The morphemic structure of the word.

The morpheme isthe elementary meaningful lingual unit built up from phonemes and used to make words. It has meaning, but its meaning is abstract, significative, not concrete, or nominative, as is that of the word. Morphemes constitute the words; they do not exist outside the words. Studying the morpheme we actually study the word: its inner structure, its functions, and the ways it enters speech.

Stating the differences between the word and the morpheme, we have to admit that the correlation between the word and the morpheme is problematic. The borderlines between the morpheme and the word are by no means rigid and there is a set of intermediary units (half-words - half-morphemes), which form an area of transitions (a continuum) between the word and the morpheme as the polar phenomena. This includes the so-called “morpheme-like” functional, or auxiliary words, for example, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, articles, particles, prepositions and conjunctions: they are realized as isolated, separate units (their separateness being fixed in written practice) but perform various grammatical functions; in other words, they function like morphemes and are dependent semantically to a greater or lesser extent. Cf..: Jack ’s, a boy, have done.

This approach to treating various lingual units is known in linguistics as “ a field approach ”: polar phenomena possessing the unambiguous characteristic features of the opposed units constitute “ the core ”, or “the center” of the field, while the intermediary phenomena combining some of the characteristics of the poles make up “ the periphery ” of the field; e.g.: functional words make up the periphery of the class of words since their functioning is close to the functioning of morphemes.

In traditional grammar, the study of the morphemic structure of the word is based on two criteria: the positional criterion - the location of the morphemes with regard to each other, and the semantic (or functional) criterion - the contribution of the morphemes to the general meaning of the word.

According to these criteria morphemes are divided into root-morphemes ( roots ) and affixal morphemes ( affixes ). Roots express the concrete, “material” part of the meaning of the word and constitute its central part. Affixes express thespecificational part of the meaning of the word: they specify, or transform the meaning of the root. Affixal specification may be of two kinds: of lexical or grammatical character. So, according to the semantic criterion affixes are further subdivided into lexical, or word-building (derivational) affixes, which together with the root constitute the stem of the word, and grammatical, or word-changing affixes, expressing different morphological categories, such as number, case, tense and others. With the help of lexical affixes new words are derived, or built; with the help of grammatical affixes the form of the word is changed.

According to the positional criterion affixes are divided into prefixes, situated before the root in the word, e.g.: under -estimate, and suffixes, situated after the root, e.g.: underestim- ate. Prefixes in English are only lexical: the word underestimate is derived from the word estimate with the help of the prefix under-. Suffixes in English may be either lexical or grammatical; e.g. in the word underestimates - ate is a lexical suffix, because it is used to derive the verb estimate (v) from the noun esteem (n), and –s is a grammatical suffix making the 3rd person, singular form of the verb to underestimate. Grammatical suffixes are also called inflexions (inflections, inflectional endings).

Grammatical suffixes in English have certain peculiarities, which make them different from inflections in other languages: since they are the remnants of the old inflectional system, there are few (only six) remaining word-changing suffixes in English: -(e)s, -ed, - ing, - er, - est, - en; most of them are homonymous, e.g. -(e)s is used to form the plural of the noun (dogs), thegenitive of the noun (my friend’s), and the 3rd person singular of the verb (works); some of them have lost their inflectional properties and can be attached to units larger than the word, e.g.: his daughter Mary’s arrival. That is why the term “inflection” is seldom used to denote the grammatical components of words in English.

Grammatical suffixes form word-changing, or morphological paradigms of words, which can be observed to their full extent in inflectional languages, such as Russian, e.g.: стол – стола – столу – столом - о столе; morphological paradigms exist, though not on the same scale, in English too, e.g., the number paradigm of the noun: boy - boys.

Lexical affixes are primarily studied by lexicology with regard to the meaning which they contribute to the general meaning of the whole word. In grammar word-building suffixes are studied as the formal marks of the words belonging to different parts of speech; they form lexical (word-building, derivational) paradigms of words united by a common root, cf.:

to decide - decision - decisive - decisively

to incise - incision - incisive - incisively

Being the formal marks of words of different parts of speech, word-building suffixes are also grammatically relevant. But grammar study is primarily concerned with grammatical, word-changing, or functional affixes, because they change the word according to its grammatical categories and serve to insert the word into an utterance.

