Morphophonology

Lore & Background

The origins of morphophonology trace back to the early 20th century with foundational works in structural linguistics. Subsequent theories, such as Autosegmental phonology and Optimality theory, have refined the analysis of morphophonological patterns. Morphophonological analysis often involves an attempt to give a series of formal rules or constraints that successfully predict the regular sound changes occurring in the morphemes of a given language. Such a series of rules converts a theoretical underlying representation into a surface form that is pronounced. The units which compose the underlying representations of morphemes are sometimes called morphophonemes. Common conventions to indicate a morphophonemic representation include double slashes (⫽ ⫽), pipes (| |), double pipes (‖ ‖), and braces ({ }). The tilde ~ may indicate morphological alternation. Examples of complex morphophonological systems include sandhi, consonant gradation, vowel harmony, and ablaut.

Reader's Guide

Morphophonology bridges the gap between morphology and phonology, offering insights into the dynamic interactions between word formation and sound patterns. It continues to evolve as a field, integrating innovative approaches and broadening our understanding of linguistic systems globally. The purpose of both phonemic and morphophonemic analysis is to produce simpler underlying descriptions for what appear on the surface to be complicated patterns. In purely phonemic analysis, the data is just a set of words in a language, while for morphophonemic analysis, the words must be considered in grammatical paradigms to take account of the underlying morphemes. It is postulated that morphemes are recorded in the speaker's lexicon in an invariant form, which, in a given environment, is converted by rules into a surface form. The isolation form of a morpheme is the form in which that morpheme appears in isolation; it is often reasonable to assume that the isolation form provides its underlying representation, though this is not always the case, as seen in French petit or languages with final obstruent devoicing. Until the 1950s, many phonologists assumed that neutralizing rules generally applied before allophonic rules, splitting analysis into morphophonological and purely phonological parts. Since the 1960s, many linguists have moved away from making such a split, instead regarding surface phones as derived from underlying morphophonemes through a single system of rules.

Did You Know?

• The English plural morpheme '-s' can be pronounced [s], [z], or [ɪz] depending on context, as in cats, dogs, and horses.
• The English past tense ending '-ed' can be pronounced /t/, /d/, or /ɪd/, as in hoped, bobbed, and added.
• The word 'cats' may be transcribed morphophonemically as ⫽ˈkætz⫽ if the plural is argued to be underlyingly ⫽z⫽, assimilating to /s/ after a voiceless nonsibilant.
• Ablaut, found in English and other Germanic languages, is a morphophonemic alternation where stem vowels change form, as in sing, sang, sung.