Zellig Harris. Structural Linguistics

25 (16s net)
STRUCTURAL
LINGUISTICS
ZELLIG
S.
HARRIS
"This
book
is
the
most important
contribution to
descriptive linguistics
since
. . .
BloomfieldV
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STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS
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STRUCTURAL
LINGUISTICS
By
Zellig S. Harris
Phoe7iix Books
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO
&:
LONDON
Foniurly Entitled
METHODS
IN
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada
Copyright 1951 under the International Copyright Union
Published 1951. Sixth Impression 1963.

printed by
Composed and
Press, Chicago,
The University of Chicago

Illinois,
U.S.A.
PREFACE
THIS both
set of structural
methods
for descriptive linguistics is intended
for students of linguistics
and
for persons
who may be
in-
terested in the character of linguistics as a science.
For those who use

of logic.
linguistic
methods
in research or teaching, the tech-
niques are given here in some detail, without employing the terminology
For those who are primarily interested
in the logic of distribulin-
tional relations,
guistics, a
which constitutes the basic method of structural
minimum of knowledge about language and linguistics has been

Chapters
1, 2,
assumed
linguistic
here.
and 20 deal with the general character of
methods.
is,
This book
regrettably, not easy to read.
single reading should be

of linguistics.
enough
for a picture of the operations
and elements
But
anyone who wants to use these methods or to control them critically will have to work over the material with paper and pencil, reorganizing for
himself the examples and general statements presented here.
The procedures
growth
of the
of analysis discussed here are the product of linguists
and out-
work
throughout the world, to whose investiga-
tions the
meager references cited here are an inadequate guide. This

to the
book owes most, however,

of
work and friendship

I
of
Edward Sapir and

book Language.
Leonard Bloomfield, and particularly to the

In preparing this book for publication,
latter's
had the
Wells
benefit of
many
dis-
cussions with C. F. Voegelin and

criticisms
Rulon
S.
III,
and
of
important
from
Roman
Jakobson,
W. D.
Preston, and Fred Lukoff.
N. Chomsky has given much-needed assistance with the manuscript.

Z. S.
Harris
Philadelphia January 1947
PREFACE FOR THE FOURTH IMPRESSION
SINCE
1.
this book was written, there have been several developments which add to the general picture of linguistic methods, without
affecting the specific set of procedures presented here.' Sentence center: Chapters 12-19 show how sequences of morphological elements constitute constructions at a higher level; but they do not give a general indication of how these constructions constitute a sentence. This can
now be obtained from
center-analysis, ac-
cording to wliich every sentence can be analyzed into a center, plus zero
or
more constructions (which are adjoined next
to specified elements
of the center or of a construction); in addition, specified elements of
the center or of a construction
may be replaced by a suitable construction.
The
center
is
thus an elementarj' sentence; adjoined constructions are

constructions are themselves derivable from
in general modifiers. ]Most
centers.
2.
tliis
Transformations: The basic approach of structural linguistics
(in
book)
is
to characterize each linguistic entity (element or construcof specified ordered entities at a lower level.
tion) as
composed out
be obtained if we try to characterize each sentence as derived, in accordance with a set of transformational
different linguistic analysis can
rules,
from one or more (generally simpler) sentences, i.e. from other on the same level. A language is then described as consisting of specified sets of kernel sentences and a set of transformations. The transformations operating on the kernels yield the sentences of the language, either by modifying the kernel sentences of a given set (with the same modification for all kernels in the set) or by combining them (in
entities
In addition to the three items mentioned in this Preface, which go beyond the material of this book, reference should perhaps be made to one method that belongs in the sequence of procedures, specifically in chapter 12: a procedure for locating morpheme and word boundaries among the successive phonemes of a sentence. Given a .sentence vi phonemes long, for I < n < m we count after the fu'st n phonemes of the sentence how many different n -(- 1th phonemes ("successors") there are in the various sentences which begin with the same first n phonemes. If the successor count after the first n phonemes is greater both than that after the first n 1 phonemes and than that after the first n -f 1 phonemes of the .sentence, we place a tentative morphological boundary after the nth phoneme of the given sentence. This is a first approximation adjustments have to be made for con.sonant-vowel differences and for
'
various other factors. Cf.
Language
31.190-222 (1955).
PREFACE FOR THE FOURTH IMPRESSION

fixed
VU
ways) with other kernel sentences. Such an analysis produces more detailed description of language and brings out the more subtle formal and semantic relations among sentences. For example, sentences which contain ambiguities turn out to be derivable from more than one transformational source. 3. Discourse analysis: Exact linguistic analysis does not go beyond
a more compact yet
the limits of a sentence; the stringent demands of

satisfied
its
procedures are not
between one sentence and its neighbors, or between parts of one sentence and parts of its neighbors. There are, however, structural features which extend over longer stretches of each connected piece of Avi'iting or talking. These can be investigated by more
by the
relations
differentiated tools, e.g.
by
setting
up equivalence
classes of elements
which are
discourse.
in
a restricted sense substitutable (or positionally similar)
in respect to other
elements or classes of elements throughout a connected

useful for finding such discourse structures
of linguistics.
Z. S.
The procedures
are extensions of the
methods
Harris
TAHLK OF CONTENTS
1.
Intuodi'ctiox
2.
Mkthodouugu'al Preliminaries
2.0. 2.1. 2.2.
2.3.
Introductory
The
Criterion of Relevance: Distribution Schedule of Procedures
The Universe
2.32. 2.33.
of Discourse
2.31. Dialect or Style
Utterance or Discourse
Corpus or Sample
2.4. 2.5. 2.6.
Definition of
Terms
Elements Preview of the Phonologic and Morphologic Elements 2.61. Correlations Outside of Descriptive Linguistics 2.62. Relation between Phonologic and Morphologic Elements
of Linguistic
The Status
3-11.
Phonology
Phonologic Elements
3-4.
3.
Segmentation
3.0. 3.1. 3.2.
3.3.
....
Introductory'
Purpose: Speech Composed of Discrete Parts Procedure: Segmenting Utterances at Arbitrary Points
Result: Unique Segments
3.2:
Appendix to
4.
On
the Segmentation of Single Utterances
Phone.mic Distinctions
4.0.
4.1.
Introductory
Purpose:
4.21. 4.22.
4.2.
To Establish Linguistic Equivalence Procedure: Grouping Substitutable Segments

In Repeated Utterances In Different Utterances
4.23. Paired
4.3.
Utterances
Result: Equivalent and Non-equivalent Segments

4.31. Distinct
Utterances and Distinct Elements
4.4. 4.5.
Length of Segments
Correcting Possible Errors
4.1:
Appendix to Appendix to Appendix to
The Reason
for
Equating Segments
.
4.21: 4.22:
On
the Equivalence of Repetitions

in
Matching
Frames
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Appendix to 4.23: Interpretation of the Paired Utterance Test Appendix to 4.3 Intermittently Present Distinctions Appendix to 4.5: Continued Testing of New Utterances
:
IX
38
...
.
39 40
5-11.
5.
Relations among Phonologic Elements
....
... ... ...
42 42 42 42 42 43 44 45
45
Unit Length
5.0.
5.1.
Introductory
Purpose: Descriptively Equal Segment Lengths

Procedure: Joining Dependent Segments Result: Utterances Divided into Unit Lengths
to 5.3: Unit
5.2.
5.3.
Appendix
6.
Length and Phoneme Length
Utterance-long Elements
6.0. 6.1. 6.2.
Introductory
Purpose Utterance-long Equivalent Features

:
...
...
45
Preliminaries to the Procedure: Discovering Partial Similarities
6.21. In Paired Utterances 6.22. In

6.3. 6.4. 6.5.
6.6.
Otherwise Non-equivalent Utterances
46 46 47
49
49 50
51
Procedure: Extracting Segmental Portions of Utterances
Segmental Length of Contours Contours Which Occur Simultaneously Result: Suprasegmental Elements Extending over Utterances
6.1.
Appendix to Elements
Morphemic Independence
of Utterance-long
52
53 55 56 56
Appendix to 6.3: Formulaic Statement of the Procedure Appendix to 6.4 Contours of More than One Utterance Length Appendix to 6.5: Grouping Complementary Contours Appendix to 6.6: Phonemic Status of Contours
:
.
7.
Phonemes
7.0.
7.1. 7.2.
59
Introductory
Purpose Fewer and Less Restricted Elements

:
...
59
59
Preliminaries to the Procedure

7.21. Stating the
7.3.
Environments of Segments 7.22. Summing over the Environments Procedure: Grouping Segments Having. Complementary
Distribution
7.31.
....
60
60
61
61
in the
Adjusting Environments
cization
Course of Phonemi62
62
63
7.4. Criteria for
7.41.
Grouping Segments Number and Freedom
TAHLK OF CONIKNIS
7,12. Syinim'tiv
ill
Hoproseiitatioii of
Sounds
04
()4
7.421. 7.422.
Identity of Hojiiesontation arnoiim Scmniont.s
Identity of Intor-scgmental Relation
among
60
67
Phonemes
7.42.S.
7.4."?.
Relative to Complete
of I">nvironment
Phoneme Stock
. .
Symmetry
:
68
72 72 73 75 76 79 79
.
7.5.
Result
(^lasses of
:
Complementary Sediments
Appendix Appendix Appen(hx

8.
to 7.21 to
Apjiendix to
Segment 7.22: Tabulating Knvironments by Segments 7.3: Plionetie and Phonemic Distinctions
Tahuhitin)>; the I']nvii()nnients of a
to 7.4:
The
Criterion of
Morphemic
Identity
JrNrri'Rics
8.0. 8.1.
Introductory
Purpose: Eliminating Restrictions on Sets of Phonemes

Procedure: Defining Differences between Phoneme Sets
8.21.
79
8.2.
Matching Sets
of Tentative
Phonemes
...
. .
79
81
8.211. Syllabification Features

8.22.
82 82
.
Replacing Contours by Junctures 8.221. Periodicities of Segmental Features

8.222. Partial
83 84
84
on Contour 8.223. of Contour on Juncture 8.3. Result Group of Similarly Placed Features 8.4. More than One Juncture Appendix to 8.2: Junctures as Morphologic Boundaries
of Juncture
:
Dependence Partial Dependence
....
85 86 87
9.
RErnONEMICIZATION
9.0.
90 90 90 90
Introductory
9.1.
Purpose: Eliminating Exceptional Distributional Limitations
9.2.
Procedure: Dividing the Segment

9.21. Special
Cases
9.3.
Result: Dependent Segments as Allophones
....
92 93
93
94
94
Sequences of Segments Reduction of the Phonemic Stock Appendix to 9.2: Considerations of Symmetry Appendix to 9.21 Junctures as a Special Case of Resegmenta9.4.
9.5.
:
tion
96
97
125
Appendix to Chapters 7-9: The Phonemes of Swahili

10.
Phonemic Long Components

10.0. 10.1. 10.2.
Introductory
125
125 126
Purpose: Replacing Di.stributionally Limited Phonemes

Procedure: Phonemes Occurring Together Share a
Com-
ponent
TABLE OF CONTENTS
10.3.
^^
Properties of
Components
Lengths
in
128
Various Environments
128
.
10.31. Various
10.32. Various Definitions over Various

10.33.
10.4.
Segments
129
Extension of a Component
130
131
Complementary Long Components Reducing Whole Phonemic Stocks into Components 10.6. Result: Components of Various Lengths Appendix to 10.2: Phonemic Status of Long Components Appendix to 10.5: Component Analysis of Swahili Appendix to 10.1^: Unit-Length Components; Tone Phonemes Appendix to 10.1-5: Unit-Length Components of a Whole Phonemic Stock
10.5.
.
132
133
135
...
136
143 146
11.
Phonological Structure
11.1. 11.2.
150
.
Purpose: Phonological Constituency of Utterances Procedure: Stating What Combinations Occur

11.21.
150
150 150
151
Combinations Occur 11.22. Utterance Formulae 11.3. Result: A Representation of Speech Appendix to 11.22: Utterance Diagrams
All
Not
152
152
156
.
12-19.
12.
Morphology
.
Morphological Elements: Morphemic Segments

12.0.
12.1.
12.2.
156
156
.
Introductory
Purpose: Phoneme Distribution over Longer Stretches

Procedure: Independent and Patterned Combinations
12.21. Free
156 157 158

158
12.22.
Morphemic Segments Upper Limit for Number of Morphemic Segments

an Utterance
for
in
12.23.
Lower Limit
in
Number
of
Morphemic Segments
160
an Utterance
For Free Forms 12.232. For Bound Forms

12.231.
12.233.
12.3.
160
161
Summary
Morphemic Segments Phonemic Sequences
161 164 165
Phonemic
12.32.
Identification of
12.31. ContigU(His
Non-contiguous Phonemic; Sequences 12.321. Staggered Phonemes 12.322. Broken Sequences 12.323. Repetitive Sequences 12.324. Partially Dependent Non-contiguous Sequences
....
165
165 165
165
167
12.33.
Replacement
of
Phonemes
167
Xll
TABLK OF CONTENTS
12.331.
12.332. 12.333.
Amon^ Among
Individual
Classes of
Phonemes Phonemes
.
.
lt>7
1()8
12.34.
Rephicement by Zero Suprasegmental Elements

12.341.
108
109
12.342.
12.343.
Components Contour Change Morpheme-Length Contours

.
.
109
109
.
109
12.4.
12.344. Utterance Contours Combinations of the Above Result: Elements with Stated Distributions over Utter12.35.
170 170
171
ances
12.41.
Morphemic Segments Correlate with Features

Social Situations
of
172
in
12.5.
Correlations between
Morphemes and Phonemes
Each
173
Language 12.51. Phonemic Combinations in Morphemes 12.52. Intermittently Present Pause

12.53. 12.54.
174
174
.
Adjusting Junctures as
Morpheme Boundaries
175
Xew Phonemic
Junctures
170
177
179
Appendix to 12.22: Partial and Seeming Independence Appendix to 12.23: The Criterion of Similar Distributions Appendix to 12.233: Alternatives in Patterning Appendix to 12.323^: Complex Discontinuous Morphemes Appendix to 12.3-4: Order as a ^lorphemic Element Appendix to 12.41: The Criterion of Meaning Appendix to 12.5: Relation between Morphologic and Phonologic Segmentation
....
181
182
184 180
195
13-19.
13.
Relations among Morphologic Elements
....
197
Morpheme Alternants
13.0.
197
197 197 198 199
199
Introductory'
13.1.
13.2.
Purpose: Reducing the Number of Elements PreliminaPt' Operation: Free Variants in Identical Environments
Procedure: Equating Unique Morphemic Segments
13.3.
13.4.
Phonemically Identical Segments 13.32. Phonemically Different Segments Criteria for Grouping Elements
13.31. 13.41.
200
201
13.42.
Matching Environments of Phonemically Identical Elements Phonemically Diflferent Elements L3.421. Matching Environments 13.422. Simplifying Environmental Differentiations
.
201
203 203
204
"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
13.43.
13.5.
^1"
.
Choosing among Complementary Elements
207
Relations
13.51.
among the Members of a Morpheme The Environments of Each Member

13.511. Phonemically Differentiable 13.512.
....
... ...
13.52.
Morphemically Differentiable Phonemic Differences among the Members

13.521. Slight Difference
208 208 208 209 210 210

211 211
13.522. Partial Identity 13.523.
No No
Identity
13.53. Similarity
between
Member and
Its
Environment
13.531.
Similarity
13.532. Identity in
13.533. Identity in
13.6.
Result: Classes of
Phonemic Feature Phonemes Complementary Morphemic Segments
Appendix to 13.42: Zero Members of Morphemes Appendix to 13.43: Alternative Groupings

14.
....
212 212 212 212 212 213 215

219
MORPHOPHONEMES
14.0.
14.1.
Introductory
219
219
to
Purpose: Identical Constitution for All Alternants of a
Morpheme
14.2. Preliminaries
the
Procedure: Morphemes Having
Identical Alternations
14.21.
among Their Members

Morphemically
Unique Alternations
Defined Limits
14.221. Identity of Part of the Alternation
14.222. Identical
. .
219 220
14.22. Alternations Generalizable within
220 220
Alternation
in
Phonemically
.
Undifferentiable
14.223. Alternations
in
Morphemes
.221 .221
222
Phonemically Differentiable Morphemes in Phonemically Un-
differentiable
Environments
14.224.
Summary
Phonemically Differentiable
14.23. Alternations within
Morphemes and Environments

