Makalah Deriving Allomorph

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.   Background

Language consists of two aspects namely form and meaning. In relation to meaning, the smallest meaningful unit in language is morpheme.

Morpheme is defined as the smallest meaningful unit of a language (Lim Kiat Boey, 1975 : 37). Words are made up of morphemes. The word insane, illegible,impossible, irregular have different sound, pronunciation or spelling.

We can identify the prefixes in-(insane), il- (illegible), im- (impossible), ir-(irregular) are allomorphs of the same negative morpheme. The relationship between a morpheme and allomorphs: When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented by more than one morph, the morphs are allomorphs.  A morpheme is manifested as one or more morphs (surface forms) in different environments. These morphs are called allomorphs.

Allomorph is variant form of a morpheme but it doesn’t change the meaning. Allomorph has different in pronunciation and spelling according to their condition. It means that allomorph will have different sound, pronunciation or spelling in different condition.

Base on the English Dictionary, allomorph as adjective is (linguistics, chemistry) of or relating to an allomorph or allomorphs ⇒ allomorphic variation. And allmorph as noun is (linguistics) any of the phonological representations of a single morpheme. For example, the final (s) and (z) sounds of bets and beds are allomorphs of the English noun-plural morpheme.

An allomorph is a linguistics term for a variant form of a morpheme. The version of a morpheme as actually realized in speech or writing, e.g. –s,-es, and –en are all allomorphs (in writing) of the plural morpheme.

B.    Problems Formulation

In this paper the writer is going to discuss about:

1.    The meaning of  allomorph.

2.    The alllomorph variants.

3.    The graphological allomorph.

4.    The types of allomorph.

5.    The stem allomorph.

C.   Objective and Benefits

1.         As knowledge for the students in the learning process that usually used by teachers.

2.         As a contribution for the students in mastery the English lesson effectively and efficiently.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A.  The Definition of Allomorph

An allomorph is a linguistics term for a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound (phonologically) without changing meaning. It is used in linguistics to explain the comprehension of variations in sound for a specific morpheme.

 Allomorphs frequently happen that a particular morpheme is not represented everywhere by the same morph, but by different morphs in different environments. The alternative phonological manifestations or representations of such a morpheme are called allomorphs, or ‘morpheme alternates’ or ‘morpheme variants’. Gleason defines allomorphs as, “a variant of a morpheme which occurs in certain definable. The version of a morpheme as actually realized in speech or writing, e.g. –s,-es, and –en are all allomorphs (in writing) of the plural morpheme.

B.  Allomorph variant

Allomorph has different in pronunciation and spelling according to their condition. It means that allomorph will have different sound,

pronunciation or spelling in different condition. Examples:

	Allomorph	Root/ stem	Meaning
A teacher An egg	A An	Teacher Egg	Countable noun Countable noun
Mengejar Memberi Menulis	Meng- Mem- Men-	Kejar Beri Tulis	Doing action Doing action Doing action
Incapable Illogical Impossible Irregular	In- Il- Im- Ir-	Capable Logical Possible Regular	Negative Negative Negative Negative

At the table of examples above, we can see that allomorph is a variant sound, of one morpheme. It has different pronunciation and spelling, but it still has same meaning. See the example bellow:

Incapable

Illogical

Impossible

“In-”, “Il-” and “Im-” at the words above are the variant sound of “In-”. Although it has different sound and spelling, it is still similar in meaning that is negative.

Formal Features Of The Four Parts Of Speech

The four parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs – have their own formal features by which we can recognize them. The formal features can be divided into two parts: the inflectional suffixes and derivational affixes. Here, we can look the allomorph in inflectional suffixes (noun and verb).

a.    Inflectional suffixes nouns

Nouns in English have two inflectional suffixes. They are: the plural (Z₁) and the possessive or genitive {Z2}. The plural inflection {Z1} has three allomorphs {s~z~iz} and a group of irregular ones, including { } (zero).

