{"id":192,"date":"2019-06-10T09:29:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T09:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engp13.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=192"},"modified":"2019-06-12T06:07:38","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T06:07:38","slug":"morpho-phonemics","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/engp13\/chapter\/morpho-phonemics\/","title":{"rendered":"Morpho-phonemics"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Outcomes:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

After the completion of this module, the students would gain an insight into the key concepts of English morphophonemics. Students would be able to understand how morphological structure of a morpheme may affect pronunciation or phonological shape of following or preceding morphemes.<\/p>\r\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

This chapter presents an introduction to English morphophonemics. Sound structure (phonology) and word structure (morphology) are two of the main components of a language system. However, many a times, these systems interact and affect each other in some interesting ways and give rise to a phenomenon which is known as \u2018morphophonemics\u2019 Sometimes, due to this interaction, pronunciation of a morpheme may get modified or completely changed. These changes may be regular or irregular and usually are context sensitive in nature. In \u2018morphophonemics\u2019, we specifically study the changes which occur at the margins\/boundaries of morphemes. There are many glossaries, lectures, notes and other reference materials available over the internet for further studies in this area. Some of the pioneer reference works are also listed in the reference section.<\/p>\r\n

Note: In this module, IPA transcriptions of morphemes\/words have been throughout referred from Cambridge Online dictionary.<\/p>\r\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

In his book titled \u2018A Manual Of Phonology\u2019 Charles F. Hockett, Professor of linguistics and anthropology, says that language is nothing but a complex system of habits and this system can be broken down and categorized into five principle subsystems:<\/p>\r\n

1. The phonological system: refers to the stock of phonemes and the systematic arrangements in which these phonemes occur in a language;<\/p>\r\n

2. The grammatical system: refers to the stock of morphemes, the systematic arrangements in which these morphemes occur in a language;<\/p>\r\n

3. The morphophonemic system: refers to the relational code that ties phonological and grammatical system together.<\/p>\r\n

4. The semantic system: refers to the association of morphemes, combinations of morphemes, and the systematic arrangements in which morphemes can be put, with things and situations, or kinds of things and situations.<\/p>\r\n

5. The phonetic system: refers to the process in which phonemes, sequences of phonemes of are converted into sound waves\/speech signals by a speaker, and these sound waves\/speech are then decoded from by a hearer.<\/p>\r\n

Of these five principle subsystems, 1 to 3 are central, while 4-5 seem to be peripheral in nature to the language as a system. In this chapter, our main focus will be on 3 \u2018The morphophonemic system\u2019 and this focus will further be limited to scope in that examples and discussions will be revolve around morphophonemic system of English language.<\/p>\r\n

Morphophonemics<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Morphophonemics may be defined as analysis and classification of the phonological factors which affect the pronunciation of morphemes or, correspondingly, the morphological factors which affect the appearance of phonemes. In morphophonemics, we basically study interaction between morphological and phonological processes and how they these factors affect each other. Morphophonemic change usually occurs at morpheme boundaries and it involves sounds that are associated with separate phonemes.<\/p>\r\n

One very obvious example to morphophonemics would be the use of indefinite in English language. Indefinite article in English has two manifestations: a and an. If a word begins with a consonantal sound then indefinite article is manifested as \u2018a\u2019 (a mango or a cat), while it is manifested as \u2018an\u2019 (an apple or an idiot) if following word starts with a vowel sound.<\/p>\r\n

Note: The term \u2018sound\u2019 refers to the way a phone (consonant or vowel) is pronounced, not necessarily written, in English. Therefore, an hour is a correct phrase not *a hour and a university is the correct phrase not *an university.<\/p>\r\n

Essential Vocabulary<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

To understand these kind of sound changes, i.e., morphophonemics, it\u2019s important to give a quick look to following concepts: the smallest unit of sound (both underlying and surface forms - phoneme and phone, respectively) minimal unit of meaning (both underlying and surface forms \u2013 morpheme and morph, respectively), and how these phonemes and morphemes may show variation in their shape given different contexts \u2013 known allophony and allomorphy, respectively). Allomorphs are derived from a single morpheme known as underlying representation with the help of morphophonemic rules.<\/p>\r\n