14.3.
222
Procedure: Interchanging Phonemes

of
among
Alternants
One Morpheme
Morphophonemic Symbols Several Morphophonemes in One Alternation Types of Alternation Represented by Morphophonemes 14.331. Morphophonemic Redefinition of Phonemic Symbols 14.332. New Symbols Required
.
14.31. Status of the

14.32. 14.33.
224 225
22(5
227
227
230
>dv
14.4.
TABLK OF CONTENTS
Result:
Mori)li(i)l)inomes us
Classes of Substitutable
Phonemos
14.0.
231
Herunsiiieratiun of the Grouping of Phonological Seg-
ments
14.51.
233
Morphophonemic
ments
Criterion
for
Grouping Seg233 234 235 236 237
Phoncmicization of Gross-Boundar\- Alternations 14.53. Kquivalent Phonemic Spellings

14.52.
Reconsideration of the Grouping of Morphological Segments Appendix to 14.32: Morphophonemic Equivalent for Descriptive Order of Alternation
14.6.
Appendix to 14.33: Alternations Not Represented by Morphophonemes Appendix to 14.331 Maximum Generality for Morphophonemes Appendix lo 14.332: Choice of Marking Morpheme, Environ:
238
239
ment, or Juncture
15.
240
243
Morpheme Classes
15.1.
15.2.
15.3.
Purpose: Fewer Morphologically Distinct Elements Preliminaries to the Procedure: Approximation

.
243 244 245 246
Procedure Rough Similarity of Environments 15.31. Descriptive Order of Setting Up Classes 15.32. General Classes for Partial Distributional Iden:
.
tity
15.4. Alternative
248
Procedure: Classes of Morphemes-in-Envi-
ronments
15.41. General Classes for Partial Distributional Identity
15.5.
249
251
Result: Morpheme-Position Classes

15.51.
Morpheme Index
15.2:
251 252
Appendix to
Culturally Determined Limitations and
Productive Morphemes
253
Appendix to 15.3: Identical Distribution within Short Environments Appendix to 15.32: Identical Morphemes in Various Classes Appendix to 15.4 Tabulating Morpheme-Environment Classes Appendix to 15.5: Correlation between Morpheme Classes and Phonemic Features
.
255 257
259
261
16.
Morpheme Sequences
16.0.
262
Introductory^
16.1.
Purpose: Fewer and More General Classes
....
262 262
TABLE OF CONTENTS
16.2.
^
Morpheme
263 265 268 268 268 269
271
Procedure: Substitutable
Classes
16.21.
Sequences of
Non-repeatable Substitutions
16.3.
16.22. Analysis of the Complete Corpus Sequence Substitution as a Morphologic Tool 16.31. Exceptionally Limited Morphemes 16.32. Morphemic Resegmentation 16.33. Indicating Differences among Utterances 16.4. Result: Classes of Substitutable Morpheme Sequences 16.5. Relation of Class to Sequences Containing It 16.51. Resultant Class Differing from Sequence Classe.^ 16.52. Resultant Class Identical with One of the Sequence Classes 16.53. All Sequences Containing a Class 16.54. Immediate Constituents Appendix to 16.1: Why Begin with Morpheme Classes? Appendix to 16.2: Morphemic Contours in the Substitutions Appendix to 16.21: Alternative Methods for Non-repeatable
....
.
273 275
275 276 276 278 280 281

283
Substitutions
Appendix to 16.22: Morpheme-Sequence Substitutions

roccan Arabic
for
Mo285 289 295
Appendix to 16.31: Sequence Analysis of Words Containing wh- and thAppendix to 16.4: From Classes of Morphemes to Classes of
Positions
17.
Morphemic Long Components

17.0. 17.1.
299
299
Classes
Introductory
Purpose: Relations
the Utterance
among Morpheme
299
17.2. Preliminaries to the
Procedure: Disregarding the Rest of
300
a
17.3.
Procedure: Morphemes Occurring Together Share
Component
17.31. Classes 17.32.
301
.
Which Accompany Each Other Restrictions among Sub-classes

nents
301
303
17.33. Sub-classes
Representable by Several Cohipo-
306
Components Indicating Patterned Concurrences 309 of Morphemes .311 17.5. Re.strictions Not Represented by Components Appendix to 17.32:Sub-classesConsistingof Single Morphemes 312 Appendix to 17.33: Morphemic Components for Intersecting
17.4.
Result:
Limitations
314
TABLE OF CONTENTS
18.
C\)NSTHi;cTioNs
18.0.
Introductory
18.1.
18.2.
Purpose: Recurrent Arrangements of Morpheme Classes Procedure: Substitution in Short Environments

.
18.21. Features of Construction 18.22. Successively Enclosing Constnictions

18.3.
325 325 325 325 328 329
Result: Constructions Included

structions
in
the Next Larger Con-
18.4.
Reconsideration of Previous Results

to 18.2: Zero
Appendix
1.
Segments and Voided Elements
Zero Segment.s Represented by Elements

\'oided Elements: Non-zero
of
332 333 334 334

337
Segments Represented by Element 3. Relation between Zero Segments and Voided Elements Appendix to 18.4: Correlation with Previous Results 1. With Phonemic Features 2. With Boundaries 3. With Contours 4. With Morpheme Classes 5. With Meaning
2.
Absence
340 342 342 343 345 346 347

349 349 349 350
19.
Morphological Structurk
19.1. 19.2. 19.3.
Purpose: Stating
What
Utterances Occur
in
the Corpus
Procedure: Sequences of Resultants or Constructions
The
Selective Substitution
Diagram
.
19.31. Different Conditions for Different Substitutions

19.4.
350
351
Result Sentence Types

:
Appendix
20.
to 19.31: Detailed
Diagrams
352
361
Survey
20.1.
Summary
20.11.
of the Results
361 361
Phonology 2P.12. Morphology

20.13. General
20.2.
362 364
365
Survey of the Operations

20.21.
To
State Regularities or
To
Synthesize Utter-
ances?
20.22. Operations of Analysis
20.3.
De.scription of the
Language Structure
.
20.4. Correlations Outside of Descriptive Linguistics
Appendix
to 20.3:
A Grammar
of Lists
365 366 372 373 376

379
Index
1.
INTRODUCTION
of research used in descriptive, or,
is
THIS volume presents methods more

operations which the linguist
sult
exactly, structural, linguistics. It
thus a discussion of the
may
carry out in the course of his
investigations, rather than a theory of the structural analyses which re-
from these investigations. The research methods are arranged here form
of the successive procedures of analysis
is
in the
imposed by the workof the
ing linguist upon his data. It

in
hoped that presentation
methods
lin-
procedural form and order
may
help reduce the impression of sleight-
of-hand and complexity which often accompanies the more subtle

guistic analyses.
Starting with the utterances which occur in a single language

nity at a single time, these procedures determine
as identical in various parts of
commu-
what may be regarded various utterances, and provide a method

few stated arrangements
for identifying all the utterances as relatively
of relatively few stated elements.
These procedures are not a plan

In using them,
it
for obtaining data or for field work.
does not matter
if
the linguist obtains the data
ing texts, questioning an informant, or recording a conversation.
by takEven
this
is
where the procedures

in
call for particular
contact with the informant, as

it
obtaining repetitions of an utterance,
does not matter
how
carried out: e.g. the linguist can interrupt a conversation to ask the
speaker or hearer to repeat an utterance that has occurred, and

then alter the conversation so as to get
its
may
recurrence in different en-
vironments.
These procedures
also
do not constitute a necessary laboratory schedcompleted before the next
ule in the sense that each procedure should be

is
entered upon. In practice, linguists take unnumbered short cuts and
intuitive or heuristic guesses,

lar
language before them at the same time: they

into segments certain utterances which
the positional variants of
and keep many problems about a particumay have figured out several phonemes before they decide how to cut
up
netically unusual
the boundaries of
presumably contain a phophoneme; and they will usually know exactly where many morphemes are before they finally determine the
phonemes. The chief usefulness of the procedures listed below is therefore as a reminder in the course of the original research, and as a form for checking or presenting the results, where it may be desirable to make
1
2
sure that
nil
STRUCTITRAL LINGUISTICS
the iiiformatidii called for in these procethiies has been
validly obtained.'
The methods
same
deseriheil here
is
do not eliminate non-uniijueness-
in lin-
guistic descriptions. It
possible for different linguists, working on the
material, to set
up
different
phonemic and morphemic elements, to

so, to
break phonemes into simultaneous components or not to do
equate
two sequences do
so.
in the final
of
morphemes
as being mutually substitutable or not to
The only
result of such differences will be a correlative difference

of.
statement as to what the utterances consist

is
The use
of
the.se
procedures
if
merely to make explicit what choices each linguist

different
makes, so that
two analysts come out with
phoneme
lists for
a given language we should have exact statements of what positional

variants were assigned by each to what
differences of assignment.
phonemes and wherein lay
their
The methods presented here

sible
are consistent, but are not the onlj- pos-
ones of arranging linguistic description. Other methods can be sug-
gested, for
example one based upon relations of selection among seg-
ments, whether phonemic or morphemic. As more languages are analyzed, additional refinements
and
special cases of these or of
comparable
techniques come to attention.
The
particular
way
of arranging the facts about a language which

for
is
offered here will
undoubtedh' prove more convenient

it
some languages
effect of
than for others. However,

forcing
all
should not have the undesirable
languages to
fit
a single Procrustean bed,

all
and
of hiding their
differences
gories. If
by impo.sing on
of
them
alike a single set of logical cate-
such categories were applied, especially to the meanings of

it
forms
in various languages,
would be easy to extract

;
parallel results
from no matter how divergent forms of speech a
set of suffixes
one or
another of which always occurs with every noun (say, Latin
-is, -i, -e),
and a
'
selection of frequently used directional adjectives (say, English
In the interests of clarity and in order not to cloud the succession of the procedures, only the skeleton of each procedure will be given in the various chapters. Discussions of complicated points, justifications of the methods propo.sed, and longer examples of a complete procedure, will be given in appendices to each chapter. Mo.st chapters will open with a notation, in conventional linguistic terminology, of the procedure to be di.scu.ssed in it. The chapter will then contain a statement of the objectivês of the procedure, a description of the methods used, and a statement of the results obtained thereby-. - See, for example, Yuen Ren Chao, The Non-Uniqueness of Phonemic Solutions of Phonetic Sv.stems, Bulletin of the Institute of Historv and Philology 4.363-397 (Academia Sinica; Shanghai, 1934).
INTRODUCTION
o/, to,
in)
can both be called case systems.^ The procedures given below,
however, are merely ways of arranging the original data; and since they
go only by formal distinctions there
is
no opportunity for uncontrolled
interpreting of the data or for forcing of the meaning.
when arranged according to these proceshow different structures for different languages. Furthermore, various languages described in terms of these procedures can be the more readily compared for structural differences, since any differences between their descriptions will not be due to differences in method used by
For
this reason, the data,
dures, will
the linguists, but to differences in

identical
how
the language data responded to
methods
of arrangement. of the procedures follows the

of
The arrangement
into
fundamental division
phonology and morphology, each
which
is
further divided into the
determining of the elemental distinctions (phonemic or morphemic) and

the determining of the relations
among
the distinct elements. In order to
be consistent in the reduction of linguistic methods to procedures, there

are here offered procedures even for those steps where linguists traditionally use hit-or-miss or intuitive techniques to arrive at a system
which works to a
culty
first
approximation, but which can with greater
diffi-
and greater rigor be arrived at procedurally. Examples of cumexplicit procedures offered here in place of the simpler in-
bersome but
setting
upon distribution rather than meaning in up the morphemes; and the deferring of morphophonemics until after the morpheme alternants have been fully stated. The central position of descriptive linguistics in respect to the other linguistic disciplines and to the relationships between linguistics and other sciences, makes it important to have clear methods of work in this field, methods which will not impose a fixed system upon various languages, yet will tell more about each language than will a mere catalogue of sounds and forms. The greatest use of such explicit structural descriptions will be in the cataloguing of language structures, and in the comtuitive practice are: the stress
paring of structural types. These descriptions
will,
however, be also im-
portant for historical linguistics and dialect geography; for the relation
of
language to culture and personality, and to phonetics and semantics;

for the
and
comparison of language structure with systems of
logic. In
some
of these fields
scriptive linguistic
much work has been done by use of individual defacts, but important new results may be expected
from the use

^Cf.
of complete language structures.
Language 16.218-20
(1940).
2.
METHODOLOGICAL PRELLMINARIES
the procedures of analysis,
is
2.0.
Introductory
list
Before we
we must
first
It
discuss what
is
kind of analysis
possible in descriptive linguistics.
possible of
course to study speech as
human
behavior, to record the physiological

or the cultural and interper-
motions which are involved
in articulation,
sonal situation in which the speaking occurs, or the sound waves which
result
from the activity of talking, or the auditory impressions gained

hearer.
by the
tions
We
could try to state regularities
in
the description of
each of these bodies of data.' Such regularities might consist of correla-
among
the various bodies of data
(e.g.
the dictionary correlation
between sound-sequences and social situation or meaning), or they might note the recurrence of 'similar' parts within any one of these bodies of
' Phonetics is the most developed of these fields, and the one most closely associated with descriptive linguistics. See Arvo Sotavalta, Die Phonetik und ihre Beziehungen zu den Grenzwissenschaften, Publicationes Instituti Phonetici Universitatis Helsingforsiensis 4 (Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae 31.3; Helsinki, 1936). Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis 10-37 (1942); Kenneth L. Pike, Phonetics; Otto Jespersen, Lehrbuch der Phonetik; R. H. Stetson, Bases of Phonology (1945); 0. G. Russell, The Vowel (1928); O. G. Russell, Speech and Voice (1931); P.-J. Rousselot, Principes de phonetique experimentale (1924) P. Menzerath and de Lacerda,
;
Koartikulation, Steuerung und Lautabgrenzung (1933); the Proceedings of the International Congresses of Phonetic Sciences; Le maitre phonetique; Zeitschrift fiir E.xperimental-Phonetik; Archiv fiir vergleichende Phonetik; Phonometrische Forschungen; Archives of Speech; Archives neerlandaises de phonetique experimentale; and publications of the International Society of Experimental Phonetics. Helpful bibliographies are published by S. X. Trevino in American Speech. Most phonetic investigations have dealt with articulation: e.g. G. Panconcelii-Calzia, Die experimentelle Phonetik ( 1931). More recently, the center of interest has been shifting to acoustic studies of the sound waves, where electronic instruments, physical theories, and mathematical methods permit more exact observations. See, for example, Harvey Fletcher, Speech and Hearing (1929); A. Gemelli and G. Pastori, L'analisi elettroacoustica del linguaggio (1934); P. David, L'electroacoustique (1930); J. C. Steinberg and N. R. French, The portrayal of visible speech, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 18.4-18 (1946); G. A. Kopp and H. C. Green, Basic phonetic principles of visible speech, ibid. 74-89; Bell System Technical Journal; R. K. Potter, G. A. Kopp, and H. C. Green, Visible Speech; M. Joos, Acou.stic Phonetics (Language ISIonographs No.
23, 1948).
METHODOLOGICAL PRELIMINARIES
data.
One could note the recurrence The data
of lip-closure in the course of
some-
one's talking, or the recurrence of various combinations and sequences

of articulatory motions.
of descriptive linguistics can be derived
from any or
all
of these features
and
results of behavior
by observing
the articulatory motions of the speaker, by analyzing the resulting air-
waves, or by recording what the hearer

In the
first
(in this case
the linguist) hears.
case
we obtain modifications
of the air-stream in the course
of the speaker's breathing; in the second case
we obtain complex wave
forms; in the third, impressionistic identifications of sound sequences.