The morphemic structure of the word can be analyzed in a linear way; for example, in the following way: underestimates - W= {[Pr +(R+L)]+Gr}, where W denotes the word, R the root, L the lexical suffix, Pr the prefix, and Gr the grammatical suffix.

IC-analysis, like many other ideas employed in the study of the morphemes, was developed by an American linguist, Leonard Bloomfield, and his followers within the framework of an approach known as Descriptive Linguistics (or, Structural Linguistics). Immediate constituents analysis in structural linguistics starts with lingual units of upper levels: for example, the immediate constituents of a composite sentence might be clauses, each clause in turn might have noun phrase and verb phrase as constituents, etc.; the analysis continues until the ultimate constituents – the morphemes – are reached.

Besides prefixes and suffixes, some other positional types of affix are distinguished in linguistics: for example, regular vowel interchange which takes place inside the root and transforms its meaning “from within” can be treated as an infix, e.g.: a lexical infix – blood – to bleed; a grammatical infix – tooth – teeth. Grammatical infixes are also defined as inner inflections as opposed to grammatical suffixes which are called outer inflections. Since infixation is not a productive (regular) means of word-building or word-changing in modern English, it is more often seen as partial suppletivity .Full suppletivity takes place when completely different roots are paradigmatically united, e.g.: go – went.

When studying morphemes, we should distinguish morphemes as generalized lingual units from their concrete manifestations, or variants in specific textual environments; variants of morphemes are called “ allo-morphs ”.

Initially, the so-called allo-emic theory was developed in phonetics: in phonetics, phonemes, as the generalized, invariant phonological units, are distinguished from their concrete realizations, the allophones. For example, one phoneme is pronounced in a different way in different environments, cf.: you [ju:] - you know [ju]; in Russian, vowels are also pronounced in a different way in stressed and unstressed syllables, cf.: д о м - д о мой. The same applies to the morpheme, which is a generalized unit, an invariant, and may be represented by different variants, allo-morphs, in different textual environments. For example, the morpheme of the plural, -(e)s, sounds differently after voiceless consonants (bats), voiced consonants and vowels (rooms), and after fricative and sibilant consonants (clashes). So, [s], [z], [iz], which are united by the same meaning (the grammatical meaning of the plural), are allo-morphs of the same morpheme, which is represented as -(e)s in written speech.

 

COMPLEX SENTENCE

The complex sentence is a polypredicative construction built on the principle of subordination (hypotaxis). In paradigmatic presentation, the derivational history of the complex sentence is as follows: two or more base sentences are clausalized and joined into one construction; one of them performs the role of a matrix in relation to the others, the insert sentences. The matrix base sentence becomes the principal clause of the complex sentence and the insert sentences become its subordinate clauses, e.g.: The team arrived. + It caused a sensation. à When the team arrived, it caused a sensation.

The minimal complex sentence includes two clauses: the principal one and the subordinate one. This is the main type of complex sentences, first, in terms of frequency, and, second, in terms of its paradigmatic status, because a complex sentence of any volume can be analyzed into a combination of two-clause complex sentence units.

The principal clause positionally dominates the subordinate clause, which is embedded into it: even if the principal clause is incomplete and is represented by just one word, the subordinate clauses fill in the open positions, introduced by the principal clause, in the underlying simple sentence pattern, e.g.: What you see is what you get - What you see (the subject) is (the predicate) what you get (the object). Semantically, the two clauses are interconnected and form a semantico-syntactic unity: the existence of either of them is supported by the existence of the other.

