ALLOMORPH

A.    Allomorph

1.      What is the meaning Allomorps ?

v  In fact, many morphemes have two or more different pronunciations, called   allomorphs.

Allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. GNU Webster’s (1913) remarks that allomorph is any of the different phonological representations of a morpheme.

v  When a particular morpheme is not represented everywhere by the same morph, but by different morphs in different environments, these alternative representations of the morpheme are called allomorphs.

v  is ‘any of the different forms of a morpheme’.[Richards, Platt & Weber, 1987: 9]

v  Such different morphs representing the

same morpheme are called allomorphs, and the phenomenon that different morphs

realize one and the same morpheme is known as allomorphy.

So, allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme, or basic unit of meaning. These can be different pronunciations or different spellings. For example, the phonetic (s) of cats (kăts), (z) of pigs (pĭgz), and (ĭz) horses (hôrˈsĭz) are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme.

Depending on the context, allomorphs can vary in shape and pronunciation without changing meaning. In etymology, the term of allomorph is from the Greek, it is "other" + "form". Following to Justice Paul W., in his book entitled Relevant Linguistics: an Introduction to the Structure and Use of English for Teachers that an underlying morpheme can have multiple surface level allomorphs (recall that the prefix 'allo' means 'other'). That is, what we think of as a single unit (a single morpheme) can actually have more than one pronunciation (multiple allomorphs). . . . We can use the following analogy:

phoneme : allophone = morpheme : allomorph

2.      Types of Allomorph

v  In fact, this -s suffix has three allomorphs: [s] (as in cats or lamps), [z] (as in dogs or days), and [z] or [əz] (as in horses or judges). In fact, it is easy to show that the three allomorphs are distributed in an entirely regular fashion, based on the sound immediately preceding the suffix, thus:

 1. When the preceding sound is a sibilant (the kind of ‘hissing’ or ‘hushing’ sound heard at the end of horse, rose, bush, church and judge), the [z] allomorph occurs;

2.      Otherwise, when the preceding sound is voiceless, i.e. produced with no vibration of the vocal folds in the larynx (as in cat, rock, cup or cliff ), the [s] allomorph occurs;

3.      Otherwise (i.e. after a vowel or a voiced consonant, as in dog or day), the [z] allomorph occurs.

v  Another very common suffix with phonologically determined allomorphs is the one spelled -ed, used in the past tense form of most verbs. Its allomorphs are [t], [d] and [d] or [əd]; determining their distribution is left as an exercise, whose solution is provided at the end of the book.

B.     Morphophonemic

Morphophonology (also morphophonemics, morphonology) is a branch of linguistics which studies, in general, the interaction between morphological and phonetic processes. Morphophonemics attempts to describe the process of alteration of the phonetic environments of other morphemes when a morpheme is attached to a word. A language's morphophonemic structure is generally described with a series of rules which, ideally, can describe every morphophonemic alternation that takes place in the language.

When we talk about morphophonemic change it will be related to the affixation processes, there is a term called morphophonemic changes (Fromkin, 1990: 141). The term morphophonemic changes is derived from two words, they are “morpheme” and “phoneme”. The word Morphophonemic refers variation in the form of morphemes because of the influence phonetic factor or the study of this variation (Longman). According to Parera, the form change of morpheme is based on the sounds surround it which relates to the correlation between morphemes and phonemes. It is also called morphophonemic changes. According to Ramlan, morphophonemic refers the changes of phoneme as a result from the merging of one morpheme and another. He also states that morphophonemic change is a process of form changes in which phoneme and morpheme are involved.

According to Dobrovolsky and Aronoff, the linguistic of morphology is the study of word structure. It seeks to characterize the system of categories and rules involved in word formation and interpretation. The psycholinguistic study of morphological processing seeks to understand how this word structure plays a role in language processing.

According to Dobrovolsky and Aronoff, rules that account for alternations among allomorphs (morphophonemic alternations) are called morphophonemic rules.

Morphophonemic change has to do with the way the pronunciation of a morpheme changes in different contexts. Another way of saying it is that there is a change of one or more of the phonemes that make up the morpheme -- thus the term morphophonemic.