The first three allomorphs of the plural suffix (Z₁) are distributed as follows: {s} appears with nouns ending in voiceless consonants, except /s, š, č/;{ z} appears with nouns ending in voiced consonants, except /z, ž, ĵ/; and {iz} appears with nouns ending in sibilants and affricatives /s,š, z, ž, č, ĵ/. Examples:

Books /bUks/                           Roses /roUziz/

Cups /k˄ps/                             Houses /haUziz/

Dogs /dogz/                             Churches /č:čiz/

Cars /ka:z/                                Bridges /briĵiz/

The possessive suffix {Z2} has four allomorphs: {s~z~iz~}. The first three allomorphs have the same distribution as the allomorphs of the plural suffix {Z1} and {} appears with noun and proper nouns ending in /s/ or /z/. Examples:

The table’s legs                        The men’s hats

The tables’ legs                        John’s books

The man’s hat                          alice’s hair

b.    Inflectional Suffixes Verbs

English verbs have four inflectional suffixes: the third person singular present tense inflectional suffix {Z3}, the past tense inflectional suffix {D1}, the past participle inflectional suffix {D2}, and the present participle inflectional suffix {iȠ₁}. The third person singular inflectional suffix {Z3}has three allomorphs, (s~z~iz), which have the same distribution as the three allomorphs of the plural inflectional suffix {Z1}.

The past tense inflectional suffix {D1} has three allomorphs, (t~d~id), which have the same distribution as the three regular allomorphs of {Z1}. A large number of English verbs have these regular allomorphs of the past tense inflectional suffix {D1}. However, there are many English verbs which have irregular allomorphs of the past tense inflectional suffix {D1}. They are as follows:

1)   Some English verbs whose base forms already end in /t/ or /d/ have a {} allomorphs, e.g. set, put, hit, shed, spread, etc.

2)   Some English verbs make the past tense form with a change of vowel in the base and the {} allomorphs of {D1}, e.g. ride-rode, give-gave, take-took, drink-drank, etc.

3)   Some English verbs which add the {t} allomorphs of {D1}show morphophonemic change in the base, e.g. sleep-slept, teach-taught, buy-bought, etc.

4)   Some English verbs which add the {d}allomorphs of {D1}show morphophonemic change in the base e.g. sell-sold, flee-fled, do-did, have-had, etc.

5)   Some English verbs have {t}instead of the regular {d}after the voice consonants /m, n, l/ these verbs can be divided into two groups:

a)   Those that add /t/ to the end of the base, sometimes with a change of the stem vowel, e.g. spill-spilt, dream-dreamt, etc.: most of these have also regular forms in {d}, e.g. burned, dreamed.

b)   Those that drop a final /d/ before adding {t},e.g. bend-bent, build-built, etc.

c.    Inflectional Suffixes Adjectives

There are only two inflectional suffixes adjectives can take, namely, {-er} and {-est} to form the comparative and superlative degrees, e.g.:

Big – bigger – biggest

Large – larger – largest

Long – longer – longest

Derivational Affixes

1.      Many English adjectives are formed by adding the suffixes {-ly, -ish, -al, -ous, -ic, -ar, -ary, -ful, -less, -like, -ate, -en, and D2} to nouns, e.g.: cloudy, dirty, friendly, lovely, foolish, childish, emotional, optional, famous, religious, historic, syntactic, spectacular, muscular, visionary, documentary, peaceful, powerful, faithless, powerless, lifelike, warlike, fortunate, compassionate, wooden, golden, skilled, wretched, etc.

2.      Many adjectives are formed by adding the suffixes {-ent, -ant, -ive, -able, -some, -ory, and, -en} to verb stems, e.g.: confident, excellent, observant, pleasant, creative, selective, readable, payable, meddlesome, winsome, regulatory, winsome, regulatory, congratulatory, molten swollen, etc.

d.   Inflectional suffixes Adverbs

Like adjectives, adverbs also have two inflectional suffixes, {-er} and {-est}, to form the comparative and superlative degrees, e.g:

Fast – faster – fastest

Hard – harder – hardest

Late – later – latest

Derivation Affixes

1.    Many English adverbs are form by adding the suffix {-ly2} and the prefix {a-} to adjective stems, e.g.: happily, politely, hopefully, normally, abroad, along, aloud, around, etc.