The dominant positional status of the principal clause does not mean that it expresses the central informative part of the communication: any clause of a complex sentence can render its rheme or its theme. As in a simple sentence, in a neutral context the preceding part renders the starting point of communication, the theme, and the following part, placed near the end of the sentence, renders the most important information, the rheme, cf.: What he likes most about her is her smile. - Her smile is what he likes most about her. In the first sentence the principal part is rhematic, and in the second sentence the subordinate clause. Besides the clause-order, as with word-order in general, there are other means of expressing the correlative informative value of clauses in complex sentences, such as intonation, special constructions, emphatic particles and others.

The informative value of a principal clause may be reduced to the mere introduction of a subordinate clause; for example, the principal clause can perform the “phatic” function, i.e. the function of keeping up the conversation, of maintaining the immediate communicative connection with the listener, e.g.: I think you are a great parent; in this sentence, the basic information is rendered by the rhematic subordinate clause, while the principal clause is phatic, specifying the speaker’s attitude to thin formation.

Different types of complex sentences are distinguished, first of all, on the basis of their subordinate clause types. Subordinate clauses are classified on two mutually complementary bases: on the functional principle and on the categorial principle.

According to the functional principle, subordinate clauses are divided on the analogy (though, not identity) of the positional parts of the simple sentence that underlies the structure of the complex sentence. E.g.: What you see is what you get. - What you see (the subject, the subject subordinate clause) is what you get (the object, the object subordinate clause).

According to the categorial principle, subordinate clauses are divided by their inherent nominative properties; there is certain similarity (but, again, not identity) with the part-of-speech classification of words. Subordinate clauses can be divided into three categorial-semantic groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial. Substantive-nominal subordinate clauses name an event as a certain fact, e.g.: What you do is very important; cf.: What is very important? Qualification-nominal subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is referred, as a characteristic to some substance, represented either by a word or by another clause, e.g.: Where is the letter that came today?; cf.: What letter? Adverbial subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is referred, as a characteristic to another event, to a process or a quality, e.g.: I won’t leave until you come.

The two principles of subordinate clause classification are mutually complementary: the categorial features of clauses go together with their functional sentence-part features similar to the categorial features of words going together with their functional characteristics. Thus, subordinate clauses are to be classified into three groups: first, clauses of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and object clauses; second, clauses of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive clauses; and third, clauses of adverbial positions.

The classification of clauses is sustained by the subdivision of functional connective words, which serve as sentence subordinators (or subordinating clausalizers), transforming the base sentences into subordinate clauses of various types.

Subordinating connectors are subdivided into two basic types: pronominal words and pure conjunctions. Pronominal connective words occupy a notional position in the derived sentence; for example, some of them replace a certain antecedent (i.e. a word or phrase to which the connector refers back) in the principal clause, e.g.: The man whom I met yesterday surprised m e. Pure subordinate conjunctions do not occupy a notional position in the derived sentence, e.g.: She said that she would come early. Some connectors are bifunctional, i.e. used both as conjunctions and as conjunctive substitutes, cf.: She said that she would come early; Where is the letter that came today?

Semantically, subordinators (both conjunctions and conjunctive substitutes) are subdivided in correspondence with the categorial type of the subordinate clauses which they introduce: there are substantive-nominal and qualification-nominal clausalizers (conjunctions and pronominal words), which introduce the event-fact, and adverbial clausalizers (conjunctions), showing relational characteristics of events. Some connective words can be used both as nominal connectors and as adverbial connectors, cf.: Do you know when they are coming? (What do you know?) – We’ll meet when the new house is finished (When shall we meet?).

Together with these, the zero subordinator should be named, whose polyfunctional status is similar to the status of the subordinator that, cf.: She said that she would come early. – She said Ø she would come early; This is the issue that I planned to discuss with you. – This is the issue Ø I planned to discuss with you.

