Morpheme Variants

Phonology revisited

· phonemes commonly have phonetic variants

o allophones that are sensitive to the environments in which the phoneme may occur in morphemes and words

o allophonic variants of a given phoneme occur in mutually exclusive environments - they are in complementary distribution

o their environments never overlap, so they can never contrast

Morphology

The plural of English nouns: a case study

The "regular" plural formation

compare and contrast the phonemic shapes of the singular : plural pairs of English nouns

lace : laces buzz : buzzes bush : bushes
judge :judges hunch : hunches mirage : mirages

top : tops pot : pots lock : locks

laugh : laughs path : paths cat : cats

tub : tubs bid : bids dog : dogs

drive : drives bee : bees bay : bays

bell: bells ham : hams hen : hens

· three phonemic variants of 'plural' in each of the three lists

/-әz/

/-s/

/-z/

· these phonemic variants are conditioned by the phonetic environment in which they occur, that is, they are environmentally conditioned

/-әz/ after any alveodental or palatal obstruent containing "friction",
i.e., fricatives or affricates: /s/, /z/, /ò/ /tò/ /dζ/

/-s/ after voiceless phonemes: /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/

/-z/ after voiced phonemes: /b/, /d/. /g/, /v/, /ð/

· phonemic variants that are environmentally conditioned are called allomorphs of a morpheme

o allomorphs of a morpheme are mutually exclusive, that is, they are in complementary distribution

Morphophonemic alternations

· the morphological module contains not only a set of rules that specify how morphemes can be assembled into words, but also another, separate set of rules that describe allomorphic alternations

o morphophonemic alternations - alternations in the phonemic shapes of morphemes, and

o morphophonemic rules - rules that describe morphophonemic alternations

Irregular plural formations

other plural formations in English are considered irregular

s ox : oxen, child : children

s man : men, mouse : mice, woman : women, goose : geese

s deer : deer, moose : moose, fish : fish

s cactus : cacti, alumnus : alumni, radius : radii

s medium : media, datum : data

s alumna : alumnae, ulna : ulnae

s axis : axes, parenthesis : parentheses, thesis : theses

s criterion : criteria

Regular vs. irregular formations

· regular formations are generally the "default" formation

o greatly outnumber irregular formations

o apply to new words: singular fridge (from refrigerator) à plural fridges

o native speakers systematically produce plurals of nonsense (imaginary) singular nouns according the regular formation
singular wug à plural wugs

o often spread at the expense of irregular formations

s the plural of cow was at one time kine

s a new plural cows, based on the regular formation, replaced it

o native speakers, especially children, often make errors reflecting the application of the regular in place of irregular forms

s *oxes or *mans, for oxen or men in the speech of young children

s media as singular in the speech of many adults

The media is often irresponsible.

· irregular forms represent

o historically older formations that were at one time much more
wide spread

o plural formations in the languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) from which they've been borrowed into English

o apply to new words
singular fridge (from refrigerator) à plural fridges

· suppletion - acute irregular formations in which there is virtually no relationship among related forms

s nice -- nicer -- nicest and good -- better -- best

s I/you/we/they hit -- he/she/it hits and I am -- you/we/they are -- he/she/it is

s I call -- I called and I am -- I was