regular relationship between these two classes of words -- verbs and nouns. The same is true of the stems in such words as (to) winter, a cut, a drive, etc.

c) compound stems are always binary and semantically motivated, but unlike the derived stems both ICs of compound stems are stems themselves. The derivative structure and morphemic composition of each IC may be of different degree of complexity, for example, the compound stem of the noun match-box consists of two simple stems, the stem of the noun letter-writer -- of one simple and one derived stem, and the stem aircraft-carrier -- of a compound and derived stem.

The structural complexity of the derivational bases built on derived and compound stems is a heavy constraint imposed on the collocability and semantic freedom of these bases and consequently on their derivative potential. Compare, for example, the derivational capacity of the simple stem girl, which can give rise to girly, girlish, girlless, girl-friend, and the limited capacity of girlish which gives only girlishness and girlishly.

2. The second class of derivational bases is made up of word-forms. It is obvious that word-forms functioning as parts of the word lose all syntactic properties they possess in independent use. This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms -- the present and the past participles -- which regularly function as ICs of non-simple adjectives, adverbs and nouns. The collocability of this class of derivational bases is confined tojust a few derivational affixes such as the prefix un-, the suffix -ly, in e.g. unnamed, unknown, unwrapped, etc., smilingly, knowingly, etc. The derivational bases in question may be also collocated with other bases which coincide only with nominal and adjectival stems, e.g. mockingbird, dancing-girl, ice-bound, time-consuming, ocean-going, easy-going, etc.

3. The third class of derivational bases is made up of word-groups. Free word-groups make up the greater part of this class of bases. Like word-forms, word-groups serving as derivational bases lose their morphological and syntactic properties proper to them as self-contained lexical units. Bases of this class also allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns, e.g. in words like blue-eyed, long-fingered, old-worldish, dogooder, second-rateness, etc.

Thus, we may conclude that each class of bases, though it makes use of one of the structural units of vocabulary, is distinct from it and differs from it both in form and meaning. The greater the degree of structural complexity of the base the more limited its derivative potential.

9. Derivational Affixes

Derivational affixes are ICs of numerous derivatives in all parts of speech. Derivational affixes differ from affixational morphemes in their function within the word, in their distribution and in their meaning. Derivational affixes possess two basic functions: 1) that of stem-building which is common to all affixational morphemes: derivational and non-derivational. It is the function of shaping a morphemic sequence, or a word-form or a phrase into the part of the word capable of taking a set of grammatical inflections and is conditioned by the part-of-speech meaning these morphemes possess; 2) that of word-building which is the function of repatterning a derivational base and building a lexical unit of a structural and semantic type different from the one represented by the source unit. The repatterning results in either transferring it into the stem of another part of speech or transferring it into another subset within the same part of speech. For example, the derivational suffix -ness applied to bases of different classes shapes derived stems thus making new words. In kindliness, girlishness, etc. it repatterns the adjectival stems kindly-, girlish-, in second-rate-ness, allatonceness it turns the phrases second rate, all at once into stems and consequently forms new nouns. In most cases derivational affixes perform both functions simultaneously shaping derived stems and marking the relationship between different classes of lexical items. However, certain derivational affixes may in individual sets of words perform only one function that of stem-building. The derivational suffix -ic for example performs both functions in words like historic, economic, classic as it is applied to bases history-, economy-, class- and forms stems of words of a different part of speech. But the same suffix -ic in public, comic, music performs only its stem-building function shaping in this case a simplestem. The same is true of the suffix -ous in such words as joyous, courageous, famous as compared with anxious, conscious, curious. Stem-building is the common function shared by both derivational and non-derivational morphemes, but with the non-derivational morphemes it is the only structural function. Besides, the non-derivational affixes shape only simple stems, for example, the morpheme -id in stupid, rapid, acid, humid; the morpheme -ish in publish, distinguish, and languish. It follows that non-derivational morphemes are not applied to stems, but only to root-morphemes or morpheme sequences.