Descriptive linguistics deals not with any particular one of these records
of behavior, but with the data
common
to
them
all; for
example, those
ear does not
frequencies or changes in the air-waves to which the

react are not included in the data of linguistics.
2.1.
human
The
Criterion of Relevance: Distribution
Descriptive linguistics, as the term has

field of
come
to be used,
is
a particular
inquiry which deals not with the whole of speech activities, but
in certain features of speech.
with the regularities
These
regularities are
in the distributional relations

i.e.
among
the features of speech in question,
the occurrence of these features relatively to each other within utteris
ances. It
of course possible to study various relations
among
parts or
features of speech, e.g. similarities (or other relations) in sound or in
meaning, or genetic relations
in the history of the language.
The main
research of descriptive linguistics, and the only relation which will be
accepted as relevant in the present survey,
is
the distribution or arrangefeatures relatively to
ment within the

others.
flow of speech of
some parts or
The
tion,
present survey
of the
is
thus explicitly limited to questions of distribu-
i.e.
freedom of occurrence of portions of an utterance relative-
ly to each other. All terms

terion.
and statements
will
be relative to this
is
cri-
For example,
if
the phonemic representation of speech
de-
mean that if a particular sound X is associated with a i)honeme }', then when we are given the phoneme Y we associate with it the original particular sound x. The
scribed as being one-one (7.5), this does not
one-one correspondence means only that

position
bol
}'),
is
if
a particular sound x in a given
associated with a
then when we are
phoneme 1' (or represented by the symgiven the phoneme Y we will associate with it,
sound
x',
in the stated position, .some
x", which
x).
is
substitutable for the
original x
(i.e.
is
has the same distribution as

is
In the stated position, the
symbol Y
used for any sound which
substitutable (in the sense of
4.21) for x,
x', etc.
The only preliminary
stop
tluit is
essential to this science
is
the restric-
tion to distribution
ticular
:u>;
determining the relevance of inquiry. The parin this
methods described
book are not
essential.
They
are offered
as general procedures of distributional analysis applicable to linguistic

material.
The
specific choice of
procedures selected for detailed treat-
ment here is, however, in part determined by the particular languages from which the examples are drawn. The analysis of other languages
would undoubtedly lead to the discussion and elaboration
techniques.
yield
of additional
Even the methods discussed
in detail
here could be
made
to
many
additional results over and above those brought out in this
survey. Furthermore, the whole framework of basic procedures presented
below could be supplanted by some other schedule

loss of descriptive linguistic relevance.
of operations
without
This would be true as long as the
new operations
dealt essentially with the distribution of features of
speech relatively to the other features within the utterance, and as long
as they did so explicitly and rigorously.
Any such
alternative operations
could always be compared with the procedures presented here, and the
results of
one could always be put into correspondence with the results
of the other.
2.2.
Schedule of Procedures
of procedures outlined in the following chapters,
is
The whole schedule

which
designed to begin with the raw data of speech and end with a
is
statement of grammatical structure,

tion of two major steps: the setting
essentially a twice-made applicaof elements,
up
and the statement
of the distribution of these elements relative to each other. First, the distinct phonologic elements are
determined (chapters 3-4) and the rela-
tions
among them
investigated (5-11).
Then the
distinct morphologic
elements are determined (12) and the relations

gated (13-19).
among them
investi-
There are various differences between the application

in
of these steps
phonology and the application of the same steps
in
morphology. These
derive from the differences in the material^ and from the fact that
when
the operations are repeated for the morphology they are being carried
out on material which has already been reduced to elements.^ Never^ E.g. the fact that in all languages which have been described there are far more distinct morphologic elements than distinct phonologic ele-
ments.
the fact that the morphologic elements could is done in chapter 12) but on the basis of limitations of distribution of the phonologic elements.
^
An example
of this
is
be determined not afresh (as
theless, the
two
parallel schedules are essentially similar in the type
and
sequence of operations.
In both the phonologic and the morphologic analyses the linguist
first
faces the
problem of setting up relevant elements. To be relevant,
these elements must be set
up on a
distributional basis
x and y are in-
cluded in the same element elements B, C,

etc., is in
if
the distribution of x relative to the other

as the distribution of
etc.,
y.
some sense the same
Since this assumes that the other elements B, C,

the time
are recognized at
when the
definition of
is
being determined, this operation can
be carried out without some arbitrary point of departure only if it is carried out for all the elements simultaneously. The elements are thus determined relatively to each other, and on the basis of the distributional
relations
It is
among them.*
and to the interrelations among
all
a matter of prime importance that these elements be defined relaof them.^
tively to the other elements
The
linguist does not
impose any absolute scale upon a language, so as to
Objection might be raised here to the effect that meaning considerations too, are involved in the determinations of elements, since, for example, when sounds for sound-features) x and y occur in identical environments they are assigned to different phonemes if the complexes containing them constitute different morphemes (e.g. (1) and (r) in the environment / ayf/: life, rife). However, this differentiation of life and
of meaning is only the linguist's and the layman's shortcut to a distributional differentiation. In principle, meaning need be involved only to the extent of determining what is repetition. If we know that life and rife are not entirely repetitions of each other, we will then discover that they differ in distribution (and hence in 'meaning'). It may be presumed that any two morphemes A and B having different meanings also differ somewhere in distribution there are some environments in which one occurs and the other does not. Hence the phonemes or sound-features which occur in A but not in B differ in distribution at least to that extent from those which occur in B but not in A. A more fundamental exception to the distributional basis lies in the possibility of distinguishing the elements on the basis of physical (in particular, acoustic) measurements. Even in this case, however, the distinguishing would be relative: the absolute measurements themselves wojld not determine the various elements, but rather the relative differences among the measurements.
rife
on the basis
of the phonologic elements
statement of the relative and patterned character is given by Edward Sapir in Sound Patterns in Language, L,\nguage. 1.37-51 (1925); now also in Selected Writings of Edward Sapir 33-45. See also the treatment of phonologic elements in Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique generale; Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Grundziige der Phonologic (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, 1939).
*
The most
explicit
8
set
up
lis
elements, for example, the shortest sounds, or
tlic
most
fre-
quent sounds, or those havini? particuhvr artieulatory or acoustic

erties.
jirop-
Rather, as
will
he seen
in
the chai)ters to follow, he sets up a group

in
of elements (each
by comparison with the others)

bit of
such a way as
will
enable him most simply to associate each

struction com|)osed of his elements.*
talking with
some con-
In both the phonoK)gic and the morphologic analyses the linguist then
investigates the distributional relations
among
the elements. This task
can be made simpler by carrying
it
out
in successive operations
such as
those procedurally described here. In those cases where the procedure
seems more complicated than the usual intuitive method (often based on
the criterion of meaning) of obtaining the same results, the reason for the
more complex procedure

It
is
the
demand
of rigor.'
thus appears that the two parallel analyses lead to two sets of de-
scriptive statements, constituting a phonologic system

logic system.
and a morphoof relatively-
Each
in
set of
statements consists of a
list
defined, or patterned, elements, plus an organized specification of the
arrangements
which they occur. In the following chapters
many
such
by defining a new stock of elements formed out of the previous stock on the basis of the distributional relations among the previous elements. However, it does not matter for the basic descriptive method whether the statements are expressed in this or any
specifications are given
other way: Instead of defining a

old, in
new stock
of elements in terms of the

ele-
such a way that the distributional characteristics of the old

in the definition of the
ments are included
new
(this
makes
for
compact
*The fact that the determination of elements is relative to the other elements of the language means that all such determining is performed for each language independently. All lists of elements, relations among them, and statements about them are applicable only to the particular language for which they are made. The research methods of the linguist may be roughly similar for many languages, but the statements that result from his work apply in each case to the language in question.
' It may be noted that distributional procedures do more than offer a rigorous alternative to meaning considerations and the like. Distributional procedures, once established, permit, with no extra trouble, the definite treatment of those marginal cases which meaning considerations leave indeterminate or open to conflicting opinion. Thus distributional considerations may be more cumbersome than meaning in deling termining whether boiling is boil + ing (similar to talking) or boy (similar to princeling). But distributional considerations can determine
whether
sight
is
see
-t
and
flight
is
flee
-I
(similar to portray
and
they can determine the question of boiling; whereas meaning considerations might not be decisive for these forms.
portrait) as readily as
symbolic manipulation), we can keep the old elements and merely
9
list
the distributional statements (element x occurs next to y only in environ-
ment
z).
All that matters
is
that the defining of the elements and the
among them be based on distribution, and be unambiguous, consistent, and subject to check. Beyond this point, it is a matter of other than descriptive purposes how compact and convenistating of the relations
ent the formulation

2.3.
is,
or
what other
qualities
it
may
have.*
The Universe of Discourse
2.31. Dialect or Style
The universe
of discourse for a descriptive linguistic investigation
is
single language or dialect.
These investigations are carried out

person, or one
for the speech of
one particular
time or
through-
community
of dialectally identical persons, at a time.
Even though any
dialect or language
it is
may vary
slightly with
with replacement of informants,
in principle held constant
out the investigation, so that the resulting system of elements and state-
ments applies to one particular

lectal consistency;
dialect. In
most cases
this presents
no
problem, since the whole speech of the person or community shows dia-
we can
define the dialect simply as the speech of
tlic
community
in question.
In other cases, however,
we
find the single
person or the community using various forms which are not dialectally
consistent with each other. Several
ways
and
are then
set
open to
us.
We
can
doggedly maintain the

to
all
first
definition
up a system corresponding
the linguistic elements in the speech of the person or the
commu-
nity.
Or we may
select those stretches of speech
which can be described
by a
relatively simple
and consistent system, and say that they are cases

this
of one dialect, while the remaining stretches of speech are cases of an-
other dialect.
We
would usually do
on the basis
of a
knowledge
of
the different dialects of other communities.

as being not of the dialect in question
The material which is rejected

of scattered
may consist
use of
words used
with the trappings of foreignisms
(e.g.
role,
raison d'itre
by some
* It therefore does not matter for basic descriptive method whether the system for a particular language is so devised as to have the least number of elements (e.g. phonemes), or the least number of statements about them, or the greatest over-all compactness, etc. These different formulations differ not linguistically but logically. They differ not in validity but in their usefulness for one purpose or another (e.g. for teaching the language, for describing its structure, for comjjaring it with genetically related languages).
10
it.
spotikers of Knglish); or
may
consist of whole utterances
and con-
versations, as in the speech of bilinguals.*
In contradistinction to dialect, there arc various differences in speech
which are not held constant throughout

be possible to show,
in
a descriptive investigation. It
may
many
languages, that there are differences in style
or fashion of speech, in respect to which whole utterances or even dis-
courses are consistent.'"
Thus we may not
readily find an utterance

evenin',
which contains both good morning and also good mornin' or good
nor one containing a brighty and also sagacious.
like
We may
say that forms
good morning and good mornin occur in different styles of speech, as

like
do forms
o brighty and sagacious. These differences are usually dis-
tributional, since forms of different style
do not generally occur with
each other. In
many
cases, the differences
between two
stylistic sets of
forms (such that members of one set don't occur with members of the
other) affect only limited parts of the descriptive system; for example, a
distinctive stylistic set
class
may
include particular
members
of a
morpheme
and particular types
of
morpheme
sequence. This differs only in
degree from dialect differences, which in
many
cases are also restricted
to particular parts of the descriptive system, the rest of the

identical for
system being
both
dialects.
As
in
the case of different dialects, different styles too can be written

all
with marks, each mark extending over
the material specific to
its
' For productivity, as an example of problems involving variation of language, see ch. 12, fn. 81. In investigations which run across dialect lines and include material from more than one dialect, the material of one dialect can be marked so as to distinguish it from the material of the other. All forms which have in common the fact that they occur in a particular dialect would be written with a mark indicating that dialect. These marks could be manipulated somewhat along the lines of the phonemic components of chapter 10. For example, if in the material in question dialects are never mixed in one utterance, so that each utterance is wholly in one dialect or in the other, we would say that the mark indicating dialect extends over whole utterances. Cf. W. L. Wonderly, Phonemic Acculturation in Zoque, International Journal of American Linguistics 12.192-5 (1946).
'" These styles may be related to various cultural and interpersonal situations. In addition to the examples discussed here, which border on social dialect difference, we could consider styles which mark particular speakers or socially differentiated groups of speakers (e.g. adolescent girls' style), styles which mark particular types of interpersonal relation (e.g. styles of respect and the like; these border on gesture-like intonations, such as that of anger). The latter types of style are discussed by Karl Biihler in his Sprachtheorie (1934).
among
various styles within a dialect,
it is
11
style. Furthermore, because of the great degree of structural identity
usually feasible to keep the
indications of style as subsidiary differentiations, within utterances
which are otherwise structurally identical. Thus in the stylistic contrast between be seein' ya and be seeing you (13, fn. 5), the utterances are
identical except for
one difference
in style. Since seein'
does not occur

set
before you, and seeing does not occur before ya,
we can
up
just
one
style marker which extends over the whole utterance and indicates the differences between seeing you and seein' ya.
Although differences
of style
can be described with the tools of de-
scriptive linguistics, their exact analysis involves so
much
detailed study
in
that they are generally disregarded."
The procedures presented
the
following chapters will not take note of style differences, but will assume
that
all
styles within a dialect
may be roughly described by a single struc-
tural system.
2.32.
Utterance or Discourse
of discourse for each statement in the descriptive anal-
The universe
ysis
is
a single whole utterance in the language in question.
Investigations in descriptive linguistics are usually conducted with

reference to
explicitly to
any number
of
whole utterances.
Many
of the results apply

interrela-
whole utterances. Even when studies of particular

or
tions
among phonemes
morpheme
classes are carried out, the

is
frame
within which these interrelations occur

their position within
usually referred ultimately to
an utterance. This
is
due to the
fact that
most
of
the data consists (by definition) of whole utterances, including longer

stretches which can be described as sequences of whole utterances.
When
we consider
(say, the
aii
element which has occurred aS part of a whole utterance
[d],
or fair, or ly in Fairly good, thanks.),

it is
we note
its
relation to
the utterance in which
attested.
On
the other hand, stretches longer than one utterance are not usually
considered in current descriptive linguistics.

the linguist works will often
The utterances with which

one
come
in longer discourses, involving
speaker (as in texts taken from an informant) or more than one (as in
conversations). However, the linguist usually considers the interrelations of elements only within one utterance at a time. This yields a possible description of the material, since the interrelations of elements with-
" It
must
about style are generally ments about dialect.
also be recognized that predictions based on statements less accurate than predictions based on state-
12
in
STHL'rrURAL LINGUISTICS
each utterance (or utterance type) are worked out, and any longer disis
course
describable as a succession of utterances,

stattnl interrehitions.
is
i.e.
a succession of ele-
ments having the

relations
This restriction means that nothing
generally said about the inter-
among whole
utterances within a discourse.
Now
in
many, per-
haps
all,
languages there are particular successions
among
types of ut-
terances within a discourse. This
may
be seen in a stretch spoken by one
speaker (compare the
first
sentence of a lecture with one of the later sen-
tences), or in a conversation (especially in such fixed exchanges as
"How
areyouf" "Fine; how are you?"). Since these are distributional limitations
upon the utterances with

of data
respect to each other within the discourse, they
could be studied with the methods of descriptive linguistics. The amount
and of analytic work required
for such a study would, however,
be
much
greater than that required for stating the relations of elements
within single utterances. P"or this reason, the current practice stops at
the utterance, and the procedures described below do not go beyond
that point.
2.33.
Corpus or Sample
and analyzing the recorded material. The stock of
a compact description of the distribution of elenot, of course,
Investigation in descriptive linguistics consists of recording utterances

in a single dialect
recorded utterances constitutes the corpus of data, and the analysis
which
is
made
of
it
is
ments within
it.
The corpus does
have to be closed before
analysis begins. Recording and analysis can be interwoven, and one of
the chief advantages of working with native speakers over working with
written texts (as
is
unavoidable, for example, in the case of languages no
longer spoken)
is
the opportunity to check forms, to get utterances re-
peated, to test the productivity of particular morphemic relations, and

so on.'^
'^ If the linguist has in his corpus ax, bx, but not ex (where a, b, c are elements with general distributional similarity), he may wish to check with the informant as to whether ex occurs at all. The eliciting of forms from an informant has to be planned with care because of suggestibility in certain interpersonal and intercultural relations and because it may not always be possible for the informant to say whether a form which is proposed by the linguist occurs in his language. Rather than constructing a form ex and asking the informant 'Do you say exf or the like, the linguist can in most cases ask questions which should lead the informant to use ex if the form occurs in the informant's speech. At its most innocent, eliciting consists of devising situations in which the form in question is likely to occur in the informant's speech.
To
corpus becomes of interest only
if it is
13
persons interested in linguistic results, the analysis of a particular

virtually identical with the analysis
which would be obtained

relations
in like
corpus of material taken in
among elements
found
in
in
manner from any other sufficiently large the same dialect. If it is, we can predict the any other corpus of the language on the basis
of the relations
our analyzed corpus.
When
this
is
the case, the
analyzed corpus can be regarded as a descriptive sample of the language.
How large or variegated a corpus must be in order to qualify

of the language,
is
as a
sample
a statistical problem;
it
depends on the language and
on the relations which are being investigated. For example, in phonologic investigations a smaller corpus may be adequate than in morphologic investigations.
When
the linguist finds that
all
additional material yields
nothing not contained in his analysis he

quate.
may
consider his corpus ade-
The procedures discussed below
are applied to a corpus of material
without regard to the adequacy of the corpus as a sample of the language.