A. Phoneme: a phoneme is considered as a smallest unit of human speech sound that distinguishes meaning. Phonemes are usually written within slanted brackets \/\/. There are 26 letters in English alphabet. But these 26 letters represent 44 phonemes. For example, phoneme \/k\/ occurs in words such as cut, kite, school and skin.<\/p>\r\n

B. Phone: a phone is a surface manifestation\/form of a phoneme given a phonological environment. Phones are usually written within square brackets []. In English, phoneme \/p\/ is manifested (pronounced) as [p] in words like spat and spoon but as [ph] in words like pin, pick and poll.<\/p>\r\n

C. Morpheme: a morpheme is a minimal, i.e. indivisible, unit of meaning. Morphemes are of various types given their structure (free and bound), content (zero and null) and functions (derivational and inflexional).<\/p>\r\n

D. Morph: a morph is a surface manifestation\/form of morpheme given a phonological environment. For example, plural morpheme is realized as [s] (cats and bats), [z] (dogs and calls) and [\u0259z] (judges and churches) given different phonological environment.<\/p>\r\n

E. Allophone: an allophone is a phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language.<\/p>\r\n

F. Allomorph: an allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morph in its different phonological or morphological environments.<\/p>\r\n

G. Underlying Representation: an underlying representation is the most basic form of a morpheme\/word before any phonological, morphological or morphophonological rule has been applied to it. Underlying representation shows native speaker\u2019s knowledge about the abstract underlying phonology of the language.<\/p>\r\n

H. Surface Representation: A surface representation (actual occurrence) is the form of a word that is spoken and heard.<\/p>\r\n

I. Morphophonemic rules: A morphophonemic rule is written in form of a phonological rule but it is restricted to a particular morphological environment. Unlike phonological rules, morphophonemic rules are sensitive to their environment. Whenever morphological information is required\u00a0 to\u00a0 specify\u00a0 the\u00a0 environment\u00a0 for\u00a0 an phonological rule, the rule is morphophonemic.<\/p>\r\n

J. Phonological conditioning: phonological conditioning refers to the phenomenon wherein phonological environment of a morpheme determines selection and shape of its allomorph(s).<\/p>\r\n

K. Morphological conditioning: morphological conditioning is a conditioning wherein morphological environment of a morpheme determines selection and shape its allomorph(s).<\/p>\r\n

Steps involved in Morphophonemic Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Morphemes are stored in lexicon. They are strung together by morphological and syntactic rules. These morphemes are then converted to their surface forms by a sequence of ordered phonological rules. In doing morphophonemic analysis, our aim is to establish a transparent connection \u2013 as far as it is possible \u2013 between data and theory. The main purpose of morphophonemic analysis is to discover a set of underlying forms and the ordered rules which are consistent with the given data. Main steps involved in the process of morphophonemic analysis are as following:<\/p>\r\n

I. Phonemicization: It is easier to perform morphophonemic analysis with data that are already expressed as phonemes. Therefore, it is recommended first to reduce the data into phonemes. This step is also referred as pre-processing of data in the process morphophonemic analysis.<\/p>\r\n

II. Morpheme division: The second step is to divide the words forms into their component morphemes. However, phonological alternations tend to obscure this division.<\/p>\r\n

III. Finding the allomorphs: Keeping visible and possible phonological alternation in mind, it\u2019s necessary to find the allomorph of each alternating morpheme. After allomorphs have been indentified, find the segment(s) which tend to alternate.<\/p>\r\n

IV. Active rules: After division of words into morphemes and identification of allomorphs, it is possible to state rules and their order of application.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

V. Setting up underlying representations: Taking into account the logical possibilities, underlying representations are to be set up so that all the possible allomorphs of each morpheme can be derived from a single underlying representation using general phonological rules. However, choosing underlying representations often involves considering more than one hypothesis. The following steps are usually helpful in determining correct underlying form:-<\/p>\r\n\r\n