ALLOMORPH

PREFACE

Thanks for God that we prayed for the presence of God Almighty for His blessings grace we managed to finish the paper on time, entitled "Morphemes Forms".

This paper contains about the information of introduction of morpheme and allomorph, as well as examples of morpheme and allomorph. Hopefully, this paper can be used as a reference, instructions and guidelines for the reader in education teaching profession.

This paper is expected to provide information to us all about the introduction of morpheme and allomorph information, as well as examples of morpheme and allomorph. We realize that this paper is not perfect, therefore criticism and constructive suggestions we always hope for the perfection of this paper.

Finally, we extend our thanks to all those who have participated in the preparation of this paper from start to finish.

Pontianak, 03 October 2013

The Writers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS----------------------------------------------------------- 2

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION-------------------------------------------------- 3

A.    Background------------------------------------------------------ 3

B.     Formulation of Problems----------------------------------------- 4

C.     Purposes of writing---------------------------------------------- 4

CHAPTER II DISCUSSION------------------------------------------------------ 5

A.    The Recognizing of Morphemes--------------------------------- 5

B.     The Definition of Allomorph------------------------------------ 6

C.     The Examples of Morpheme and Allomorph-------------------- 7

CHAPTER III CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION--------------------------- 11

A.    Conclusion------------------------------------------------------- 11

B.     Suggestion------------------------------------------------------- 12

BIBLIOGRAPHY----------------------------------------------------------------- 13

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.  Background

Many people believe that morphemes are the same as syllables, but this is incorrect. The word “cheddar,” for example, has two syllables, "ched" and "dar." These syllables can't be broken apart, because they have no semantic meaning on their own, so there is only one morpheme.

Some people assert that some larger terms and phrases technically could be classed as morphemes. A good example of this is the common idiom "the last straw," where the idea of having reached a limit isn't conveyed unless all three words appear together. Collocations such as "iron will" are additional instances where getting meaning requires using more than one word.

Morphemes often behave differently phonologically in ways that cannot be explained purely phonologically: one morpheme undergoes or triggers a process while another morpheme fails to undergo or trigger that process, even though the two are in all relevant respects indistinguishable. Morphemes can be identified only by comparing samples of a language.  If two or more samples can be found in which there is some feature of expression which all share and some feature of content which all hold in common, then one requirement is met, and these samples may be tentatively identified as a morpheme and its meaning.  Indeed, the occurrence of these elements (to, do) is fully determined by syntactic construction and those elements cannot make an independent contribution to the meaning of the sentence.   Those the previous definition may be revised as: morpheme is the smallest or minimal grammatical unit in the utterance of a language.  Gleason says that, "morpheme is the smallest unit which is grammatically pertinent.

In short based on the description above, the writer would like to   discuss about “MORPHEME AND ALLOMORPH” this topic is a reference for many references. Hopefully the writer that this paper can give information about Morpheme which has become one of the important to know for many people.

B.  Formulation of problem

Based on the description of the background, the writer finds three problems they are:

1.      What is Morpheme?

2.      What is Allomorph?

3.      What are the examples of Morpheme and Allomorph?

C.  Purposes of writing

In writing this paper, the writer will provide information and explanations to the reader   that covers the previous problems:

1.         To explain the definition of Morpheme

2.         To describe of Allomorph

3.         To inform the example of Morpheme and allomorph

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A.    The recognizing of morphemes

Morphemes have many definitions, and it affects to language because a morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. According to Gleason, "Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the structure of a language." Hockett has defined a morpheme as "the smallest individually meaningful element in the utterances of a language." As for example, 'singer' /si / has two morphemes: /si / is one morpheme and / / is also considered a separate morpheme, because in singer /si /, 'er' has the same meaning as it has in the words dancer /d ns / and player /plei /. For instance, one infinite 'to' in "He has to go" is one standard example. The other example is of the auxiliary 'do' in "They do not speak Greek." Indeed, the occurrence of these elements (to, do) is fully determined by syntactic construction and those elements cannot make an independent contribution to the meaning of the sentence.

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morpheme-based morphology. A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.