2.4.
Definition of
Terms
linguistic
For the purposes of descriptive
investigations a single
LANGUAGE or
dialect
is
considered over a brief period of time. This comin
prises the talk
which takes place
a language community,
i.e.
among a
group of speakers, each of
whom
speaks the language as a native, and
may
be considered an informant from the point of view of the linguist.

defined.
None of the terms used here can be rigorously community vary with the e.xtent of language
guistic analysis
is
The
limits for a
difference as geographic
distance or boundaries, and social divisions, increase. Only after lin-
under way
is it
possible to
tell definitely
whether two
lin-
individuals or
two sub-groups
in
a community differ in respect to the
guistic elements or the relations
among
these elements.
Even the speech

histories,
of one individual, or of a
group of persons with similar language
may
in
be analyzable into more than one dialect: there
may
be appreciable
linguistic differences in a person's talk in different social situations (e.g.,
some
societies, in talk to equals or to superiors).

is
And even when
the
social
matrix
held constant, the talk of an individual or of a language

stylistically-in
community may vary The question

as to
ways which would

elements.
is
register varia-
tions in elements or in relations
among
who
talks a language as a native
also one
which
can, in the last analysis, be settled only
by seeing
if
the analysis of a per-
son's speech agrees with that of the speech of others in the
community.
In general, any person past his
first
few years of learning to talk speaks
14
t
huiKUiist' of his
lio
i-ommunity as
the
community
for long periods.
'a native', if he has not been away from However, persons with more checkered
hxngutige careers
may
is
also s])eak a hinguage natively
from the point of
view of the
linguist.
An UTTERANCE
which there
eral,
is
any stretch of
talk,
by one person, before and
after
silence
on the part
of the person.
not identical with the 'sentence' (as
The utterance is, in genthat word is commonly used),
since a great
many
utterances, in English for example, consist of single
words, phrases, 'incomplete sentences', etc.
Many
utterances are com-
posed of parts which are linguistically equivalent to whole utterances

occurring elsewhere. For example,
we may have
Sorry. Can't do
it.
I'm
busy reading Kafka, as an utterance, and also Sorry. I'm busy reading
Kafka, or Sorry, or Can't do
it.
as
an independent utterance.''
Utterances are more reliable samples of the language when they occur
within a conversational exchange.
The
situation of having an informant
answer the questions of a

source, though
then,
it
linguist'* or dictate texts to
him
is
not an ideal
it
may
be unavoidable in
much
linguistic work.
Even
must be remembered that the informant's answers to the linguist are not merely words out of linguistic context, but whole utterances on his part (e.g. bearing a whole utterance intonation).
The linguistic elements are defined for each language by associating them with particular features of speech or rather, differences between
portions or features of speech

are
to which the
linguist
can but
refer.
They
and
marked by symbols, whether
letters of the alphabet or others,
may
they
represent simultaneous or successive features of speech, although
may
in either case
be written successively. The elements

of elements
will
be said
to represent, indicate, or identify, rather than describe, the features in
question. For each language, an explicit
list
is
defined.
The statement that a particular element occurs, say in some position, will be taken to mean that there has occurred an utterance, some feature of some part of which is represented linguistically by this element. Each element may be said to occur over some segment of the utterance
'^
i.e.
over a part of the linguistic representation of the time-extension
morphemes but
Linguistic equivalence requires identity not only in the successive also in the intonations and junctural features. Hence,
while the utterance 'Sorry, can't do it.' may be linguistically equivalent to the two utterances 'Sorry.' and 'Can't do it.' the utterance 'Can't do it.' is not linguistically equivalent to 'Can't', and 'Do it.' since the intonations on the latter two do not together equal the intonation on the first. '* About how something is said in his language, not about his language. Cf. Leonard Bloomfield, Outline Guide for the practical study of foreign languages (1942).

of the utterance.
15
(e.g.
segment
may
be occupied by only one element
is ^vritten Mm.), or by two or more elements of identical length (e.g. two simultaneous components), or by one or more short elements and one or more elements
only an intonation in the English utterance which
occupying a long segment

(e.g.
in
which the segment
in question is included
'
a phoneme, plus a component like Moroccan Arabic
stretching
over several phonemic segments, plus an intonation extending over the
whole utterance). ^^
The ENVIRONMENT
basis of the
or position of an element consists of the neighbor-
hood, within an utterance, of elements which have been set up on the
same fundamental procedures which were used

after,
in setting
up
the element in question. 'Neighborhood' refers to the position of ele-
ments before,
in
and simultaneous with the element
in question.
is
Thus
I tried /ay#trayd./, the environment of the

/tr
phoneme /a/
the pho-
nemes
cussion, /tr
yd/ or, if phonemic intonations are involved in the disyA/ plus /./, or most fully /ay#tr yd./. The environment ed or, if of the morpheme try /tray/, however, is the morphemes 1 morphemic intonations are involved in the discussion, / ed with the
assertion intonation.'
The DISTRIBUTION
of
an element
is
the total of
all
environments
in
'^ The segment over which an element extends is in some cases called the DOMAIN or interval or length of the element (cf C. F. Hockett, A System of Descriptive Phonology, Lang. 18,14 [1942]). In the course of analysis it is usually more convenient not to set up absolute divisions, e.g. word and phrase, and then say that various relations cross these
.
divisions (e.g. syllabification rules cross word division in Hungarian but not in English). Instead, the domain of each element, or each relation among elements, is indicated when the element in question is set up. If many of these domains appear to be equivalent, as is frequently the case, that fact may then be noted and we may define a domain such as word
or the like. ' Traditional spellings, and the variables of general statements, will be given in italics: e.g. tried, filius, the morpheme X. Impressionistic phonetic transcription will be given in square brackets ]: e.g. [trayd]; for the usual values of the alphabetic letters see Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager, Outline Guide of Linguistic Analysis 22-6 et passim. Phonemic elements will be given in diagonals //: /trayd/. Classes of e.g. complementary morphemic elements will be indicated by {-ed\. The position of an element within an environment will be indicated by a dash : e.g. /tr yd/ or I-ed. Silence or break in the sequence of elements will be indicated by #. Italics within diagonals will indicate the name of a phoneme: e.g. /glottal slop/ instead of /'/. Roman letplural ters within braces will indicate the name of a morpheme: e.g., before the suffix j, instead of j-s). Loud stress will be indicated by marks secondary stress. Length will be indistressed syllable, while cated by a raised dot ().
[
j
'
16
STRl'CTl'KAL LINGUISTICS
it
which
ocrurs,
i.e.
the
sum
of
;ill
the (different) positions (or occur-
roncos) of an element rehitive to the occurrence of other elements.
Two
utterances or features will be said to be ling:uistically, descripif
tively, or distributionally equivalent
they are identical as to their
lin-
guistic elements
and the distributional relations among these elements.

substitution and classification which are used through-
The
particular types of elements (phonemes, morphemes), and the

a:s
operations such
out this work,
will
be defined by the procedures in which they are used
or from which they result.

2.5.
The Status of
Linguistic Elements
In investigations in descriptive linguistics, linguistic elements are associated with particular features of the speech behavior in question, and
the relations
among
these elements are studied.
In defining elements for each language, the linguist relates them to the
by describing these by reproducing them instrumentally, but by uniquely identifying the elements with them.'^ Each element is identified with some features of speech in the language in question:'* for most of linguistic analphysiological activities or sound waves of speech, not
in detail or
ysis the association
is
one-one (the features
in
question are associated
only with element

in question)
;
A',
and element
is
associated only with the features
in
some parts
of the analysis the association
may
be one-
many
(element
is
associated only with certain features, but these
features are sometimes associated with
and sometimes with another
element
}').
The
'^
features of speech with which the elements are associated
do not
widely recognized that forbidding complexities would attend to construct in one science a detailed description and investigation of all the regularities of a language. Cf Rudolf Carnap, Logical Synta.x of Language 8: "Direct analysis of (languages) must fail just as a physicist would be frustrated were he from the outset to attempt to trees, etc. (He) relates his laws to relate his laws to natural things the simplest of constructed forms thin straight levers, punctiform mass, etc." Linguists meet this problem differently than do Carnap and his school. Whereas the logicians have avoided the analysis of existing languages, linguists study them; but, instead of taking parts of the actual speech occurrences as their elements, they set up very simple elements which are merely associated with features of speech occurrences. For more advanced discussion of related problems, see now the Proceedings of the Speech Communication Conference at M.I.T., in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 22. 689-806 (1950), especially M. Joos, Description of Language Design 701-8. "* See Leonard Bloomfield, Language 79.
It is
any attempt
include
all
17
the features of a speech occurrence, nor are they ever unique
occurrences, which happened at a particular place and time.'^ Element
may
in
be associated with the fact that the
first
few hundredths of a second
a particular bit of talking involved a given tongue position, or a given
distribution of intensity per frequency, or produced a sound as a result

of the occurrence of
which
(in relation to
the following sounds) the hearer
acted in one
fined,
way
rather than in another way.
No
matter how this
is
de-
element A'
will
then be associated not only with that feature of that

bit of talking (e.g. in
bit of talking,
but also with a feature of some other
which the tongue position was very close to that
in the first instance),

all
and
to features in
many
other bits of talking, the class consisting of
these features being determined
by the
like.
fact that in each case the
tongue
was within a certain range of positions, or the hearer's action was of one
kind rather than another, or the
For the
linguist, analyzing a limited
corpus consisting of just so
many
bits of talking
which he has heard, the element
is
thus associated
features in so
lin-
with an extensionally defined class consisting of so
many
many
he
is
of the speech occurrences in his corpus.
However, when the
guist offers his results as a
system representing the language as a whole,

all
predicting that the elements set up for his corpus will satisfy
other bits of talking in that language.
The element
X then
becomes
as-
sociated with an intensionally defined class consisting of such features of
any utterance as
differ
from other features, or

defined,
relate to other features, in
such and such a way.
Once the elements are

guage
in question
any occurrence
of speech in the lan-
can be represented by a combination of these elements,
each element being used to indicate the occurrence in the speech of a

feature with which the element
is
associated
by
its definition. It is
then
possible to study these combinations (mostly, sequences) of elements, and

to state their regularities
sible to
and the relations among the elements.

do not obliterate the
It is
pos-
perform upon the elements various operations, such as
classifica-
tion or substitution, which
identifiability of the
elements^" but reduce their

tions simpler.
number
in the
or
make
the statement of interrela-
At each point
manipulation of these elements, state-
ments about them or about
their interrelations represent statements
'^ See W. F. Twaddell, review of Stetson's Bases of Phonology, International Journal of American Linguistics 12.102-8 (1946); also W. F. Twaddell, On Defining the Phoneme, Language Monograph IG (1935).
^ I.e.,
which maintain their one-to-one correspondence with features
of speech.
IS
STIUCTIKAL LINGUISTICS
It is this that
about selected features of speech and their interrelations.
underlies the usefulness of descriptive linguistics: the elements can be
manipulateii in ways in which records or descriptions of speech can not

be: and as a result regularities of speech are discovered which would be
far
more
difficult to find
without the translation into linguistic symbols.

if
The formvdation
of 2.5 could be avoided
we considered
the elements
of linguistics to be direct descriptions of portions of the flow of speech.
But we cannot define the elements

as variables representing
in
such detail as to include a complete
description of speech events. Linguistic elements have also been defined
any member
of a class of linguistically equiva-
lent portions of the flow of speech. In that case,

linguLstic
each statement about
elements would be a statement about any one of the portions of

in
speech included in the specified classes. However,

ing our elements to simpler combinations of
the course of reduc-
we
set
more fundamental elements, up entities such as junctures and long components which can only
with diflRculty be considered as variables directly representing any

ber of a class of portions of the flow of speech. It
is
mem-
venient to consider the elements as purely logical
more consymbols, upon which

therefore
various operations of mathematical logic can be performed. At the start

of our
work we translate the flow
of speech into a
combination of these
elements, and at the end
we
translate the combinations of our final

is
and
fundamental elements back into the flow of speech. All that

to enable us to do this
is
required
that at the beginning there should be a one-one

initial
correspondence between portions of speech and our
elements,
this
and that no operations performed upon the elements should destroy

(e.g. in
one-one association, except in the case of particular branching operations

chapter 14) which explicitly lose the one-one relation and which
in
cannot be kept
the main sequence of operations leading to the

lists
final
elements (unless special

at all times to the
or other devices are used to permit return
one-one identification).
Furthermore, the formulation of 2.5 enables us to avoid the reificatory

question of what parts of
human
behavior constitute language. This
question
is
not easy to answer.
We
can
all
agree that
is
much
of the vocal
activity of
human
beings past the age of two
to be considered as lan-
guage. But what of a cough, or of the utterance Hnimf, or of gestures
whether accompanying speech or not? In terms of 2.5 we do not attempt

to aiLSwer this question.
We
merely associate elements or symbols with
particular differences between particular bits of

X,
X-',
human
behavior. Let
}' is
x" be the various
bits of behavior with

^
which our element

in
as-
sociated.
Then
if
an aspect of behavior
associated with
]'
occurs
x and in
x'
and
in x",
If ^
we consider
^ as
(included in the definition of
}').
occurs in x and x' but not in x",
19
we do not consider
^ as
associated with Y.
slight cough, oc-
Thus a
glottal release,
which might be considered as a
curs with every occurrence of post-junctural

associate
all
German
[a]-sounds. If
[a],
we
these occurrences of sound with the symbols
we
include
the glottal release as something represented by that sequence of symbols.
On the other hand, the somewhat different sound of a light cough may be found to occur with some of the German [a]-sounds, or with various other
German
it,
sounds. However, we are not able to state the regularity of dis-
tribution of this cough in such a
way
as to associate a special
symbol
for
nor does
it
occur in
all
the sound-occurrences which
with any other particular symbol.

the glottal release
is
We may therefore
we have associated say, if we wish, that

is
included in our linguistic description, while the

not.
cough, which cannot be included in any of our symbols,

scription which
The
de-
we
will
make
in
terms of our symbols
will yield
a state-
ment about the occurrences
of the glottal release, but will not yield a
statement about the occurrences of the cough. Thus we do not have to

say whether the cough (which
part of the language.
may have such meanings

it is
as 'hesitation')
is
We say merely that
not such a part of the be-
havior as we can associate with any of our elements.
The
linguistic ele-
ments can be viewed as representing always the behavioral features

coughs) which sometimes occur.
If
as-
sociated with them, and irregularly any other behavioral features (such as
we
ever become able to state with
some
regularity the distribution of these other behavioral features,

linguistic elements.
we
would associate them too with particular

Of course,
it is
possible to get out from the symbols only a

in.
more conof
venient organization of what was put
The symbols and statements
descriptive linguistics cannot yield complete descriptions of speech oc-
currences (in either physiological or acoustic terms), nor can they yield
information about the meaning and social situation of speech occurrences,
about trends of change through time, and the

linguistic research, the
like.
In most of current
statements cannot even deal adequately with cerfast speech (e.g. good-bye as
tain differences
between slow and
compared
with g'hye), or with stylistic and personality differences in speech. ^^
The attack made upon the validity of descriptive linguistics in R. H. Stetson, Bases of Phonology 25-36, is therefore not quite applicable. It is true that the linguistic elements do not describe speech or enable one to reproduce it. But they make it possible to organize a great many statements about speech, which can be made in terms of the linguistic elements. When the results of linguistic analysis are given in conjunction with detailed descriptions of speech, or with actual samples of speech, a description of the language is obtained.
'^'
20
2.6.
It
Preview of the Phonologic and Morphologic Elements
may
be useful to see
now how
it
the relevant categories of investigais
tion are determined. In so doing

set of
must be remembered that speech
complex continuous events

in
-talking does
not consist of separate

ele-
sounds enunciated
succession
and the ability to set up discrete
ments
lies at
the base of the present development of descriptive lin-
guistics.
The question
initial
of setting
is
up elements may be approached with

empirically discoverable that in
find
all
little
sophistication. It
languages
which have been described we can

will
some part
of one utterance
which
be similar to a part of some other utterance. 'Similar' here means
not physically identical but substitutable without obtaining a change in
response from native speakers

