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Morphophonemics

Morphophonemics is the study of how phonological and morphological processes interact and influence each other, often resulting in changes to pronunciation at morpheme boundaries. In English, some examples of morphophonemic rules include the use of indefinite articles "a" and "an" depending on the following sound and pluralization, where the plural morpheme is realized as /-s/, /-z/, or /-əz/ depending on the preceding phonological environment. In Tamil similar morphophonemic rules can be seen where adding affixes can result in changes to the final sounds of words.

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501 views2 pages

Morphophonemics

Morphophonemics is the study of how phonological and morphological processes interact and influence each other, often resulting in changes to pronunciation at morpheme boundaries. In English, some examples of morphophonemic rules include the use of indefinite articles "a" and "an" depending on the following sound and pluralization, where the plural morpheme is realized as /-s/, /-z/, or /-əz/ depending on the preceding phonological environment. In Tamil similar morphophonemic rules can be seen where adding affixes can result in changes to the final sounds of words.

Uploaded by

Lora Cunanan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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1. 1.

Morphophonemics variation in the form of morphemes because of phonetic factors, or the


study of this variation. Morphophonemics variation in the form of morphemes because of
phonetic factors, or the study of this variation. Thennarasu Sakkan 16th Aug 2019
2. 2. The sound structure (phonology) and the 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
‘morphophonemics’. Sometimes, due to this interaction, pronunciation of a morpheme may
get modified or completely changed.
3. 3. These changes may be regular or irregular and usually are context sensitive in nature. In
‘morphophonemics’, we specifically study the changes which occur at the boundaries of
morphemes.
4. 4. Morphophonemics 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.
5. 5. Morphophonemic change usually occurs at morpheme boundaries and it involves sounds
that are associated with separate phonemes. One very obvious example to
morphophonemics would be the use of indefinite articles in English language.
6. 6. Indefinite article in English has two manifestations: a and an. If a word begins with a
consonantal sound then indefinite article is manifested as ‘a’ (a mango or a cat), while it is
manifested as ‘an’ (an apple or an idiot) if following word starts with a vowel sound. Note:
The term ‘sound’ 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.
7. 7. Morphophonemics Processes Pluralisation in English To understand the
morphophonemics, it’s very important to understand concepts A to B not only in isolation but
also as to how they appear in a morphophonemic process. Here, we will present regular
pluralisation process of English language.
8. 8. Word (Singular) IPA Transcription Word (Plural) IPA Transcription cut [kʌt] cuts [kʌts] kick
[kɪk] kicks [kɪks] top [tɒp] tops [tɒps] dog [dɒɡ] dogz [dɒɡz] rib [rɪb] ribz [rɪbz] kid [kɪd] kidz
[kɪdz] judge [dʒʌdʒ] judges [dʒʌdʒɘz] wish [wɪʃ] wishes [wɪʃɘz] church [tʃəːtʃ] churches
[tʃəːtʃɘz] shoe [ʃuː] shoes [ʃuːz] day [deɪ] days [deɪz] pea [piː] peas [piːz]
9. 9. Upon careful observation of the data, it is noticed that plural morpheme in English is
realized as /-s/, /-z/ and /-əz/ given different phonological environment of the stem to which
plural morpheme gets attached to. When one morpheme takes more than one form (morph)
in different phonological or morphological environment, these morphs are referred as
allomorph to one another.
10. 10. In this kind of situation, we need to set up a single underlying representation from which
other morphs are derived for their pronunciation in any particular context. This underlying
representation is achieved with the help of some rules, usually referred as morphophonemic
rules.
11. 11. Therefore, it is evident distribution of plural allomorph in English is not random in nature
but is conditioned by phonological environment occurring at right boundary of the morpheme.
Usually, the allomorph with the wisest distribution qualifies as a suitable candidate for
underlying representation. In this case, /-z/ qualifies to become underlying allomorph as it
occurs after most voiced consonants and after all vowels.
12. 12. And from allomorph /-z/, other allomorphs /-s/ and /- əz/ have been derived by (a set of)
rules.
13. 13. morphophonemic changes. There are some common types of morphophonemic changes
in English : (a) Loss of phonemes - The phoneme /n/ of the negative prefix{in-} is lost before
the morphemes beginning with sonorant sounds /m/; /r/; /l/ and /n/. e.g. immobile ; irregular,
illimitable, innumerous.
14. 14. Morphophonemic behavior is predictable only when the grammatical status of and the
grammatical relations between the given morphemes are understood.  puli+oodu -- >
puliyoodu (with the tiger)  Teru + il -- > teruvil (on the street)  puuTTu+il -- > puuTTil (in
the lock)  Kaal + oodu -- > kaalloodu (with the stone)  Naan + pl -- > naam
15. 15. Morphophonemic rules in Tamil • nāṉ + kaḷ = nāṅkaḷ ‘1p. Inclusive plural form-nām’ • nī +
kaḷ = nīṅkaḷ ‘You plural’ • vīṭu + il = vīṭṭil ‘in the house’ • pacu + iṭam = pacuviṭam ‘with/in the
cow’ • peṭṭi + il = peṭṭiyil ‘in the box’
16. 16. Could you come up with some example in your language for morphophonemic rules?

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