Semantically derivational affixes are characterised by a unity of part-of-speech meaning, lexical meaning and other types of morphemic meanings unlike non-derivational morphemes which, as a rule, lack the lexical type of meaning. It is true that the part-of-speech meaning is proper in different degrees to the derivational suffixes and prefixes. It stands out clearly in derivational suffixes but it is less evident in prefixes; some prefixes lack it altogether, in others it is very vague and in this case it finds expression in the fact that these prefixes tend to function in either nominal or verbal parts of speech. Prefixes like en-, un-, de-, out-, be-, unmistakably possess the part-of-speech meaning and function as verb classifiers when they make an independent IC of the derivative, e.g. deice, unhook, enslave; derivational prefixes a-, un-possess the adjectival part-of-speech meaning, e.g. unhesitating, unknown, unkind, etc., amoral, asynthetic, asymmetric, etc. In prefixes со-, under-, mis- this type of meaning is vague but they tend to be active in one part of speech only:' со- in nominal parts of speech (i.e. nouns and adjectives), e.g. copilot, co-star, co-president; mis- and under- are largely verbal prefixes, e.g. underwork, underdo, underfeed, etc. The prefix over-evidently lacks the part-of-speech meaning and is freely used both for verbs and adjectives; the same may be said about non-, pre-, post-. The lexical meaning in derivational affixes also has its peculiarities and may be viewed at different levels.

The lexical (denotational) meaning of a generic type proper mostly not to an individual affix but to a set of affixes, forming a semantic subset such as, for example, the meaning of resemblance found in suffixes -ish, -like, -y, -ly (spiderish, spiderlike, spidery); the causative meaning proper to the prefix en- (enslave, enrich), the suffixes -ise (-ize), -(i)fy (brutalise, formalise, beautify, simplify, etc.); the meaning of absence conveyed by the prefix un- and the suffix -less; the meaning of abstract quality conveyed by the suffixes -ness, -ity, etc.

On the other hand derivational affixes possess another type of lexical meaning -- an individual meaning shared by no other affix and thus distinguishing this particular affix from all other members, of the same semantic group. For example, suffixes -ish, -like, -y all have the meaning of resemblance, but -like conveys an overall resemblance,-ish conveys likeness to the inner, most typical qualities of the object, -y in most cases conveys likeness to outer shape, form, size of the object. Suffixes -er, -ist both possess the meaning of the agent, but the distinguishing feature of the suffix -er is that it conveys the meaning of the active doer (animate or inanimate), whereas -ist conveys the meaning of profession (flutist, biologist) and followers of principles and beliefs (socialist, leftist) and thus has the meaning only of human beings. Derivational affixes semantically may be both mono- and polysemantic.

Derivational affixes are highly selective and each is applied to a specific set of bases which is due to the distributional type of meaning found in all affixes. All affixes are selective as to the structural peculiarities of bases (their morphemic, derivational, phonological and etymological features), some in addition are highly responsive to the lexical-semantic properties of the bases they are collocated with. For example, the adjectival suffix -able is collocated with verbal bases with practically no semantic constraints imposed on them. On the other hand the adjective-forming suffix -ful₁ is restricted in its collocability to nominal bases of abstract meaning (useful, beautiful), while its homonym the noun-forming -ful₂ also collocating with nominal bases chooses bases of concrete meaning and within this class only nouns which have in their semantic structure a semantic component `container' (chestful, lungful, bagful).