the substitution
part of That's
:
who hear
the utterance before and after

in. is
e.g.
the last part of He's
substitutable for the last
my
pin. In accepting this criterion of hearer's response,
we approach the
Something
reliance
on 'meaning' usually required by
linguists.
of this order
seems inescapable, at
least in the present stage
of linguistics: in addition to the data concerning
sounds we require data
about the hearer's
response.^''
However, data about a hearer accepting
viously pronounced can be

ing.
an utterance or part of an utterance as a repetition of something premore easily controlled than data about meanIn any case, we can speak of similar parts, and can therefore divide
each utterance into such parts, or identify each utterance as being com-
posed of these parts. The essential method of descriptive
linguistics
is
to
select these parts and to state their distribution relative to each other.
Since the occurrences of speech are bits of continuous stretches of

physiological activities or sound waves,
er
we could cut each one

is
into small-
and smaller parts without
limit.
However, there
no point
in
doing so
once we have gotten such parts or features with which we can associate
linguistic
elements which can also be associated w^th parts or features of
we may find that nothing is gained by setting up elements associated with yet smaller segments of the utterance. Unity of practice, and simplicity of method, is achieved in linguistics by fixing a point beyond which the division of utterances into parts for linguistic representation is not carried. If we are dividing Let's go [ilec'gow.] and To see him? [ta'siyim?], we will break the affricate [c] into two parts [t] and [s] which occur separately in the second utterance. But
various other utterances,
'^ Cf Leonard Bloomfield, A set of postulates for the science of language, L.\NGu.\GE 2.153-64 (1926).
.
we
will
21
not break the
[s]
of
both utterances into three successive parts
say, the curving of the tongue blade, the holding fast of the curved
tongue blade, and the straightening out of the blade and sliding of the tongue away from the [s] position. The point at which segmentation stops
may be stated
as follows
We associate elements with parts or features of
an utterance only to the extent that these parts or features occur independently (i.e. not always in the same combination) somewhere else.
up new elements for successive portions of and then used them in representing various other utterances, these new elements would not occur except together. We therefore do not subdivide [s] into these parts. As will be
It is
assumed that
if
we
set
what we had represented by
[s],
seen, this
means that we
them
is
associate with each utterance the smallest
numcall
ber of different elements which are themselves just small enough so that
no one
of
composed
of
any
of the other elements.
We may
such elements the minimum,
i.e.
smallest distributionally independent,
descriptive factors (or elements) of the utterances.^'
Linguists use two choices of criteria, leading to two different sets of
elements, the phonologic and the morphologic. Each of these sets of ele-
ments by
itself
covers the whole duration of
all
utterances every utter:
ance can be completely identified as a complex of phonemic elements,
and every utterance can be completely

phemic elements.
identified as
a complex of mor-
The elements in each set are grouped into various classes, and statements are made about the distribution of each element relative to the
others in
its set.
2.67. Correlations
Outside of Descriptive Linguistics
Studying the interrelation of the short phonologic elements enables us to make various general statements and predictions, in which no information about
all
morphemes is necessarily involved. E.g., we may show that the sounds made in a given language can be grouped into a more or
patterned set of phonemes, or into a smaller set of components.
predict that
if
less
We
may
if [t)]
glottalized consonants
do not occur
in English, or will in general

if
does not occur after silence, then l^nglish speakers
find difficulty in
pronouncing them.^^
We may
predict that
in
Hidatsa
Leonard Bloomfield, Language 79, 166. All such predictions are outside the techniques and scope of descriptive linguistics. Linguistics offers no way of quantifying them. Nevertheless, taking the linguistic representation as a dear and systemic model of selected features of speech, we may find that this model corre^'
^*
22
[w]
and [m] are allophoiies both of one jihoneme and
wliile in I'lnglish
of
one morj)hopho-
neme,
they are phonemically distinct from each other,
then English speakers will be able to distinguisli [w] from [m], whereas
Hidatsa speakers
will
not."
eleinall
Studying the interrelations of the frequently longer morjjhologic

dependently of any phonological information. E.g. we
ments enables us to make various general statements and predictions
may show
that
the morphemic elements of a language can be grouped into a very few

classes,
and that only particular sequences of these
classes occur in ut-
terances of that language. Given that
ever said either
we have no record of anyone having The blue radiator walked up the window, or Here is man the.
situations in which the former will be said but can
we can devise a few
predict that the latter will be said far less frequently (excejit in situations
which can be stated

sions).^*
for
each culture,
e.g.
exjilicitly linguistic discus-
Phonology and morphology, therefore, each independently provides

information concerning regularities in selected aspects of
havior.''^
human
same
befor
The
general
methods
of scientific technique are the
both: associating discrete elements with particular features of portions

of continuous events,
elements.
But the
results in each
and then stating the interrelations among these the number of elements and classes
of elements, the type of interrelations
are
different.
The
applications
too are also often different. Both

ticular language;
fields give
is
us information about a par-
but phonology
more
useful in taking
down anthrois
pological
te.xts,
learning a
new
dialect, etc., while
morphology
more use-
lates with other observations about the peoi)le who do the speaking. Cf., for instance, the data and e.xamples in Edward Sapir, La realite
jKsychologique des phonemes, Journal de Psychologie 30.247-65 (1933); now also in Selected Writings of Edward Sapir 46-60.
also to predict
analysis.
^* In these utterances the intonations are of course to be taken into account. E.g. in the second, the end of the assertion intonation would have to occur with the final the. ^^ This does not imply that we can speak of any identifiable linguistic behavior, much less phonologic or morphologic behavior. There is interpersonal behavior which may include gesture, speech, etc. Linguistics sets up a system of relations among selected features of this general behavior.
After linguistic science has developed sufficiently, it may be possible some of the direction of the phonologic diachronic change through time on the basis of descriptive (synchronic) phonological
^^
fill
23
said" in a new-
in the
understanding of texts, in discovering "what
is
language, etc.
2.62.
Relation between Phonologic and Morphologic Elements Although the scientific status and uses of phonology and of morphol-
ogy are independent of each other, there is an important and close connection which can be drawn between them. If, disregarding phonology,
if
we have first determined the morphemes of a language, we can proceed, we wish, to break these morphemes down into phonemes. And if we have only determined the phonemes, we can use these phonemes to
identify uniquely every
morpheme. As will be seen in-the Appendix to 12.5, it is possible to determine the morphemes of a language without any previous determination of the phonemes.^* The morphemic elements obtained in this manner would
each represent an unanalyzed segment of utterances,
(plural), z (plural), etc., in
e.g.
mis, match, s
We both made mistakes. Some mismatched 'pairs.

of elements
However, just as utterances can be represented by sequences
such that each element occurs in various utterances, so the morphemic

elements, which represent segments of utterances, can be considered as
sequences of smaller elements. Thus we find that the

substitutable for the
first
first
part of mis
is
part of match, or the last part of viis for the
whole of
s.
It is therefore possible to describe
each morphemic element as
a unique combination of sound elements. Breaking the morphemic ele-
ments down into these smaller parts does not help us

terrelations
in stating
the in-
among morphemes; we could
deal just as well with whole
unanalyzed morphemes. This further analysis of the morphemic elements merely enables us to identify each of them more simply, with a much smaller number of symbols (one symbol per phoneme, instead of
one symbol per morpheme).
we can go from morphemes to ])honemes, so can we go, but, far from phonemes to morphemes. Given the phonemic elements of a language, we can list what combinations of them constitute morphemes in the language. The phonemic elements, being fewer and in general shorter than the morphemic elements, are much easier to determine, so that identifying each morphemic element as a particular combination of the previously discovered phonemes is more convenient than
Just as
more
easily,
determining afresh the phonetic uniqvieness of each mori)homic element.
This does not mean that the phonemes automatically give us the mor-
" This
the work.
is
not done for a whole language, because of the comjilcxity of
24
some
of the
phenies. In most lanpiagps only
combinations of phonemes
constitute morphemes, and

as that used in 12.23
is
in all
languages a morphological analysis such

tell
required to
which these
are.
There are thus two independent reasons for carrying out phonologic
analysis: to find the interrelations of the
phonemic elements, or to obtain
a simple
way
of identifying the mori)hemic elements.
Whether it arises from breaking morphemes down or from combining phonemes, the connection between phonology and morphology lies in
using phonemes to identify morphemes. This connection does not
make
the two divisions ultimately identical. There remain phonological investigations which are not used in identifying the
morphemes and would

techniques
not be derived from the morphemes:
e.g.
phonetic classification of
phonemes or
of their positional variants.
And morphologic
are required which cannot be derived from phonology: e.g. in
some
cases,
what sequences
of
phonemes constitute a morpheme.

is
The
guist
practice of linguists
first
usually a combination of methods.
The
lin-
makes a
approximation by setting up tentative morphemes.
He
then uses his phonologic investigation to verify his postulated mor-
phemes. In some cases where he has the choice of two ways of assigning
phonemic elements, he chooses the way that

of mistake could be equally well
will
fit
his guess:
if
the
[t*']
[t]
grouped phonemically with the

if
of
take or the [d] of date, he will choose the former
he wants to consider
the take of mistake to be the same
morpheme
e.g.
as take. In
some
it
cases he
has to distinguish between two morphemic elements because

that they are phonemically diflferent
:
turns out
/'ekanamiks/ and /iykanamiks/
(both economics) have to be considered two distinct morphemes.
3-4.
PHONOLOGY PHONOLOGIC ELEMENTS 3. SEGMENTATION

3-11.
3.0.
Introductory
first
As the
step toward obtaining phonemes, this procedure represents
the continuous flow of a unique occurrence of speech as a succession of
segmental elements, each representing- some feature of a unique speech

sound.
The points of division of these segments are arbitrary here, since we have as yet no way of enabling the analyst to make the cuts at prewhich
will later
cisely those points in the flow of speech
be represented
by inter-phonemic
nemes.
3.1.
divisions. Later procedures will
change these segmen-
tations until their boundaries coincide with those of the eventual pho-
Purpose: Speech Composed of Discrete Parts
Utterances are stretches of continuous events. If we trace them as

physiological events,
we
find various parts of the
body moving
e.g.
in
some
degree independently of each other and continuously:

tip
the tongue
may move
forward and upward toward the upper

in the
gum
while the base
mouth, the vocal chords begin to vibrate, the nasal passage is stopped off, etc. In general, the various muscles start and stop at various times the duration of each separate motion of theirs often
of the
tongue sinks
do with descriptive elements. If we trace utterances as acoustic events, we find continuous changes of sound-wave periodicities: there may be various stretches during each of which the wave crests are similar
has
little
to
to one another, but the passage from one such stretch to a second will
in general
be gradual.'
it is
Fortunately,
in
possible to represent each continuous sj)ccrh event
such a way that we can then compare various speech events and say
first is
that the
different
Our
ability to
do
this rests
from the second to such and such an extent. on the observation that in each language we
can substitute a close imitation of certain parts of one utterance for certain parts of another utterance Avithout getting
any consistent
difference
in.
Cf. the descriptions of speech-sounds in the sources cited in chapter 2, and the speech s})ectrograms jjublished in the Journal of the 1 American Acoustical Society 18.8-89 (1940) and in R. K. Potter, G. A.
'
;
Ko])p, and H. C. Green, Visible Speech (1947).
25
26
of response
from native hearers
it
take the utterances Can't do

a repetition of the
first
of the changed second utterance. We can and Cameras cost too much. If we substitute
short ])art of
Cant do
it
for the first short part of

will
Cameras
cost too
cost too
much, the changed form of the second utterance

therefore set out to represent every utterance
be
accepted by every native hearer as a repetition of the original Cameras
much.
We
by
seg-
mental elements which are substitutable for segments of other utterances.-
utterance: by saying that
For when we have done so we have some way of describing each it is composed of such and such segments. And
of
we have some way

(say, Can't do
it.) is
similar to another utterance (say,

first
comparing utterances by saying that one utterance Cameras cost too

:
much.) in respect to one segment (say, their

it
part),
but
differs
from
in the
remaining segments.
3.2.
Procedure: Segmenting Utterances at Arbitrary Points

represent an utterance
its
We
ance,
it
by a succession
of
segments which end at
arbitrary points along

i.e.
duration.
We
hear a (preferably brief) utterit.,
a stretch of sound, say English Sorry. Can't do
and consider
of these seg-
as a succession of
any number
of smaller elements.
Each
ments may be described very roughly as the sum
of particular coincident
movements wave crests
of speech organs^ (lip closing, etc.), or as so of
many sound-
such and such
form.'*
^ Such a dissection can be attempted in various ways. We could find a mathematical basis for selecting points at which the sound-wave crests change appreciably in form. We could trace the path of each body organ clearly involved in speech, from rest through various motions and on to rest again. Or we can break the flow of speech, as it is heard, into an arbitrary number of time-sections. Menzerath snipped a sound track film, rearranged the parts, and played the revised sound track to obtain new sequences of sound segments. Cf. P. Menzerath, Neue Untersuchungen zur Lautabgrenzung und Wortsynthese mit Hilfe von Tonfilmaufnahmen, Melanges J. van Ginneken 35-41 (1937).
Speech organs are those parts of the body whose motions affect the stream in the process of breathing in or out, in such a way as to make speech sounds. This is done by determining the extent of air pressure, the shape of closed or partly closed resonance chambers, the manner of forming or releasing these resonance chambers, and by moving in such a
^
air
way
*
as to
communicate a vibration to the
air
stream.
Linguists usually select the segments in such a way as to include traditional articulatory features, e.g. the maximum approach of the tongue tip to the teeth in the course of the movement of the tongue. They may select the segments so that their boundaries represent the jôints where the sound waves change appreciably in form, so that each segment represents a portion of speech within which the wave is relatively
SEGMENTATION
3.3.
27
Result: Unique Segments

for the first part of Can't do
In order to write about our segments, we assign a mark to each one,

e.g.
k''
it.
Each
sign corresponds to a unique
and particular segment in a particular stretch of speech. And each sign (or the segment which it indicates) is now considered a single element how the sound waves or speech organs changed continuously throughout its duration is no longer relevant, except when we reconsider and adjust
the lengths, below.
Appendix to
It
is
3.2:
On
the Segmentation of Single Utterances

i.e.
necessary to justify our use of a single brief utterance,
the
total speech of a single person
from silence to sUence, as a sufficient
initial
sample
of the language.
single utterance the
stretches of
We have to show that we can perform upon this same operations we propose to perform for any speech. That is to say, we have to show that relative to
(i.e.
what we are now investigating (namely, segmentation) each utterance

has the same structure as the whole language
utterances in
all
as the totality of all
situations).
The
justification
depends on the empirical
observation that practically every speech event, from the briefest utter-
ance of an individual to the longest discussion, consists of an integral
number
All
of sound-elements of
phonemic length. Even interrupted speech

first
hardly ever stops except at the end of a phoneme-length sound-element.
we want
to
do
in
the
few procedures
is
to
show that the
totality of all speech occurrences
which make up a language can be repre-
sented by segments, which can then be adjusted so that the length of
each segment
is
the length of a phoneme. In order to do this to various
arbitrary utterances instead of to the totality of events in that language,
we must show that segmental representation

equivalent to
all
of these
few utterances
is
the occurrences of speech.
uniform. Or they may mark as a segment any stretch which sounds like what they have elsewhere (e.g. in lOnglish orthograjihy) learned to regard as 'one sound.' However, neither these nor any other criteria can always show us what points of division will turn out later to be most useful (i.e. which will come out at the boundaries between the eventual phonemes). For example, we may have to recognize two phonemic segments in a stretch during which all organs involved are each making single continuous movements. This uncertainty leads to no loss in exactness, because later procedures will determine the boundaries of these .segments. If the segment divisions arbitrarily .selected here do not pass the test of the later procedures, they can be adjusted, and if necessary the utterance can be recorded, anew, with the symbols that will be chosen for the adjusted segments.
28
If
biiof utterances
were likely to contain scattered broken bits of

in the
phonemes, or to end
middle of a phoneme, then
it
would be im-
phonemic length (or into segments which could be adjusted to phonemic length). But this is not
possible to cut that utterance into segments of
the case, and the extremely rare case of speech breaking
off
not at the
end
of a
phonemic-length segment could as well occur
at
the end of a
all
long conversation as at the end of a brief utterance. Practically

plete speech occurrences,
com-
from silence to
silence, are
thus sequences of
phonemic-length segments. For our present purposes of representing

speech by segments (arbitrary at
as a sample of speech.
tain an integral residue;
i.e.
first
but later to be adjusted to phonebrief, is
mic length), any utterance, no matter how
equally serviceable
The few cases where the utterance does not connumber of phonemic-length segments can be treated as a
it
the part which cannot be described as such a segment can
nevertheless be described in our terms by calling
a fraction of a phone-
mic-length segment. Finally w-e must note that the totality of speech
occurrences in a given language
is
merely an integral number of utter-
ances (including some interrupted utterances),
This does not mean that for other purposes a brief utterance
serviceable as a sample of speech.
is
also
se-
Some
tone, stress, and
rhythm
quences, and some morphological features and morpheme-class sequences
may
appear only in longer utterances (long sentences, or long dis-
courses), or perhaps only in the conjunction of
more than one utterance

marking
(by more than one speaker) in a conversation. There are limitations upon
successions of sentences
by one speaker,
characteristic features
the beginnings and ends of long discourses by one speaker, special features of the succession of utterances
among
like.
different speakers in natural
and
in hurried conversations,
and the
For the incidence
of formal
features of this type only long discourses or conversations can serve as
samples of the language.
4.
PHONEMIC DISTINCTIONS
It first
4.0.
Introductory
determines the range
a particular
This procedure establishes free variants.

of variation of a particular
sound-segment
in repetitions of
utterance. It then takes utterances (or parts of utterances) which are
not repetitions of each other and enables us to recognize
when a sound-
segment
4.1.
in
one of them
is
a free variant of a sound-segment in the other.
Purpose: To Establish Linguistic Equivalence

to enable us to say whether
any two segments are descriptively As long as every utterance is composed of unique segments, it cannot be compared with other utterances, and our linguistic analysis
I.e.
equivalent.
cannot make headway.