When we use combine as a verb, the stress shifts from the first to the second syllable, and this stress-shift changes the pronunciation of the vowel in the prefix: In the verb the <o> in the prefix reduces to a schwa sound: /km/. That change of the vowel phoneme /o/ to schwa is a morphophonemic change: a change of phonemes within a single morpheme.

Combine also illustrates morphophonemic change in its base morpheme: If to the verb combine we add the suffix -ation to form a noun, the vowel in the base undergoes a morphophonemic change. In the verb the base is pronounced /bi n/, with a long <i>, but in the noun combination the stress-shift again reduces the vowel in the base morpheme to a schwa.

For an example of a morphophonemic change in English, take the plural suffix. Written as "-s" or "-es" but generally understood to have the underlying representation /z/, the plural morpheme alternates between [s], [z], and [əz], as in explanation before. The plural suffix "-s" can also appear to alter phonemes directly surrounding it. As an example, the word "leaf" [liːf] takes its plural by alternating the [f] with a [v] and adding the plural suffix, this time written as "-es" but pronounced as [z]. The result is "leaves" [liːvz]. Other words like "knife," "fife," and "dwarf" also display this alternation. This may be because the last phoneme in these words is actually an archiphoneme/F/ which may be realised as [f] or [v] depending on the context, even though those phonemes usually contrast. The archiphoneme is unspecified for voice, according to the rule: /F/ -> [αvoice] / __ [αvoice]. Because the underlying representation of the English plural suffix is /z/, a voiced consonant, the archiphoneme /F/ is realised as the voiced allophone [v].

Another example would be the different pronunciations for the past tense marker "-ed". After a voiceless sound, "-ed" is generally realised as [t], as in walked, hoped, wished, and so on.

1.      Analyze the suffix -al. For example:

·         Potent (Adjective): /ˈpəʊ.t ə nt/ à Potential (adjective): /pə ʊ  ˈten. t  ʃ ə l/

·         Confident (adjective): /ˈkɒn.fɪ.d ə nt/ à Confidential (adjective): /ˌkɒn.fɪˈden. t  ʃ ə l/ 

·         Office (noun): /ˈɒf.ɪs/ à Official (adjective): /əˈfɪʃ. ə l/ (stress changing)

·         Accident (noun): /ˈæk.sɪ.d ə nt/ à Accidental (adjective): /ˌæk.sɪˈden.t ə l/ (stress changing)

·         Regiment (noun): /ˈredʒ.ɪ.mənt/ à Regimental (adjective): /ˌredʒ.ɪˈmen.t ə l/ (stress changing)

·         Deny (verb): /dɪˈnaɪ/ à Denial (noun): /dɪˈnaɪ.əl/

If you can see from the example that I cited, like in words potent becomes potential, regiment becomes regimental, they have same final sounds, which is /nt/ but what make me confuse is the sound of -al in potential and regiment.

Why in 'potential' there is -ial and the final sound become /t ʃ ə l/ but in regiment, it has no -i (-ial) and the final sound is same like the others.

I had tried to analyze but I'm still confuse. From my opinion, -ial is allomorph of -al, but they have different rules about the sounds.

The only answer I can give you is that -al and -ial are variant suffixes for Latinate loan words (Latin, Old French).

When the root word ended in -nce then the suffix was –ntial (essence/essential). When the root ended in -ment, then the suffix was -mental.

These loan words came into the English language over a long period of time, and so you have some rules, some exceptions and variations in both spelling and pronunciation. 

Exceptions:

·         president         /           presidential

·         exponent         /           exponential

·         torrent             /           torrential

CHAPTER III
CLOSING

v  allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme, or basic unit of meaning. These can be different pronunciations or different spellings. For example, the phonetic (s) of cats (kăts), (z) of pigs (pĭgz), and (ĭz) horses (hôrˈsĭz) are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme.

v  Morphophonemics attempts to describe the process of alteration of the phonetic environments of other morphemes when a morpheme is attached to a word. A language's morphophonemic structure is generally described with a series of rules which, ideally, can describe every morphophonemic alternation that takes place in the language.