Clauses of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and object clauses, are interchangeable with each other, cf.: What you see is what you get; What you get is what you see; You’ll be surprised at what you see. The subject clause regularly expresses the theme of a complex sentence, and the predicative clause regularly expresses its rheme. The subject clause may express the rheme of the sentence, if it is introduced by the anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: It is true that he stole the jewels. The subject clause in such complex sentences is at the same time appositive. The status of the object clause is most obvious in its prepositional introduction (as in the example above). Sometimes it is mixed with other functional semantics, determined by the connectors, in particular, with adverbial relational meanings, e.g.: Do you know when they are coming? A separate group of object clauses are those presenting the chunks of speech and mental activity processes, traditionally discussed under the heading “the rules of reported speech”, e.g.: She said she would come early; Do you mean you like it?

Clauses of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive clauses, fall into two major groups: “ descriptive” attributive clauses and “ restrictive” (“limiting”) attributive clauses. The descriptive attributive clause exposes some characteristic of the antecedent (i.e. its substantive referent) as such, while the restrictive attributive clause performs a purely identifying role, singling out the referent of the antecedent in the situation, cf.: I know a man who can help us (descriptive attributive clause); This is the man whom I met yesterday (restrictive attributive clause). Some descriptive attributive clauses are attributive only in form, but semantically, they present a new event which somehow continues the chain of events reflected by the sentence as a whole; these complex sentences can be easily transformed into compound sentences, e.g.: We caught a breeze that took us gently up the river. à We caught a breeze and it took us gently up the river. Appositive clauses, a subtype of attributive clauses, define or elucidate the meaning of the substantive antecedent of abstract semantics, represented by such nouns as ability, advice, attempt, decision, desire, impulse, promise, proposal, etc, or by an indefinite or demonstrative pronoun, or by an anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: I had the impression that she was badly ill; It was all he could do not to cry; It is true that he stole the jewels. The unique role of the subjective anticipatory appositive construction, as has been mentioned, consists in the fact that it is used as a universal means of rheme identification in the actual division of the sentence.

Clauses of adverbial positions make up the most numerous and the most complicated group of subordinate clauses, reflecting the intricacy of various relations between events and processes. The following big groups of adverbial clauses can be distinguished. First, clauses of time and clauses of place render the semantics of temporal and spatial localization. Local identification is primarily determined by subordinators: it may be general, expressed by the conjunctions when and where, or particularizing, expressed by such conjunctions as while, since, before, no sooner than, from where, etc., e.g.: I jumped up when she called; Sit where you like; I won’t leave until you come. Second, clauses of manner and comparison give a qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal clause, e.g.: Profits are higher than they were last year; Her lips moved soundlessly, as if she were rehearsing. The syntactic semantics of manner is expressed by subordinate appositive clauses introduced by phrases with the broad-meaning words way and manner, e.g.: George writes the way his father did. Third, the most numerous group, adverbial clauses of different circumstantial semantics includes “classical” subordinate clauses of attendant event, condition, cause (reason), result (consequence), concession, and purpose. E.g.: I am tired because I have worked all day; He spoke loudly so that all could hear him; If we start off now, we’ll arrive there by dinner; Even if the fault is all his, I must find a way to help him; He was so embarrassed that he could hardly understand her; etc. Cases of various ‘transferred’ and mixed syntactic semantics are also common in this group of clauses; e.g.: Whatever happens, she won’t have it her own way; the subordinate clause expresses circumstantial (concessive) semantics mixed with non-circumstantial (substantive-nominal) semantics. Fourth, a separate group of adverbial clauses is formed by subordinate clauses which function as parenthetical enclosures, inserted into composite syntactic constructions by a loose connection. Parenthetical predicative insertions can be either subordinative or coordinative, exposed by either a subordinating connector or a coordinative connector (cf.: inner cumulative connections in equipotent and dominational phrases; see Unit 19), e.g.: As far as I remember, the man was very much surprised to see me there; They used to be, and this is no longer a secret, very close friends. Semantically, parenthetical clauses may be of two types: “ introductory ”, expressing different modal meanings (as in the first example above), and “ deviational ”, expressing commenting insertions of varied semantic character (the second example above).

As the classification shows, the only notional position the subordinate clause can not occupy is the position of the predicate; this fact stresses once again the unique function of the predicate as the organizing centre of the sentence.