4.2.
Procedure: Grouping Substitutable Segments

In Repeated Utterances
analogous segmentations of repetitions of the utterance.
4.21.
We make
Having recorded an utterance in terms of the segments we associate with it, we now record repetitions of the utterance in identical environment.' We then say that each segment of one repetition is freely substitutable for (or a free v.\riant of) the corresponding segment of every other is a. repetition. That is, if an utterance represented by segments A' B'
repetition of the utterance recorded as

e.g.
ABC
(where A'
is
the
first
the
finst
third of the length
of
^' 5'
C and
is
the
first
n% n% of
In many cases this involves asking an informant "say it again" or "what", or asking another informant who is present "Would you say that?". In some cultures and in some social situations there may be diffi'
Where it is impossible, we must wait until the utterance recurs in the informants' speech; this may happen more frequently in certain situations, e.g. in the course of a conversation between informants or in a stylized recital. When what we obtain is not an admitted repetition, (and, sometimes, even when it is) we have to judge whether utterance B is indeed a repetition of utterance A, by con.sidering the situation, meaning, and sounds. The validity of our judgment is checked in 4.5 and the Appendix to 4.21. This is equivalent to
culties in obtaining repetitions.
Rloomfield's 'fundamental assumption of linguistics: we must assume that in every speech-community some utterances are alike in form and
meaning' (Language 78).

29
r?0
tlu'
longth of
STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS ABC, oiv.)- then A' = A, B' = B,
C. If
segments
are freely substitutable for each other they are descriptively equivalent,
in that
everything we henceforth say about one of tlicm
will
be equally
applicable to the others.''

4.22. In Different
I
Iterances
of
Wc substitute a repetition
segments
of another.
segments
of
one utterance for equivalent
As preparation
in a
for doing this,
we may
first
note the
range of free variants
segment of a repeated utterance,

kh], in repetitions of Can't do
e.g.
it.
what we
may have
recorded as
[k**,
We
as
then
choose another utterance whose repetitions show an apparently similar range for one of
its
segments,
e.g.
what we may have recorded

the
[k'']
[k**]
in
Cameras
first
cost too
much.
We now substitute
segment
or [kh] segment of the
utterance for the

it
[k""]
of the second.
[k**]
We do this by pronouncwe had heard

in
ing Can't do
with our best imitation of the

it
Cameras
and seeing
if
the informant will accept

it.'^
as a repetition of his (or another
informant's) Can't do
Alternatively,
we may wait
to hear
some
in-
^ This is necessary in case one repetition is much slower than another, so that only the relative and not the actual lengths of the segments are
comparable.
among the mutually substitutable segments are not environment or relevance. It is therefore immaterial if we recognize many or few differences among the equated segments. In some cases, we may be unable to hear any difference among free variants, as when the initial segments of two repetitions of Sorry, sound absolutely identical to us. In other cases, we may notice the difference, as between a very strongly and a less strongly aspirated [k**] in two pronunciations of Can't do it., or between an [o]-like and an [u]-like segment in two pro^
Any
differences
clue to linguistic
nunciations of a foreign utterance. It is in general easier to notice differences between freely varying segments in a foreign language than in one's native language, where one has become accustomed not to notice such linguistically irrelevant facts. On the other hand, one may easily fail to notice slight but relevant differences in a foreign language if these differences do not occur in one's native language, or if they occur there only between members of one
phoneme and morphophoneme. However, if we used exact measurement (such as sound-wave records), or if we can hear each repetition many times over by machine duplication
(as in
magnetic recording),
w'e
would probably
find that every seg-
ment differed in some way from each of its equivalent segments. What we hear as identical free variants are therefore merely an impressionistic
special case of different free variants.
*
This substitution
is
not as simple as the direct repetition of 4.21.
If
we cannot quite tell whether the substituted form is accepted as a repetition, we may check to see if the informant identifies the new pronuncia-
formant pronouncing Cameras
our ears with the original
cost too
[k^].^
31
much with a segment identical to
More generally: We take an utterance whose segments are recorded DEF. We now construct an utterance composed of the segments DA'F, where A' is a repetition of a segment A in an utterance which we had represented as ABC. If our informant accepts DA'F as a repetition of DEF, or if we hear an informant say DA'F in a situation which permits us to judge that utterance as equivalent to DEF, and if we are similarly able to obtain E'BC (" being a repetition of E) as equivalent to ABC, then we say that .4 and E (and A' and E') are mutually substitutable (or equivalent), as free variants of each other, and write A = E} If we fail in these tests, we say that A is different from E and not substitutable
as
for
it.
The test
his use of
of
segment siibstitutability is the action

it.''
of the native speaker
it,
or his acceptance of our use of
In order to avoid misunder-
tion by the same rough translation which had identified the original utterance. This still avoids struggling with exact meanings. Behind our ability to substitute parts of one utterance for pai'ts of another lies the empirical fact that in every language the speakers recognize not an indefinitely large number of distinct, unsubstitutable sounds (so that every new utterance may contain a new distinct sound), but a relatively small stock of distinct classes of sound. This stock is in general closed. I.e. when a sound occurs in speech we can in general assign it to one of relatively few classes of soimds used in describing the language; or we may say that the speaker imd hearer react to it as to a member of one of these few classes of sounds in the language or else as to a sound from outside their language. The classes of sounds recognized in the language are thus limited in number. ^ If it were possible to work with sound tracks, we would record
Can't do it with [kh] and Cameras cost too much with [k'']. We would then snip the [k]-segments out (leaving the smoothest break possible) and interchange them, and play the film back to our informants to see if they will accept the new Cameras cost too much with [kh] as a repetition of their original Cameras cost too much which had [k'']. Distortion would occiu-, of course, at the points of snipping, but that should not prechide the acceptance of the repetition.
*
If
we obtain DA'F as
but not
in the
repetition of
DEF,
while
E'BC
is
not accejjtable
environment environment B or BC. The use of instruments which permit exact measiu-ement, as the ear does not, may enable us to omi)loy tests of measured similarities (of sound waves or body motions) instead. But only those tests will be linguistically relevant which will accord with (even if they are not based on) the speakers' actions. This ultimate correlation is the only one which has so far been found to yield a simple language structure.
as a repetition of
D F
''
ABC, we can
say that
A = E
in the
32
it is
standings or false informant responses,
sometimes necessary to repeat
the test under various conditions and to obtain statistical reliability for
the response.*
4,23,
Paired Utterances
test
is
A more exact
nyms):
e.g.
possible
when we wish
to find out
all
if
two utterances
are repetitions of each other,
i.e.
equivalent in
their
segments (homo-
She's just fainting as against She's just feigning.
We
ask two
informants to say these to each other several times, telling one informant
which to say (identifying

if
it
the other can guess which he said.
by some translation or otherwise) and seeing If the hearer guesses right about
is
fifty
percent of the time then there
no regular descriptive difference
* At this point the question could be raised whether the procedure of 4.22 does not include and render superfluous the procedure of 4.21. For both procedures show that particular segments are equivalent to each other, and the range of differences among the mutually equivalent segments is identical in both sections. The only advance made in 4.22 is our ability to spot the mutually equivalent segments in any utterance in which they occur, whereas 4.21 permitted this only in repetitions. However, it is preci.sely this advance that requires the preliminary procedure of 4.21. For 4.22 finds that different utterances are similar in some features of parts of their duration. But since each segment of each utterance is a unique event, presumably different in some way or other from every other unique segment, how are we to decide which features should be subjected to the test of substitutability? If we take the [k*"] of a particular occurrence of Can't do it. we may find that it is similar to the unique [k''] of cameras in general character (in articulation: voicelessness, aspiration), but somewhat different from it in loudness, while it may be similar to the [g] of 77/ gather some, in loudness but somewhat different in general character. It is true that in this case we would unhesitatingly guess that the initial segments for can't and cameras will prove equivalent, rather than those of can't and gather. However, in working with languages foreign to us, we may be hard put to decide what substitutions are worth attempting. The point is that these unique segments are substitutable for each other because they are identical in some respects (e.g. voicing, in English) without regard to any differences they may have in other respects (e.g. absolute differences in loudness, in English). If we take 4.22 without a preceding 4.21, we would be unable to supply an orderly method of treating the data, such as would tell us what respects to disregard, what substitutions are worth attempting. Instead of that, we use the procedure of 4.21, which offers a simple program for discovering what respects to disregard. The range of differences among the unique but mutually substitutable segments is identical both in 4.22 and in 4.21, but in 4.21 we assume in advance that certain unique segments are equivalent and all we need do is note their differences in order to disregard them. Equipped with this information, we can then seek in 4.22 for segments whose equivalence we do not know in advance but whose differences are similar to those which we have decided to disregard.
between the utterances;
there
4.3.
is.
if
33
he guesses right near one hundred percent,
Result: Equivalent and Non-equivalent Segments

can now
tell
We
what segments
for every
in
any utterances are descriptively
equivalent to each other. Whatever symbol
we use
for a particular segit.
ment we
class of
will
now use
segment equivalent to
When we
get a
segments which are free variants of each other, we use one symbol
of that class:
in cameras.
which indicates any member

can't
and
Any
differences
we write just [k''] both in we may have noticed among the
equivalent segments are henceforth disregarded.^ This reduces consider-
ably the number of different symbols (or of differentiated segments) in
our record of utterances.
The comparisons
of utterances in 4.22
and 4.23 not only enable us to
say that certain segments are descriptively equivalent, but also enable
us to say that certain segments (which have proved to be not mutually

substitutable) are descriptively non-equivalent or distinct
stitutable).
(i.e.
unsub-
For the further analysis
of the language, the explicit record
of descriptive (or, as they are called,
phonemic) distinctions
If
is
as impor-
tant as that of descriptive equivalences.
we have
in
it is
body
of text in a
language, and do not

other
(e.g.
know which segments

gr
are equivalent to each
whether a
in
one
line of the text
substitutable for a k in
another), we can do little in the way of further analysis. If we do not know which segments are distinct from each other, e.g. whether a word gam in one line is distinguishable from a gam, or kam, in another, we still
can do
little analysis.
it is
When
these two sets of data are explicitly given,
however,
possible to carry out the rest of the analysis.
The fundaand
mental data
equivalences
of descriptive linguistics are therefore the distinctions
among
utterances and parts of utterances.
The operations
7,
of 5-11, including the setting
up
of
phonemes
in
chapter
are
manipu-
lations of these distinctions on the basis of distribution.
4.31. Distinct
Utterances and Distinct Elements

of descriptive linguistics
The fundamental purpose

we merely
listed
would be served
e.g.
if if
which utterances were distinct from which others:
^ The difference among equivalent segments here is no greater than that which may be noticed among the analogous segments of repetitions of an utterance such as had been equated in 4.21. The i)rocedure of 4.22 reduces to that of 4.21; for when we substitute the [k''] of cameras in can't we get a new repetition of can't containing the new [k''] heard in cameras, and by 4.21 that new [k''] thereupon becomes equivalent to the other [k''] segments heard in previous repetitions of can't.
34
said that tack, pack, tip, dig, It's lacking, It's lagging, were each dis-
we
tinct
tion,
from each other. However,

it
in
order to operate with this informa-
is
necessary to put the data in the form of elements, to localize
the distinctions between tack and tip in particular segments. Equivalent
utterances are then defined as being equivalent
in all their
segments;
distinct utterances are non-equivalent in at least one of their .segments.

If
we wish
to
work out a system
of distinct elements for
many
utterances
(e.g. for
tap as well as for tack
and
tip)
we
will
have to recognize more

tip will
than one distinction between certain non-equivalent utterances. Thus

tack will be distinct
from tap
in its last
segment, and
be distinct
is
from tap
in its
middle segment, and instead of saying that tack
distinct
from
It
tip in just
one segment we
is
will
use our two i)revious distinctions
and say that
tack
distinct
from
tip in its
middle and
last segments.'"
may
be noted that the representation of speech as a sequence or arof unit elements

is
rangement
of
If
intimately connected with the setting up

of non-equivalent utterances.
phonemic distinctions between each pair

each utterance were considered by
of features
itself, it
might be represented as a
continuum or as a simultaneity
the segmenting operation of
at
all.
which change with time; and chapter 3 might not come into consideration
ference between the
we match utterances, we obtain some individual difmembers of each particular pair of utterances; that is, we obtain discrete elements each of which represents some particular inter-utterance difference. By the method of chapter 5, fn. 3, these difHowever,
if
ferences
may
be expressed as combinations of a few basic differences: the

is
difference
between some utterances
exactly one basic difference

is
(e.g.
tack-tap); the difference
between others
some
particular
sum
of par-
ticular basic differences (e;g. tack-tip).
We
thus obtain discrete elements
which can be combined together. These elements are phonemic distinctions, rather
than phonemes;
i.e.
they are the difference between /k/
and /p/ (more exactly, between
tack
and
tap,
between sack and sap,
etc.)
^ See chapter 5, fn. 3. The equivalent segments are phonemically not distinguished from each other, since substitutable segments will be considered in chapter 7 to be free variants of each other within the same phoneme. If we find a group of equivalent segments (in a particular environment) which is not substitutable for another group of equivalent segments in the same environment, we say that the two groups are phonemically distinct from each other. In chapter 7 it will not be possible to include in the same phoneme two segments (or two groups of segments) which are phonemically distinct from each other. This establishment of the basis for phonemic distinction is the major contribution of the present procedure toward the setting up of the phonemes of a language.
we
35
rather than being /k/ and /p/ themselves. However, for convenience,
will set up as our elements not the distinctions, but classes of segments so defined that the classes differ from each other by all the phonemic distinctions and by these only. These elements are obtained by summing over all distinctions: [k] [p], [k] [1] {pack pal, sick sill), [k] [s]
(pack pass), etc.;

[1]
[t] (sill
sit),
[I]
[s]
pass), In this way (pal

etc.
we define /k/ to represent all the paired distinctions in which [k] was a member, /I/ to represent all the distinctions in which [1] was a member, and so on. The classes, or phonemes, are thus a derived (but one-one) representation for the phonemic distinctions. The segmentation of chapter 3
was carried out
in
order to permit the representation of continuously
varying speech to express the discrete elemental phonemic differences.
phonemically written form therefore

form, but rather a record of
its
is
not a direct record of some spoken

all
difference from
other spoken forms of
the language.
4.4.
Length of Segments
far,
I'll
So
ance
we have
tack
it
left
the length of segments arbitrary
(3.2).
a,
I,
The
ce,
utterk,
i,
t.
could be divided into seven segments
t'',
Later we will find that this division, into segments whose length we
call
will
phonemic,
is
convenient for linguistic analysis. However, to start

it
with we might just as easily have divided
into fo\ir segments, say
A (=
al),
T (=
fw), k,I
(=
it).
It can now be shown that the procedure of 4.22 will prevent any segment from being longer than one phoneme length. This breaking down of
longer segments results automatically from the repeated use of substitution

if
we make one
it,
condition: that
we
will carry
out the test of 4.22 not
only between a previously derived segment and some new segment which
seems similar to
but also between any part of a new segment which

of segment.
seems similar to some previous segment or part
Suppose we segmented
kl, I'll tip
it
I'll
tack
it
as
A Tkl,
dig
it
I'll
pack
as
AQ
(=
tH) pi,
and
I'll
as
AD
(=
soon as we investigate the substitutability of parts of
(= p''w) Then as our segments, we

it
a^
AP
di) gl.
would
find that the first part of
T was substitutable for the first part of Q,

and the
last part of this
the last part of
for the last part of P,

isolate
/'',
for the last
part of D.
isolate
p''
We
would thus
ce,
and
i;
and
would force us to
(as the
remainder of P) and d
(as the
remainder of D).
The only segments longer than one ])honeme which would remain
would be those whose parts are not substitutable
e.g.
for
any other segment:

That's
a linguist might find no reason for dividing
l^nglisli |^1 (as in
36
from English
[t],
his chair) because its first (stop) part differs

last (continuant)
will
and
its
from
[s|.
However,
all
these remaining long segments
be broken down
in the
procedure of chapter 9 belov.
4.5.
Correcting Possible Errors
In obtaining repetitions of an utterance
we may have equated
utter-
ances and segments which would later prove to be phoncmically different.
The substitution
test will bring these out. If a foreign linguist took
English men as a repetition of man, he would discover his error as soon

as he tried to substitute these
presumed
free variants in ten or plan. If
we had thought Moroccan Arabic y'fiuh

of y't'iu 'they give',
'they give him' a repetition

u,
and had equated uh with

u
in
fail in
we could
still
succeed in
substituting
'they want
^^h
for
byau 'they want' (obtaining unawares byauh

fau 'god', where
it'),
but would
we could
not get a form
lauh. In all
such cases we go back and correct our record of what we

rejjPtitions."
thought had been
Appendix to 4.1: The Reason for Equating Segments The procedure of chapter 3 represents each uniquely heard whole utterance by a sequence of unique segmental elements. If we are to be able to compare various utterances and to make general statements about them,
the mere representation by segments will not suffice,
if
the segments re-
main unique. We must therefore find ways of comparing the segments, so that we should be able to say that segment A is equivalent to, or different from, segment B}^ In order to do this, we first find out how to compare the segments in two occurrences of a repeated utterance. We assume the repetitions to be
descriptively equivalent to the
first
pronunciation. Therefore,
if
a per-
" In some cases we may have to make this correction even though find no mistake in our original work. E.g. Moroccan Arabic [bg9r'] and [bqar'] 'cow' occur as repetitions of each other, yielding [r] = [q] according to 4.21. However, we now find that [g] and [q] are not mutually substitutable in [gr'a'] 'squash' and (qr'a'] 'ringworm'. If upon checking back we find that the first two are actually simple repetitions of each other, then we have [g] = [q] in some utterances and [g] :t^ [q] in others, a crux which will remain unresolved until chapter 7, fn. 14.
we can
'^ Then we would be able to say whether utterance X, represented by segments A, D, E, is descriptively equivalent to utterance Y, represented = I' if ^ = B,D = C,E = F: by segments B, C, F. We will say that one occurrence of Yes. is equivalent to a second occurrence of Yes. if the y of the first is equated to the y of the second, etc. The utterances may have differed, of course, in many other respects (e.g. energy of speech), but we are equating only the segmental representation.
son says Can't do
it.
37
differences that
twice' ^
we disregard any small
we
may
notice between the
are frequently not distinguishable one from the other
two pronunciations. Since these two utterances by native hearers,''*
we say that
is
as far as our present linguistic analysis goes, the repetition
equivalent to the original utterance. In order to be able to
show
this,
we say
that the various segments of the repetition are each equivalent
to the corresponding segments of the original utterance. In order to do

this, in turn,
we
will
agree to disregard any differences between the correif
sponding segments of the two pronunciations. However,

utterances in general,
we
are to treat
compare even utterances which are not repetitions of each other. In two utterances which do not repeat each other (say, Why? and Did you try?), we must be able to say whether
able to
we must be
segments
and
(say, the final [ay] of
each utterance) are equivalent,
and whether segments C and D (say the the initial [w] and [d] of each) are different. Given utterances X and Y, the procedure of chapter 4 enables us to tell wherein (i.e. in which of their segments) X is equivalent to Y and wherein they
differ.
Appendix
It
to 4.21:
On
in
the Equivalence of Repetitions

for repetitions
must be borne
mind that when we ask

(e.g.
we may
get
a totally different utterance

{rocking-chair for rocker).
auto for car), or a partially different one
The
different utterance
may
-s),
be sufficiently
similar in
sound to mislead
us. If the putative repetitions
come
in dif-
ferent environments (e.g. knife, but knive before
the present pro-
cedure does not enable us to equate the corresponding segments (we can[f] = [v]). If we fail to notice a difference of environment, as may happen in Moroccan Arabic y't'iuh 'they give him' for y't'iu 'they give' (where even in conversational situations we may fail to recognize
not say
the presence of h 'him'), or in the differently pitched Auto and Auto?,
we may
tion.
falsely conclude that
uh =
such
u, or
that the segments with falling
intonation are equivalent to corresponding segments with rising intona-
There
is
no great
loss in
false conclusions
because they
will
necessarily
fail
to pass the test of 4.5.
The procedure of 4.21 enables us to equate two utterances (and their component segments) as repetitions of each other without knowing what
'^ With no recognizable difference in intonation: i.e. the second time not Can't do it! or the like. '* Except that one occurred before the other; or if the rej)otition was made by another person, the hearer could identify the individual or, say, his social group (e.g. age or sex) by the (liffcrenco in some features which we are not selecting to measure at present.
is

38
morphemes they are composed of or what the boimdaries of the component morphemes are. It avoids any reliance upon the meaning of the morphemes, or any need to state, at this early stage, exactly what the morphemes or utterances mean. It precludes our asking the informant if two morphemes are 'the same'. All that is required is that we have an exi^licit repetition of an utterance, or an utterance which we tentatively consider to contain the same morphemes (whatever they may be) as another utterance contained. If two utterances which we consider to be repetitions of each other are actually different in morphemic content,
the error will necessarily be brought out in the following procedures
of 4.5.
Appendix to
4.22:
Matching
in
is
Frames
impracticable, any other
Where simple
easiest
substitution
matching two segments

E.g.
will serve the
method same purpose. Such matching
of
is
if
when the two segments can be tried in a single (repeated) frame. we know that Fanti denkem 'crocodile' and poon 'pound' each
have a relatively higher pitch on the first vowel than on the second, but we want to know if the absolute pitch of denkem is higher than that of podn, we get a frame through which we can pass both of them. We may
get the informant to say each of
see that in
them before dndn
'four'
and then we
denkem dndn 'four crocodiles' the last tone of denkem is higher than the first of dndn whereas in poon dndn 'four pounds' the last tone
of of
podn is of the same height as the first of dndn. Hence the second tone denkem is relatively higher than that of poon and we have at least three
this,
phonemically different tone levels: high, mid, and low. In doing
we
oc-
must make sure that the tone
of
poon or denkem, when these words occur
before dndn, does not differ phonemically from their tone

;
when they
cur by themselves and that the tone of dndn after poon does not differ
from the tone
of
dndn
after
denkem}^
Appendix to
If
4.23: Interpretation of the Paired
Utterance Test
the test of paired utterances shows
them
to be not linguistically
equivalent,
we
still
do not know exactly Avhat the differences between
the two utterances are.

pairs," i.e. will later
We
cannot assume that the two utterances are

with Mark's sad we could find a reguin
turn out to be phonemically different in only one

sat
segment:
If
we compare Marx
lar difference
which will turn out to be phonemic
only one segment
[t]
'^
Data from W. E. Welmers,
descriptive
grammar
of Fanti, Lan-
gtâge Dissertation 39 (1946).
39
[d] (although a difference also occurs between [se*] and [se]). But if we compare He sat with He said the differences will later appear to be phonemic in two segments: [x] [e*] and [t] [d]. Even if the utterances will
later be
shown
to constitute a pair, their one
phonemic difference
is
not
always in the segments which most obviously

writer passed by as against
differ phonetically: in
The
is
The rider passed by the clearest difference
in
the vowel, with
little (or
no) difference in the middle consonant; but
we
should note both differences because later we

the
may
wish to pin the pholeast
nemic difference on the consonant. Knowing that at

first
one segment of
utterance differs from the corresponding one of the second (since
the two utterances are distinguishable by natives), we must perform the

test of 4.22
and note
all
the pairs of segments which are not mutually sub-
stitutable.
Appendix to
4.3:
Intermittently Present Distinctions
In most cases,
if
we
find that
one utterance
is
not equivalent to anis
other, the distinction to
which
this non-equivalence
due remains no
matter
how
often
condition for
we have each utterance repeated. This is a necessary the operations of chapter 4. Not infrequently, however, we
is
meet an utterance which

segments
of
pronounced with
different, non-equivalent,
in different repetitions.
In some of these cases, two segments appear equivalent in repetitions
one utterance but not

if
in
another utterance
[e]
and
[iy]
seem equiva-
lent
we
get [ekanamiks]
and [iykanamiks]
ecoyiomics as repetitions of
each other, but not in repetitions of even,

latter,
ever, elemental.
Because of the
relation be-
we consider [e] and [iy] to be distinct segments. The tween them in forms like economics will be treated in 13.2.
In other cases, while the alternation of segments occurs freely in
some utterances and not at all in others, it never constitutes the sole distinction between two distinct utterances (in the manner of 4.23 and 4.31). Thus in repetitions of The seat is loose, we may obtain both
[9 'siytiz'luws.]
and
[Sa 'siyr'iz'luws.]
(where
[r^]
indicates a single al-
veolar flap of the tongue). In repetitions of meter ['miyr'ar]
we hardly
over get
[t]
instead of
[r'].
Thus a
variation of segments which occurs ap-
l)arently freely in one utterance hardly ever occurs in another. Similarly,

in repetitions of
Take
one.
we
will
obtain both ['t'eykiwan] and ['t'eyk#
iwen], while in
repetitions of inquest
we
will
only obtain ['inikwest]

[k]
without any occurrences of a break (#) between the

'*
and
[w].'^
Many
This pause which occurs only in some, not all, repetitions of an utis called facultative pause in Bernard Bloch, Studies in Colloquial Japanese II. vSyntax, Language 22.201 (1946).
terance
40
and
12, to
variations of this typo will appear, in chapters 8
be related to
junct vires anil

that the
morpheme boundaries. There we can

Take one and inquest)
treat
them by saying
one of
two
vittoranoes (e.g.
differ in that
them
hiu>
an intermittently present segment which the other lacks. In-
termittently present segments or variations are then such as occur in
some but not
all repetitions of an utterance. If we take two utterances which are distinguished from each other only by the presence of an inis
termittent segment in one which
lacking in the other, they will be

in others.'^
equivalent to each other in some of their repetitions and not
Continued Testing of New Utterances is the substitutability of segments, we cannot tell whether in a new utterance, e.g. Cash it! the segment we record as [k'"''] is equivalent to our previous [k**] segments until we have substituted one of these for it. It is true that after several attempts, we get to recognizing the differences among the various segments, so that even without making
Appendix
to 4.5:
Since what
we
test
the test we can be quite sure that, say, the [kh] of a newly recorded
The probability of [k] and [w] occurring in Take one and in inquest The probability of # occurring between these two in inquest is in effect 0. The probability of # occurring between these two in any par'^
is
1.
Take one is larger than zero and smaller than 1 the occurs only intermittently in repetitions of Take one. It could be objected that we are here changing the definition of repetition and equivalence, that in terms of 4.22 we should consider [kw] and [k#w] as non-equivalent (as we do here) and that therefore we should say that ["teyk#iwan] is not a repetition of ['teykiWan]. This latter could indeed be done. But the conditions of obtaining the data (the fact that informants will regularly give the two pronunciations as repetitions of each other, and that many utterances will have this feature), and the convenience of later morphological analysis, makes it preferable in such cases to preserve the repetitive relation between the two pronunciations by defining the intermittent segment. Then if we wish we can write intermittent segments in parentheses, irrespectively of whether they occur in a particular pronunciation, and say that Take one is ['teyk (#) iWan], meaning that it is sometimes pronounced with the and sometimes without. Segmental representations which are not designed to indicate intermittent segments can be based on a single occurrence of the utterance, and can be tested by a single occurrence of it (which must show exactly the segments of the representation). However, segmental representations which are designed to indicate intermittent segments can be based only on a number of repetitions of the utterance (since a single occurrence of it would either contain or not contain the segment in question, and intermittency could not be noted), and can be tested only by a sufficiently large number of repetitions of the utterance. Only after such a number of repetitions can we say that an utterance has or does not have intermittently present segments.
ticular pronunciation of
41
Can youf would be substitutable for the segments we have marked [k^]. But there is at present no way of measuring the difference between the various groups of mutually equivalent segments, no way of measuring the range of free variation within each group. For example, we can say that various labial nasal segments (e.g. the initial ones of Must I?
Missed
it?)
are free variants of [m]

[n].
are free variants of
and various alveolar nasal segments But we cannot say that all alveolar nasal segments
we ever meet in the language in question will be free variants of [n]. In fainting we get a nasal alveolar flap. A non-native linguist might take it
for
granted that this segment

it.
is
an additional
free variant of the
[n],
substitutable for
tests
Only
if
he runs into a pair like fainting-feigning and
them
in the
manner
of -i.23 will
he find that these two are not mutu-
ally substitutable.^*
Until
we know the language very
well, therefore,
we must be ready
to
apply the substitution or pair tests whenever circumstances suggest that

a segment in a
new utterance might not vary

it.
freely with the other seg-
ments with which we wish to equate
'* If the segments to be tested are so similar that the linguist cannot be sure that he can distinguish them, or that he can pronounce them differently for the informant, he cannot be sure of the results of the test in 4.22. The best test is that of 4.23, for which the linguist must try to find pairs which differ if at all only in the segments under suspicion.
5-11.
RELATIONS AMONG PHONOLOGIC ELEMENTS

5.
UNIT LENGTH
it
5.0.
Introductory
that the length of the segIt
This procedure (and that of 4.4) sees to
mental elements should be that of phonemes.
provides that the segnecessary to differen-
ments should be neither longer nor shorter than

tiate
is
phonemically distinct utterances, so that minimally different utter-
ances will differ in only one of their segments.