2.    Some English adverbs are formed by adding the prefix {a-} and the suffixes {-ly2} and {-ward} to noun stems, e.g.: away, aboard, ahead, apart, across, daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly, seaward, westward, etc.

C.  Graphological Allomorph

Graphological allomorph is thestudy of hand writing about variant form of a morpheme, when a unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning.

Morphological inflection/ inflectional morphology: is dependent on the grammatical categories of tense and aspect.

Present tense	Past tense
Part	Part^ed
Partition	Partition^ed
Depart	Depart^ed
Departmentalize	Departmentaliz^ed

Morphology marking for grammatical function not only occurs of verb but also occurs of Noun and pronouns. For example: “departure” as noun it have functions as subject, it have morphological marking for singular and plural form: ’a departure’/several departures. Another example: she, her, hers.

Allomorph: the version of a morpheme as actually realized in speech or writing, e.g. –s,-es, and –en are all allomorphs (in writing) of the plural morpheme.

Allophone: the version of phoneme as actually realized phonetically in speech.

Base on allomorph explanation above, we get another concept is called allomorphic variants. For example: allomorphic variants for singular and plural form in English language, like:-s, -es, and –en. While for verb form in the past tense phonologically is /Id/, /d/, /t/ although the graphologically is ^ed except radical changes.

The Example of allomorphic variants for verb form in the past tense phonologically and graphologically.

Phonologically	Graphologically
/Id/	‘ed’ – part^ed
/d/	‘ed’ -- pull^ed
/t/	‘ed’ -- push^ed
Radical changes
Sleep`	Slept

Examples of The Allomorphic Variants of Singular and Plural Nouns in English

Singular	Graphologically	Plural
Cat	‘s’	Cats
Pen	‘s’	Pens
Box	‘es’	Boxes
Lady	‘-ies’	Ladies
Army	‘-ies’	Armies
Day	‘-s’	Days
Hero	‘-es’	Heroes
Child	‘-en’	Children

Singular	Graphologically	Plural
Lamp	‘-s’	Lamps
Cat	-s	Cats
Pen	-s	Pens
Box	-es	Boxes
Dish	-es	Dishes

Examples of the Allomorphic Variants of Past Tense Form in English

Root/Base		Phonologically	Graphologically
Start	-ed	/Id/	Start^ed
Visit	-ed	/Id/	Visit^ed
Admit	-ed	/Id/	Admit^ed
Paint	-ed	/Id/	Paint^ed

D.  Types of Allomorph

Allomorphs are of three types:

a.  Phonologically Conditioned Allomorphs:

When the allomorphs are conditioned by the phonetic nature of the preceding phoneme, they are said to be phonologically conditioned allomorphs. For example, the three allomorphs of the plural morphemes are represented by /-s/ occurs after voiceless sounds, /-z/ occurs after voiced sounds and /-iz/ occurs after groove fricatives and affricates. So these allomorphs are called phonologically conditioned allomorphs.

Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. The phonological system of a language includes

·  an inventory of sounds and their features, and

·  rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.

Phonology is just one of several aspects of language. It is related to other aspects such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Here is an illustration that shows the place of phonology in an interacting hierarchy of levels in linguistics:

Comparison: Phonology and phonetics

Phonetics …	Phonology …
Is the basis for phonological analysis.	Is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design.
Analyzes the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of language.	Analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by ·   ● determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and ·   ● explaining how these sounds are interpreted by    the native speaker.

Phonological Conditioning

The plural morpheme in English (which combines with a noun morpheme to form aplural) is represented by three allomorphs /s/, /z/ and /iz/ in different environments(which are phonologically conditioned). Similarly, the past tense morpheme can appear as /-d/, /-t/, /-id/. Each of these morphs belongs to the same morpheme. These are called allomorphs.

Models of phonology

Different models of phonology contribute to our knowledge of phonological representations and processes:

·      In classical phonemics,phonemes and their possible combinations are central.

·      In standard generative phonology, distinctive features are central. A stream of speech is portrayed as linear sequence of discrete sound-segments. Each segment is composed of simultaneously occurring features.