The clauses of a complex sentence can be connected with one another more or less closely. The degree (intensity) of syntactic closeness between the clauses reflects the degree of mutual dependence of their proposemic content. For example, the primary subordinate clauses, the subject clause and the predicative clause, are so closely connected with the principal clause that without them the principal clause cannot exist as a syntactic unit. The loose connections between the principal clause and the parenthetical enclosure make it possible to segregate the principal clause as an independent syntactic construction. Thus, all types of subordinative clausal connections are syntactically either obligatory or optional.

This distinction was used by the Russian linguist N. S. Pospelov to introduce another classification of complex sentences: he defined complex sentences with obligatory subordinate clauses as “ one-member sentences ” and complex sentences with optional subordinate clausesas “ two-member sentences ”. These two types of complex sentences can also be described as “ monolithic ” and “ segregative ” sentence structures correspondingly. The following complex sentences are syntactically monolithic: first, complex sentences with subject and predicative clauses, e.g.: What the telegram said was clear (*… was clear would be semantically and constructionally deficient); The telegram was what I expected from you (* The telegram was…); second, complex sentences in which the subordinate clauses perform the functions of complements, required by the obligatory valency of the predicate (usually, object clauses and adverbial clauses), e.g.: Tell me what you know about it (cf.: *Tell me…); Put the pen where you’ve taken it from; third, complex sentences with correlative connections, for example, with double connectors, e.g.: The more he thought about it, the more he worried; complex sentences with restrictive attributive clauses are monolythic, because they are based on a correlation scheme too, e.g.: It was the kind of book that all children admire; finally, the fourth type of monolithic complex sentences is formed by complex sentences with the subordinate clause in preposition to the principal clause, e.g.: As far as I remember, the man was very much surprised to see me there (cf.: * As far as I remember …); Even if the fault is all his, I must find a way to help him.

Segregative complex sentences are those with most of the adverbial clauses, parenthetical clauses and descriptive attributive clauses in postposition to the principal clause, e.g.: The man was very much surprised to see me there, as far as I remember (cf.: The man was very much surprised to see me); She wore a hat which was decorated with flowers (сf.: She wore a hat).

More than two clauses may be combined in one complex sentence. Subordinate clauses may be arranged by parallel or consecutive subordination. Subordinate clauses immediately referring to one principal clause are subordinated “in parallel’ or “co-subordinated”. Parallel subordination may be both homogeneous and heterogeneous: in homogeneous parallel constructions, the subordinate clauses perform similar functions, they are connected with each other coordinatively and depend on the same element in the principal clause (or, the principal clause in general), e.g.: He said that it was his business and that I’d better stay off it; in heterogeneous parallel constructions, the subordinate clauses mostly refer to different elements in the principal clause, e.g.: The man whom I saw yesterday said that it was his business. Consecutive subordinative constructions are formed when one clause is subordinated to another in a string of clauses, e.g.: I don’t know why she said that she couldn’t come at the time that I suggested. There are three consecutively subordinated clauses in this sentence; they form a hierarchy of three levels of subordination. This figure shows the so-called depth of subordination perspective, one of the essential syntactic characteristics of the complex sentence. In the previous examples, the depth of subordination perspective can be estimated as 1.

COMPOSITE SENTENCE

AS A POLYPREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTION

It has been mentioned, that composite sentences differ from simple sentences by the number of predicative lines represented: simple sentences are monopredicative syntactic constructions, formed by only one predicative line, while composite sentences are polypredicative syntactic constructions, formed by two or more predicative lines, each with a subject and a predicate of its own. This means, that the composite sentence reflects two or more situations or events making up a unity.

Each predicative unit in a composite sentence forms a clause. A clause as a part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence, but a composite sentence is not at all equivalent to a sequence of the simple sentences underlying its clauses. Cf.: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. - This is the issue. I planned to discuss it with you. The purpose of communication in the composite sentence above is the presentation of a certain topic; this is lost in the transformation of the sentence into a sequence of simple sentences.