10. Semi-Affixes

There is a specific group of morphemes whose derivational function does not allow one to refer them unhesitatingly either to the derivational affixes or bases. In words like half-done, half-broken, half-eaten and ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-dressed the ICs half- and ill- are given in linguistic literature different interpretations: they are described both as bases and as derivational prefixes. The comparison of these ICs with the phonetically identical stems in independent words ill and half as used in such phrases as to speak ill of smb, half an hour ago makes it obvious that in words like ill-fed, ill-mannered, half-done the ICs ill- and half- are losing both their semantic and structural identity with the stems of the independent words. They are all marked by a different distributional meaning which is clearly revealed through the difference of their collocability as compared with the collocability of the stems of the independently functioning words. As to their lexical meaning they have become more indicative of a generalising meaning of incompleteness and poor quality than the individual meaning proper to the stems of independent words and thus they function more as affixational morphemes similar to the prefixes out-, over-, under-, semi-, mis- regularly forming whole classes of words. Besides, the high frequency of these morphemes in the above-mentioned generalised meaning in combination with the numerous bases built on past participles indicates their closer ties with derivational affixes than bases. Yet these morphemes retain certain lexical ties with the root-morphemes in the stems of independent words and that is why are felt as occupying an intermediate position, as morphemes that are changing theirlass membership regularly functioning as derivational prefixes but still retaining certain features of root-morphemes. That is why they are sometimes referred to as semi-affixes. To this group we should also refer well- and self- (well-fed, well-done, self-made), -man in words like postman, cabman, chairman, -looking in words like foreign-looking, alive-looking, strange-looking, etc.

11. Derivational Patterns

Neither bases nor affixes alone can predict all the structural and semantic properties of words the ICs of which they may be. It is the combination of bases and affixes that makes up derivatives of different structural and semantic classes. Both bases and affixes due to the distributional meaning they possess show a high degree of consistency in their selection and are collocated according to a set of rules known as derivational patterns. A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together. A pattern is a generalisation, a scheme indicative of the type of ICs, their order and arrangement which signals the part of speech, the structural and semantic peculiarities common to all the individual words for which the pattern holds true. Hence the derivational patterns (DP) may be viewed as classifiers of non-simple words into structural types and within them into semantic sets and subsets. DPs are studied with the help of distributional analysis at different levels. Patterns of derivative structures are usually represented in a generalised way in terms of conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d, питstand for the bases which coincide with the stems of the respective parts of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, numerals; v_ed, v_ing stand for the bases which are the past and present participles respectively. In words of the long-fingered or sit-inner type the derivational bases are represented by bracketed symbols of the parts of speech making up the corresponding collocations, for example (a+n)+ +-ed), (v+d) + er.

DPs may represent derivative structure at different levels of generalisation:

at the level of structural types specifying only the class membership of ICs and the direction of motivation, such as a+-sf -> N, prf- + +n -> V, prf- n -> N, n + -sf -> N, n + -sf -> V, etc. In terms of patterns of this type, known as structural formulas,¹ all words may be classified into four classes: suffixal derivatives, e.g. friendship, glorified, blackness, skyward; prefixal derivatives, e.g. rewrite, exboxer, non-smoker, un-happy, etc.; conversions, e.g. a cut, to parrot, to winter, etc.; compound words key-ring, music-lover, wind-driven, etc. But derivational formulas are not indicative either of any one lexical-grammatical or lexical class of words, as, for example, the formula a + -sf may equally represent suffixal nouns as in blackness, possibility and verbs, as in sharpen, widen, or adjectives as in blackish.

derivative structure and hence derivative types of words may be represented at the level of structural patterns which specify the baseclasses and individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives within certain structural classes of words. DPs of this level are based on the mutual interdependence of individual affixes and base classes and may be viewed in terms of each. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of speech and lexical subsets as, for example, v + -er -> N signals that the derivatives built on this pattern are de-verbal nouns which represent a semantic set of active agents, denoting both animate and inanimate objects, e.g. reader, runner, singer, unlike, for example, denominal nouns with the underlying pattern п+-еr -> N which stands for agents denoting residents or occupations, e.g. Londoner, villager, gardener. The DP n+-ish -> A signals a set of adjectives with the lexical meaning of resemblance, whereas a + -ish -> A signals adjectives meaning a small degree of quality, etc.