Morphemes can be identified only by comparing samples of a language. If two or more samples can be found in which there is some feature of expression which all share and some feature of content which all hold in common, then one requirement is met, and these samples may be tentatively identified as a morpheme and its meaning. Thus boys /b iz/, girls / g rlz/, roads /rowdz/ are all alike in containing s /z/ and meaning 'two or more'. We therefore identify s /z/ as a morpheme meaning 'plural'. This is not actually sufficient. "In addition, there must be some contrast between samples with similar meaning and content", some of which have the tentative morpheme and some of which do not.

Comparison of boy /b i/ will serve to confirm the example we have just discussed. That such a condition is necessary is shown by the following words: bug /b g/, bee /bi:/, beetle /bi:tl/, butterfly /b t rflai/. It seems ridiculous to suggest that since all these include /b/ and all mean kind of insect, /b/ must be a morpheme. But this is only as native speakers, we know that / g/, /i:/, /i:tl/ and / t rflai/ do not exist as morphemes that can be associated with these words. Finally, it is necessary to ascertain that what we have isolated are actually single morphemes rather than combinations.

B.     The definition of 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. The condition depends on the element that it attaches to allomorph.

An allomorph is a different phonological version of a morpheme. This occurs when the surface detail of the morpheme is different, but the deeper meaning remains the same. This commonly occurs when the letters performing the same function, such as plurality or time, produce a different sound or use different letters. Examples of plural allomorphs include the difference between ‘pots’ and ‘taxes.’ The studying of allomorphs is part of the studying of morphology in linguistics.

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 allomorph was no longer directly relatable to phonological processes.

A regular allomorph can have different sounds. Irregular morphemes are also allomorphs. This means the irregular plural found in ‘sheep’ and ‘fish’ are also allomorphs of ‘s.’ this can occur through the merger of dialects, which produced ‘children.’ It can also occur when loan words are imported from another language such as with the difference between datum and data, both of which are from Latin. The plural noun form is a common example used to explain an allomorph. Consider the difference in sound of the‘s’ in ‘pots,’ ‘dogs’ and ‘taxes’ when spoken aloud. The‘s’ in ‘pots’ sounds like a phonetic [-s], while the‘s’ in ‘dogs’ is more of a phonetic [-z].

C.    The examples of morpheme and allomorph

1.      The example of morphemes

a.       The examples of free morpheme

Examples	Word class	Meaning
Beauty	Noun	A combination of qualities that delights the atheistic senses
Work	Verb	Do work, especially as a job or activities
Smart	Adjective	Having quick intelligence
Quickly	Adverb	Doing fast

b.      The example of bound morpheme

Bound morpheme usually changes the meaning, number or word class after it attaches to other word. See the table bellow:

Word	Free Morpheme	Bound Morpheme	Meaning
Beautiful	Beauty	-ful (suffix)
Unable	Able	Un- (prefix)	Negative
Higher	High	-er (suffix)	More than/ comparison

2.      The examples of allomorphs

The examples of allomorph they are :

	Allomorph	Root/ stem	Meaning
A teacher An egg	A An	Teacher egg	Countable noun Countable noun
Mengejar Mencari Memberi Menulis Memangkas Menari	Meng- Men- Mem- Men- Mem- Men-	Kejar Cari Beri Tulis Pangkas tari	Doing action Doing action Doing action 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:

1.      Incapable

2.      Illogical

3.      Impossible

4.      “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.

CHAPTER 111

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A.  Conclusion

A morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morpheme-based morphology. A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.

Morphemes divide in two parts they are free morpheme and bound morpheme, free morphemes is morpheme that can stand alone as meaningful element in a sentence or stand alone as word, while bound morpheme is morpheme that cannot stand alone as meaningful element in a sentence or stand alone as a word, but it should attach to other element in order to have a meaning.

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 allomorph was no longer directly relatable to phonological processes.

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. The condition depends on the element that it attaches to allomorph.

B.       Suggestion

Based on the conclusion above here the writer would like to suggest into the readers. 

1.      Morpheme is very important to be studied for all people.

2.      Morpheme and allomorph can be useful to improve our grammar in English

   

BIBLIOGRAPHY

English Allomorph. http://www.stanford.edu /~kfpotts/teaching /201/docs/English_ allomorphs.pdf

Allomorphs Definition. http://www.gaelicgrammar.org /~gaelic/mediawiki/ index. Php / Allomorph_(definition)

Morpheme. http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Morpheme.html

Allomorph. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allomorph