English noun plurals: Morphophonemics and stem suppletion
Morphophonemics and stem suppletion
Morphophonemics refers to allomorphy which results from regular phonological rules; STEM SUPLETION refers to irregular inflection.
The data
Most nouns form their plural by adding suffix –(e)s, which has three spelling forms: /-z/, /-s/, and /-iz/.
(1) a. /boI-z/ boy-s
/tri:-z/ tree-s
/kaʊ-z/ cow-s
b. /tɔp-s/ top-s
/bʊk-s/ books
/hIp-s/ hips
c. /bɔk-iz / box-es
/rɔz-iz/ ros-es
/pIt∫-iz/ peach-es
However, other nouns have irregular plurals. A few have identical singular and plural forms.
(2) Singular Plural
Sheep sheep
Fish fish
With others, the singular and plural forms differ in the stem vowel.
(3) Singular Plural
Foot feet
Mouse mice
Woman women
Man men
With a few, the plural has a suffix that no other stem in the language has. Some nouns have both an irregular suffix and a vowel change.
(4) Singular plural
/ɔks/ / ɔks-Ən/ ox(en)
/t∫aIld/ /t∫Ild-rƏn/ child(ren)
Other retain the singular/plural inflection from latin , although this pattern is being regularized, i.e., some irregular forms have been replaced by regular ones.
(5) Singular Plural
alumnus alumni
octopus octopi (traditional, irregular form)
octppuses (colloquial, regularized form)
Morphemes and allomorphs
One morpheme having several different variants is called its ALLOMORPHS. The different allomorphs of a morpheme all have the same meaning. However, they are in complementary distribution, just like the allophones of a phoneme; in any given context, only one allomorph of the morpheme is possible.
A morpheme is a consistent and unanalyzable association of phonological, grammatical, and semantic information.
Morphophonemics
There are several kinds of allomorphy in English noun plurals. The most widespread is the variation in pronunciation of the regular suffix –(e)s, as illustrated in (1). We can attribute it to two phonological process;
(6) a. assimilation in voicing (/z/ à /s/ after a voiceless segment)
b. insertion of /I/ to break up clusters of alveolar and alveopalatal consonants.
This type of allomorphy is called MORPHOPHONEMICS and is considered to be a part of phonology, since it has to do purely with the interactions of sounds. The two phonological rules in (6) modify /-z/ to produce the other two variants /-s/ and /-iz/. Together , the three forms /-z/, and /-s/ and /-iz/ are the SURFACE FORMS for the plural morpheme. Inflectional spellout rule for noun plurals:
For example, suppose we want to generate cats, dogs, and roses. The deep structures are as follows:
The rule in (7) applies to produce (syntactic) surface structure:
These are the input to the phonological rules, which modify the terminal nodes to produce the correct (phonological) surface forms.
Morphophonemics in derivational morphology
Morphophonemics occurs with both inflectional and derivational morphology. Let’s look at an example involving derivation. Consider the pairs of adjectives listed in (11)
(11) a. elegant inelegant
Eligible ineligible
Tolerant intolerant
Direct indirect
b. possible impossible
perfect imperfect
practical impractical
movable immovable
c. correct incorrect
capable incapable
d. legal illegal
legible illegible
legitimate illegitimate
e. reverent irreverent
regular irregular
reversible irreversible
There are five allomorphs of the same prefix here: /in-/, /im-/, /iŋ-/, /il-/, / and /ir-/. The variation is phonologically predictable. If we assume that /in-/ is the underlying form, then it is easy to explain the other four allomorphs as a case of assimilation to bilabial /m/ before a bilabial, to velar /ŋ/ before a velar, to /I/ before /I/, and to /r/ before /r/.
Phonological rules then immediately change /in-/ to /im-/ before a bilabial stop, etc., so that in the lexical entries, we show the different allomorphs of the prefix.
(13) A
In[elIgnt] not elegant
Im[præktIkl] not practicle
Iŋ[korekt] not correct
Il[kigl] not legal
Ir[regjƏlƏr] not regular
Stem suppletion
Not all allomorphic variation is morphophonemics; any that cannot be handled by regular phonological rules is called SUPPLETION or SUPPLETIVE ALLOMORPHY. Suppletion is words that have irregular forms in their paradigms. This is called STEM SUPPLETION. Most of the allomorphy of the English noun plurals discussed above is of this type, involving irregular patterns of suffixation and vowel changes.
(14) N
fʊt [- plural]
fi:t [+plural] foot
t∫aIld [- plural]
t∫Ild-rƏn [+plual] child
maʊs [- plural]
maIs [+plural] mouse
the correct surface form is inserted directly from the lexicon in deep structure.
Analyzing allomorphic variation in general
There are three main factors that distinguish different types of allomorphy:
(38) a. type of variation: morphophonemics versus suppletion
b. what varies: stems versus affixes
c. conditioning environment: lexical (arbitrary) or something else (e.g., phonological)
In principle, all three can vary independently, but usually they combine to produce the following four types:
Type Example
| Morphomonemics affecting stems and/or affixes with phonological conditioning | Regular English noun plurals English derivational prefix /in-/ |
| Suppletion of stems | Irregular English noun plurals |
| Suppletion of affixes, phonological conditioning | Tzeltal possessor agreement |
| Suppletion of affixes, lexical conditioning | Kiowa subject agreement |
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