·      In non-linear models of phonology, a stream of speech is represented as multidimensional, not simply as a linear sequence of sound segments. These non-linear models grew out of generative phonology:

·          autosegmental phonology

·         metrical phonology

·         lexical phonology

b. Morphologically Conditioned Allomorphs:

When allomorphs are determined by the specific morpheme or morphemes forming the content, rather than by phonological features, they are called morphologically conditioned allomorphs i.e. / / which only occurs with three morphemes. They are ox / ks/, brother /b r r/, and child /caild/.

Plural Morpheme Allomorphs

/iz/ in the case of words ending in /s/, /z/, /ò/, /з/, /tò/, /dз/ e.g. buses / bΛsız/, vases /va: zız/, bushes / bò f ız/, rouges /ru : зız/, churches /tòз tòız/ judges/, /dзnΛdзız/

/s/ in the case of words ending in a voiceless consonant : cats /kæts/, caps /kæps/

/z/ in the case of words ending in voiced sounds : bags /bægz/

Similarly, the present tense morpheme {-e(s)} has three allomorphs /s/, /z/ & /Iz/,e.g. packs /pæks/, digs /digz/, washes /woòIz/.

c.    Lexically conditioned allomorph

The choice of allomorph is unpredictable, thus memorized on a word by word basis, ex : ox –plural- oxen, sheep-plural- sheep.

There are examples of allomorph.

Example :

1.    Three different allomorphs

Cats /s/

Dogs/z/

Boxes/iz/

2.    Two allomorph

Loved /d/

Voiced /d/

Walked /t/

Stopped /t/

3.    One allomorph

Disagreement /dis/

Discount /dis/

Disbelieve /dis/

E.    Stem allomorphy

Allomorphy can also exist in stems or roots, as in Classical Sanskrit:

Vāk (voice)            Singular        Plural

Nominative            /vaːk/              /vaːt͡ʃ-as/

Genitive               /vaːt͡ʃ-as/          /vaːt͡ʃ-aːm/

Instrumental           /vaːt͡ʃ-aː/         /vaːɡ-bʱis/

Locative               /vaːt͡ʃ-i/             /vaːk-ʂi/

There are three allomorphs of the stem: /vaːk/, /vaːt͡ʃ/ and /vaːɡ/. The allomorphs are conditioned by the particular case-marking suffixes.

The form of the stem /vaːk/, found in the nominative singular and locative plural, is the etymological form of the morpheme. Pre-Indic palatalization of velars resulted in the variant form /vaːt͡ʃ/, which was initially phonologically conditioned. This conditioning can still be seen in the Locative Singular form, where the /t͡ʃ/ is followed by the high front vowel /i/.

But subsequent merging of /e/ and /o/ into /a/ made the alternation unpredictable on phonetic grounds in the Genitive case (both Singular and Plural), as well as the Nominative Plural and Instrumental Singular. Hence, this allomorphy was no longer directly relatable to phonological processes. Phonological conditioning also accounts for the /vaːɡ/ form found in the Instrumental Plural, where the /ɡ/ assimilates in voicing to the following /bʱ/.

CHAPTER III
CLOSURE

C.    Conclusion

Allomorphs frequently happens that a particular morpheme is not represented everywhere by the same morph, but by different morphs in different environments. The alternative phonological manifestations or representations of such a morpheme are called allomorphs, or ‘morpheme alternates’ or ‘morpheme variants’.

Allomorphy in English suffixes: English has several morphemes that vary in sound but not in meaning. Examples include the past tense and the plural morphemes.

Allomorphs are of three types:

1. Phonologically conditioned allomorphs, and

2. Morphologically conditioned allomorphs

3. Lexically conditioned allomorphs

Stem allomorphy: Allomorphy can also exist in stems or roots. The allomorphs are conditioned by the particular case-marking suffixes.

Allomorph is variant form of a morpheme about the sounds and phonetic symbol but it doesn’t change the meaning. Allomorph has different in pronunciation and spelling according to their condition. It means that allomorph will have different sound, pronounciation or spelling in different condition.

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