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The document discusses the relationship between sounds and morphemes in the English language. It explains that morphemes are not made up of phonemes, and gives evidence why. A morpheme can be realized by different allomorphs, or phonological representations. The indefinite article "a/an" is provided as an example of a morpheme with two allomorphs that are in complementary distribution based on the following sound. Complementary distribution means the allomorphs do not occur in identical contexts and cannot distinguish meanings. The distribution of an allomorph refers to the linguistic contexts in which it appears.

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38 views

File 11

The document discusses the relationship between sounds and morphemes in the English language. It explains that morphemes are not made up of phonemes, and gives evidence why. A morpheme can be realized by different allomorphs, or phonological representations. The indefinite article "a/an" is provided as an example of a morpheme with two allomorphs that are in complementary distribution based on the following sound. Complementary distribution means the allomorphs do not occur in identical contexts and cannot distinguish meanings. The distribution of an allomorph refers to the linguistic contexts in which it appears.

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ENGLISH WORDS 23

several syllables realise a single morpheme, is equally possible. Thus, the trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic word
forms elephant and asparagus both realise just a single morpheme.
The nature of the relationship between sounds and morphemes is intriguing. At first sight, it might look
reasonable to assume that morphemes are made up of PHONEMES. We might be tempted to think that car, the
English morpheme with the meaning is made up of the phonemes /kæt/. But we have several kinds of evidence
showing that this is not the case.
First, if morphemes were made up of phonemes, a given morpheme would be uniquely associated with a
given phonological representation. In reality, the same morpheme can be realised by different morphs (i.e. sounds
or written forms). Morphs which realise the same morpheme are referred to as ALLOMORPHS of that morpheme.
The INDEFINITE ARTICLE is a good example of a morpheme with more than one allomorph. It is
realised by the two forms a and an. The sound at the beginning of the following word determines the allomorph
that is selected. If the word following the indefinite article begins with a consonant, the allomorph a is selected,
but if it begins with a vowel the allomorph an is used instead:
[3.6]

a. a dictionary b. an island
a boat an evening
a pineapple an opinion
a leg an eye
a big (mat) an old (mat)
a dull (song) an exciting (finish)

Hence the incorrectness of the sentence marked with an asterisk in [3.7]:

[13.7]

a. I spent an evening with them.


*I spent a evening with them.
b. I spent the evening with them.

Allomorphs of the same morpheme are said to be in COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION. This means that
they do not occur in identical contexts and therefore they cannot be used to distinguish meanings. In other words,
it is impossible to have two otherwise identical utterances that differ in their meanings depending on the allomorph
of a morpheme that is selected. So, because a and an both realise the same indefinite article morpheme, it is
impossible to have two sentences like those in [3.7a] above which are identical in all ways, except in the choice
of a or an, but mean different things.
Complementary distribution presupposes the more basic notion of DISTRIBUTION. Distribution is to do
with establishing facts about the occurrence of allomorphs of a particular morpheme. It is concerned with
establishing the contexts in which the morpheme which we are investigating occurs and the allomorphs by which
it is realised in those different contexts. In other words, by distribution we mean the total set of distinct linguistic
contexts in which a given form appears, perhaps in different guises. For instance, the indefinite article has the
distribution: a before consonants (e.g. a tree) and an before vowels (e.g. an eagle).
As mentioned already, such functionally related forms which all represent the same morpheme in different
environments are called allomorphs of that morpheme. Another way of putting it is

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