There are two principal types of composite sentences: complex and compound. In compound sentences, the clauses are connected on the basis of coordinative connections (parataxis); by coordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank, i.e. equipotently (cf. equipotent, or coordinative phrases; see Unit 19). In complex sentences, the clauses are united on the basis of subordinative connections (hypotaxis); by subordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically unequal rank, one of which dominates another (cf. dominational, or subordinative phrases; see Unit 19). In terms of the positional structure of the sentence; this means that by subordination one of the clauses (subordinate) is placed in a notional position of the other (principal). This structural characteristic has an essential semantic implication: a subordinate clause, however important the information rendered by it might be for the whole communication, presents it as naturally supplementing the information in the principal clause, cf.: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. As for coordinated clauses, their equality in rank is expressed above all in each sequential clause explicitly corresponding to a new effort of thought, which can be introduced by the purely copulative conjunction and or the adversative conjunction but, cf.: I want to discuss something with you, but we can talk about it later. The sequential clause in a compound sentence is usually rigidly fixed and refers to the whole of the leading clause, whereas the subordinate clause in a complex sentence usually refers to one notional constituent in the principal clause and can vary positionally (as in the examples above).

The connections between the clauses in a composite sentence may be effected syndetically, i.e. by means of special connecting words, conjunctions and other conjunctional words or word-combinations, or asyndetically, i.e. without any conjunctional words used.

There is some controversy concerning the status of syndeton and asyndeton versus coordination and subordination. According to the traditional view, all composite sentences are to be subdivided on the upper level into compound and complex, and on the lower level of subdivision each type is represented by syndetic and asyndetic connections. This view was challenged by N. S. Pospelov and some other Russian linguists, who treated this subdivision in the opposite way: at the higher level of classification all composite sentences should be divided into syndetic and asyndetic, while at the lower level the syndetic composite sentences (and only these) should be divided into compound and complex ones in accordance with the connective words used. This approach was also challenged, in particular, by B. A. Ilyish, who pointed out the mixture of two different criteria – formal and semantic - in both classifications. Indeed, the semantic equality of syndetic and asyndetic constructions is unquestionable in the following example: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. – This is the issue, which I planned to discuss with you; both sentences include the subordinate attributive clause. Besides, asyndetic connection of clauses often displays its own specific functional value, which supports arguments for the existence of asyndetic polypredication.

Alongside the two basic types of composite sentences there is one more type of polypredicative construction, in which the connections between the clauses are rather loose, syntactically detached: the following clause is like an afterthought, an expansion or a comment to the proceeding clause. In oral speech its formal sign is often the tone of sentential completion, followed by a shorter pause than the usual pause between separate sentences. In written speech such clauses are usually separated by semi-final punctuation marks: a dash, a colon, a semi-colon or brackets, e.g.: I wasn’t going to leave; I’d only just arrived. This type of connection is called cumulation (see Unit 19), and such composite sentences can be called cumulative. The status of cumulative sentences is intermediary between composite sentences proper and combinations of sentences in supra-sentential constructions.

Various parenthetical clauses of introductory and commenting-deviational semantics can be treated as specific cumulative clauses, which give a background to the essential information of the expanded clause, e.g.: As I have already told you, they are just friends.

Alongside the “completely” composite sentence, built up by two or more fully predicative lines, there are polypredicative constructions, in which one predicative line may be partially predicative (potentially predicative, semi-predicative), as, for example, in sentences with various verbid complexes, e.g.: I heard him singing in the backyard (see Unit 11). Such sentences actually render two situations and present two predicative lines in fusion, or blended with each other; this can be demonstrated in explanatory transformations of these constructions into composite sentences: I heard him, when he was singing in the backyard; He was singing in the backyard and I heard him. The transformations show that such sentences are derived from two base sentences and that their systemic status can be treated as intermediary between the simple sentence and the composite sentence. They can be defined as “ semi-composite sentences ”. (They will be analyzed in Unit 28).