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Morph and Allomorph

The document discusses morphs and allomorphs. [1] A morph is the phonetic realization of a morpheme and can be lexical or grammatical. [2] An allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme that does not change the meaning. There are three types of allomorphs: phonologically conditioned based on pronunciation, morphologically conditioned based on particular morphemes, and lexically conditioned which are unpredictable. [3] Allomorphs occur at the morpheme level and can have different sounds, pronunciations, or spellings depending on their conditioning environment.

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4K views

Morph and Allomorph

The document discusses morphs and allomorphs. [1] A morph is the phonetic realization of a morpheme and can be lexical or grammatical. [2] An allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme that does not change the meaning. There are three types of allomorphs: phonologically conditioned based on pronunciation, morphologically conditioned based on particular morphemes, and lexically conditioned which are unpredictable. [3] Allomorphs occur at the morpheme level and can have different sounds, pronunciations, or spellings depending on their conditioning environment.

Uploaded by

yuliati paramitha
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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MORPH AND ALLOMORPH

A. Morph

Morph is the phonetic realization of a morpheme which study the unit of form, sounds
and phonetic symbol. The morphs can be devided into two important classes, lexical and
grammatical.

1. Lexical morph is the morph that denote directly objects actions, qualities and other
pieces of real word (ex : table, dog, walk, etc.)
2. Grammatical morph is the morph that has been modifiying the meaning of the lexical
morphs by adding a certain element to them. (ex : un-, -able, re-, -d, in-, -ent, -ly, -al, -
ize, -a-, -tion, anti-, dis-, -ment, -ari-, -an, -ism)

Example :

The word/morpheme disbelieve has a phonetic symbol /dIsbI’li:v/

Morph

Dis /dIs/

Believe /bI’li:v/

So, every phonetic symbol of morpheme is called morph.

B. Allomorph

Allomorph is variant form of morpheme about the sounds and phonetic symbols but it
doesn’t change the meaning. There are three types of allomorph, phonologically,
morphologically and lexically conditioned allomorph.

1. Phonologically conditioned allomorph

The choice of allomorph is predictable on the basis of the pronounciation

 Allomorph of the indefinite article : an (before vowels, ex : an elephant) and a (before


consonant, ex : a dog) both of them have meaning one,single.
 Allomorphs of the regular past tense morpheme

1. /id/ after d,t : hated


2. /t/ after all other voiceless sounds : picked
3. /d/ after all other voiced sounds : wedged
4. /im/ before bilabial sounds : impossible
5. /il/ before consonant /l/ : illegal
6. /in/ elsewhere : independent

 Some allomorph of the negative prefix in-


2. Morphologically conditioned allomorph

The choice of allomorph is determined by particular morphemes, not just by their


pronounciation, ex : the morpheme –sume in changes to –sumpt- in (consume =
consumption)

3. 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. One allomoprh

Disagreement /dis/

Discount /dis/

Disbelieve /dis/

3. Two different allomorphs

Voiced /d/

Walked /t/

Stopped /t/

Kicked /t/

Note : allomorph occur at every morpheme, ex : agree (one morpheme, one allomorph)
So, allomorph is variant form of a morpheme about the sounds and phonetic symbol
but it doesn’t change the meaning. Allomorph has different in pronounciation and spelling
according to their condition. It means that allomorph will have different sound,
pronounciation or spelling in different condition.

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