5.1.
Purpose: Descriptively Equal Segment Lengths

seek to obtain a linguistically (not physically) fixed length
We now
for segments.
When
stretches of speech were
first
segmented, the points
of segmentation were left arbitrary (3.2). Later,
an upper limit to the
length of segments was automatically obtained as a result of extending
our procedure of substitution to any sub-divisions of our original seg-
ments
e.g. in
f4.4).
Our procedures have
hitherto fixed no lower limit on length:

[se]
the stretch of speech Patsy, the section before the

[p''],
could be
[h],
considered to constitute one segment
two segments [p] and three segments ([lip closure], [lip opening], [h]), and so on.' To obtain a uniform way of determining the number of segments
is
for
any given utterance, all that is now necessary lower limit to segment length.
.5.2.
a method for fixing a
Procedure: Joining Dependent Segments

join into one
We
segment any succession (even

Pick
if
discontinuous) of
segments which always occur together

pose we have originally divided Tip
|thip
it],
in a particular
it!.
environment. Supit!
it!.
Stick
into segments
fphik
it],
[stik it];
the
[t]
of [thip], [stick] are
mutually sub-
stitutable, as are the [h] of [thip], [phik].

initial
[t],
We now
:
find that utterance-
[p]
never occur directly before a vowel

[i]
i.e.
between silence and

[th], [ph],
a sound such as
there
is
only the sequence of segments
never
section is designed to yield automatically a to represent any given stretch of speech. It should enable us to decide whether a given stretch of the utterance (except for boundary regions of segments), is part of the segment preceding or following it, or constitutes a segment by itself. This is desirable in order to simplify the manipulation of the segments, which is described in chapters 6 and 7.
^
fixed
The procedure of this number of segments
42
UNIT LENGTH
[t],
43
[p]
alone.
We
then say that the sequence of our original segments

is
[th]
between silence and vowel,

generally,
to be henceforth considered as one seg-
ment (which we may write
[t']).
More
.4
if
in a given portion of
many
utterances (a given
environment) segment
required that
never occurs without segment B, we consider

segment. For this procedure
:
+ 5 to constitute together one

B
J.,
it is
not
should also never occur without

as [h] does in
hill.
pendently of
attended by
A B may occur indeIt is also not required that A be always

after
[s], [t]
in
[t]
any environment:
and
[h]
occurs without
[h],
but
our joining of
vowel.
If
was limited to the position between
silence
and
we had
originally taken lip-and-nose closure
separate segments,
we would
find that in
ways together: in'those
jôsitions, e.g. in
and lip opening as most positions they occur alpin, happy, the two would then
constitute one segment.^

5.3.
Result: Utterances Divided into Unit Lengths have a determinate way of placing the segment dividers
in
We now
segments,
is
every utterance. Each stretch of speech

or,
now
has some fixed number of
we may
say, a fixed
number
of imit lengths each of
which
occupied by some segment. All our segments
now have this
in
common
there are as
many segments
in
each utterance throughout the language
as will enable us to distinguish each utterance
from each other uttei'ance
which
is
not a repetition of
it,
and no more.^
of its
In effect, this means that the distinct phonemic (omi)()siti()n of each
utterance
is
defined as the
sum
minimal differences from
all
other
utterances of the language. For a pair such as pick-pit
minimal differences than the diffeience

the
])air.
we find no smaller between these two members of
The
difference in the pick-pat pair can be stated as the
sum
of
2 We would also find a few positions in which lip-and-nose closure occurred alone, e.g. in unreleased final [pi (map), or before [m] {shipynate) wliere the lip opening occurred only after a lip-closed nose-open segment. These would be found in chapter 7 to be positional variants of the combined lii)-and-nose closing plus lij) oi)ening segment (i.e. the [p] of the other positions).
^
5.2.
are
The first part of fliis sentence results fi'om 4.4; and 'no more' from Thus stark will have 5 segments, sark 4 segments, arc 3 segments, 2. The first of these may seem to have more segments han the pret
vious sentence reciuires, since there is no tark; so that if stark merely had a different iS than sark, it would suflice to distinguish the two utterances. However, the substitutions of 4.4 would break the N (= |st 1) of stark into a sequence of the [s] of I'm sorry and the [t] of tar.
44
The
difference in sick-land can be
the pick-pit and pit-pat differences.
stated as the
fine-find,
sum
of the differences in, say, sick-sack, sack-lack, rack-ran,
each of these having been shown previously to be a minimal
difference.
all
We identify sick by
its difference,
stated in this manner, from
other utterances of the language.
.\ppendix to 5.3: Unit Length and

It will
Phoneme Length
now
has the
in that
be seen that the conditions of 5.3 are precisely true of phonemes,

that each of these unit-length segments
so that
we may say
length of one phoneme.^ These segments differ from
phonemes
the operations of chapters 6 and 7 have not yet been carried out
upon
them.
The segment lengths obtained
in 5.2
may
still differ
from phonemic
lengths in one case, which also escaped the net of 4.4:
when
there
is
sequence of unique segments which are shown in chapter 9 to constitute a sequence of more than one phoneme. Thus the segment
plus
[s]-release),
[t]
[6]
(back
[t]
and
in
some English
dialects perhaps the sequence
[tr]
(post-dental
plus voiceless spirant release), are each composed of

[t]
smaller segments which occur only next to each other (back
only
next to
[s],
[r]-spirant
only
[t]
ne.xt to
post-dental
[6]
[t]).
Hence
if
we had taken
the two rather different
parts of
and of
[tr]
as equivalent segments
separate from their respective spirant parts,
we would probably now be

[c], [t] -f-
forced in each of these cases to join the respective stop and spirant parts
of each into
one segment (back

[tj])
[t]
[s]
into a single
[r]-release
into a single
on the basis
of 5.2, since the particular type of stop of
each of these segments occurs only before the particular type of spirant
and vice
versa.
Only chapter 9
will
enable us to break such segments into
smaller phonemes.
is not an absolute time measurement, but segments per utterance as defined in 5.3. Length is thus a distributional and relative term. It measures how much of the duration of the utterance is dependent upon other parts of the duration
*
This length, of course,

of
marks the number
same utterance (5.2), or other utterances (4.4).

of the
is
equivalent to parts of the duration of
6.
UTTERANCE-LONG ELEMENTS
6.0.
Introductory
This procedure develops representations for those features of speech such as tone or stress sequences and other contours ('secondary phonemes', prosodemes) which extend over whole utterances, whether or
not these contours have independent meanings. Extraction of these contours as distinct single elements leaves in each utterance a sequence of
segments which are devoid of such features as tone and stress, and which are in fact the traditional positional variants of phonemes.
6.L Purpose: Utterance-long Equivalent Features We want to be able to say that two different utterances are equivalent
throughout their duration
whether or not they are similar
The procedures
were similar,
of 4.21
some one of their utterance-long features, in any of their successive segments. and 4.23 enabled us to tell if two utterances
in
in their entirety: e.g.
two repetitions
it.
of / sewed
it;
or the
two
e.g.
utterances I
sewed
it
and
sowed
The procedure
of 4.22 further
enabled us to
tell if
two utterances were
identical in part of their length
Can't If, Cameras. This was the result of dividing the utterances into
successive segments, so that
we could
distinguish or equate individual
segments, and not only whole unitary utterances.
The
division of utterances into segments
was performed on the
basis
of the fact that short stretches (segments) of one utterance were sub-
stitutable (hence, equivalent) in our representation to those of other ut-
terances.
However,
in the utterances of
many
languages we can find some feais
ture which extends throughout the length of an utterance and

scriptively equivalent to a
de-
comparable feature extending over the length Did he come? May I enter? He saw you? all have equivalent of the others. tone sequences: rising on every stressed vowel and on every segment
after the last stressed vowel. In contrast, /
met him. He's
here.
Just got
in.
may
If
all
be represented as having in
to obtain
common
another tone sequence,
dif-
ferent
from the preceding one.

is
our only object
some representation
it
in
terms of discrete
elements for the utterances of a language,
would not be necessary to pay special attention to these utterance-long features. There are undoubtedly many other features in respect to which some utterances are
45
46
STRITCTIIRAL LINGUISTICS
and
different
similar to eaoh other
from other utterances. For example,
we could consider
all
the utterances pronounced with a particular degree
of loudness as against those with other degrees; or all utterances con-
taining 15 unit-length segments as against those containing 14 or 16.
However, the utterance-long features to be discussed below are particularly important for several reasons. In the
ly relevant in
first
place, they are linguisticalin
many languages: e.g.

more
a small difference
utterance intona-
tion in English can be
easily correlated with different speech sit\ia-
tions or hearer responses than can small differences in loudness, or in
number
of unit lengths per utterance. Secondly,

(i.e.
they often occur in only
a limited mmiber of contours
of successive
changes
in
grade)
whereas almost any degree of loudness (within limits) occurs in English

utterances,
we have only
certain sequences of tone changes, such that

of these particular sequences
most utterances occur with one or another

(intonations).
6.2.
Preliminaries to the Procedure: Discovering Partial Similarities
6.21.
It
In Paired Utterances was seen

in chapters 4, 5 that
if two utterances are not repetiby which one is represented must differ
tions of each other, ^ the elements

in at least
one point from the elements of the other.

differ
If,
in seeking to de-
termine which elements are those that
we
notice a difference in
some utterance-long
all
feature such as intonation, but have no reason to
localize the difference in
any one segment rather than another (because

contour feature which differentiates
all
the segments
may
differ in the
the utterances),
we must consider
or several of the segments to be
unequal.
Thus
//e's
coming? [hiyz kamiTjp
is
not a repetition of He's coming.
If we can find no difference in the other features (e.g. consonants and vowels) while the pairing test of 4.23 shows the utterances to be descriptively unequal, we may assume, as a working hypothesis, that the descriptive difference lies in the observed difference in the utterance-long feature (intonation or the like).
'
^ Using higher numbers for higher relative pitch levels. The raised bar before letters indicates loud stress on the vowel following, the lowered bar secondary stress, and two raised bars (") extra loud stress. For a rather similar analysis of English intonation, see Rulon S. Wells, The Pitch Phonemes of English, Lang. 21.27-39 (1945); for a rather different analysis, see Kenneth L. Pike, The Intonation of American English (1946). See also H. E. Palmer, English Intonation (1922); Stanley S.
[hiyz kamiT]].
this feature
47
it is
The two utterances
differ in their
tone changes; hence
which we
select to investigate.^
first
The
regular difference between repetitions of the

is
utterance and
most noticeable in [i] [i], [i] [i], [t)] [t]]; no other difference between the two is regularly noticeable in repetitions of each of them. In 4.23 and the Appendix to 4.23, it was assumed that if only one regular difference appeared between two paired utterances, it would
repetitions of the second
be convenient to have these utterances
difTer in
only one segment,
i.e.
to localize the difference in only one segment. This accords with the con-
possible
economy is imwe consider the noticeable differences in the corresponding segments. However, if< we represent He's coining? not by 9 segments eaoh having its stated tone, but by 9 tone-less segments plus an utterance-long contour [hiyz kamir) + 123I^],^ we can localize the difference between the two utterances in the utterance-long element. The tone-less
siderations of unit length in 5.3. In the present case such
if
segments are identical

6.22.
It
in both.
In Otherwise
is
if
Non- equivalent Utterances

two utterances
are not paired).
(i.e.
possible to extract utterance-long features from
even
these utterances differ in other features too

this,
To do
we represent each utterance by
its
segmental elements, and
then extract from these segments the successive segmental portions of

the feature in question.
We
begin with the segments of 5.3, in which,

[i]
e.g.,
is
the weak-stressed
distinct
and low-pitched
of
Fm
first
marking, [aym 'markir)]

[i]
from the
loud and high-pitched
of Kingsley! ["'kir)zliy], since the

for
ments are not substitutable

says [aym 'mar"knj] or
each other
in these contexts:
two segno one
[kir)zliy].^
the stress system of English, Word 2.171-187 (1946); Einar Haugen, Phoneme or Prosodeme?, Lang. 25.278-282 (1949). ^ We may test this by having He's coming? repeated, and seeing if all the repetitions show the same tonal sequence (intonations) as compared with repetitions of He's coming. * The italic numbers represent a single contour element, extending in most cases over more than one unit-length segment of the utterance. When not in italics, the digits indicate relative phonetic tones (pitch) without reference to the contours which they constitute. Since the precise phonetic data is relevant to phonemic discussion only when phonemic distinctions are being established, no attempt is made here to give exact phonetic transcriptions. ^ The latter non-extant form has zero stress on both vowels, indicated by he absence of stress bars.
Newman, On
48
Wo
ments,
then note wIumc there are limitations of occiirronce for these segin respect to
the feature which we suspect
may
[a]
constitute an ut-
terance-long contour. E.g.,

[iz ,<Sivt
we note
that in the utterance 7s that a bite?

for the
[a]
e 'bayt]
we cannot
substitute low-pitched
at the
end
we can
substitute
[o\v]
for the [ay], obtaining Is that a boat?, but

[ovv].
we cannot
general,
substitute [ow] or
Furthermore,
in [Sset]
we can sub[ae].
stitute ("se] (for contrastive stress) or ["se] (for surprise), but not
In
we note that
while almost every vowel quality will occur in the

iSis
positions of the vowel-segments in this utterance (e.g. [waz
Seyr
'bowt]
Was
this their boat?),
we can obtain only a few
different tone
sequences:
e.g. in 7s that
a bite? and in very

get 01123,
many
other utterances such
as those cited here
we may
and 03123, and 04123, but never

having a
11114, or 41111, or 14226, etc.
We
find that for all utterances
given number of vowels only very few of the permutationally possible
tone sequences occur.
The operation here
is
thus the testing of a working hypothesis.
To
carry out this operation
we must have
in
noticed that I'm marking, differs
from Kingsley! not only,

segments
[a,
for example, in that the former contains the
m,
is
r]
not contained
the latter, but also in that the

[i]
[i]
of
Vm marking,
not equivalent to the
of Kingsley!'' It then remains for
us to guess what feature would most conveniently represent the differ-
ence between these two
[i].
Having
fixed
on
this feature (say, tone),
we
the
observe
its
occurrence (in various grades
of, in this case,
tone) in
all
segments of
many
utterances. If
we
find that only a few sequences of
different grades of this feature occur, or that the feature correlates with
other linguistic elements,
we
extract the whole sequence as an utterance-
long contour. The two
[i]
segments which remain after the extraction are
now
identical.
are, of course, a great number of limitations of occurrence these segments. All the remaining sections of the phonology, will, in one way or another, deal with various of these limitations. If we want to obtain primarily the results suggested in the Appendix to 6.1, i.e. elements which will turn out later to be due to independent simultaneous morphemes, it will suffice to limit ourselves here to those limitations of segments, such as the pitch limitation of vowel segments, which show only a few of all the possible sequences, extending over the whole of an utterance.
*
There
among
Our awareness
from our having established

utterances (6.21).
of the linguistic relevance of this feature may result it as the factor of difference in some paired
6.3.
49
Procedure: Extracting Segmental Portions of Utterances

the segments of each utterance
From
is
we
extract each feature which

of that
such that relatively

all
few fixed sequences of the various grades
feature occur in
our utterances.
We call that feature a long component

first
(or a contour) over the utterance.
We
approach
this operation
by
considering the restrictions on
occurrence of segments.
restrictions
We
note those cases where there are successive

of
throughout the utterance on the grades
some particular
feature of
all
segments
in
the utterance (or
all
segments which noticeably

usually the vowels).
possess that feature; in the case of tone this
is
We note in
in successive
particular those cases where the restriction on this feature

is
segments
so severe that only a few different sequences of

(e.g.
the different grades of this feature occur in any of our utterances

the examples in 6.22).* This
means that
for each of the sequences that
do occur we have many utterances which have the identical sequence though they
differ in
the remaining components of their segments.
We
then say that the utterance consists of two simultaneous sections: First,
a SLiprasegmental
terance,
component which extends over the length
of the ut-
and represents the
fixed sequence of grades of the feature in
question, e.g. the tone sequence 01 123. Second, a sequence of segmental
remnants identical with the original segments except for the extraction of the feature in question, e.g. the pitchless remainders [iz Sset 9 bayt].
6.4.
Segmental Length of Contours
In noting English contours we will find

the tone sequence 00
(e.g.
many
short utterances with

etc.
Fin coming, or Alaska.), many with 1020,
However, we
will also find
many
utterances, usually longer ones, which

:
have 20 not only at the end but also elsewhere
e.g.
0201020 in I'm going.
Back
at seven. It is clearly possible to
consider this a succession of two
tone contours, 020 and 1020, each of which sometimes covers a whole utterance by
itself.
Other sequences can be broken down into successive

e.g.
contours which do not have identical endings:
0200123
in
I'm ready.
Are you coming?
is
divisible into
020 and 0123. The point between the
"*
This procedure
will
sarily
components
of segments)
whole utterances. If pendent on the other tones in the utterance. Distributionally, the tones are not independent, and hence need not be regarded as sei)arato elements. The independent elements are the whole sequences of tones within
the utterance.
apply equally well to any segments (not neceswhich are restricted in this manner, over successive tones are restricted, then each tone is de-
50
STRITCTT^RAL LINGUISnCS
into
two successive contours
which Iho long sequence

<-i
is
divided, will
will
often contain a brief pause; or the end
each successive contour

the
very frequently be somewhat drawled
(in
manner
of the
Appendix
to 6.3, last paragraph), or will exhibit other characteristics otherwise
found only
in
utterance
final.
On
the other hand,
such sequences
tional features.
in hurried
conversations
many may have none

of tones (or of
occurrences of
of these addi-
We may
if
therefore divide
any sequence
j.';rades
of
any
other feature) which extends over an utterance, into successive contours,
each of the successive contours occurs elsewhere extelî!ng over some

itself.^
whole utterance by
longer a
This operation materially reduces the number

is
of different contours
which we have to recognize: 0200123 above
no
new
is
contour.
of a
The length
it
contour (the number of successive segments over which
extends)
in general
more than one unit-length segment, but may be
as short as the operation described here permits.

6.5.
Contours Which Occur Simultaneously when the extraction of a feature for a putative contour number of sequences, it is possible to represent
contrastively-stressed utterances that's his
In some cases,
reveals a relatively large
these sequences as various simultaneous occurrences of just a few contours.
Thus the following
BKDroom, That's his bedroom, That's his BEDroom, have tone contours
S030, 1320, 1030 respectively, as compared with 1020 for That's his bed-
room (with extra-loud
stress
accompanying tone
3). If
we stop
here,
we
would have to say that there are here four independent tone sequences. However, we notice that wherever the tone is not 3, the tone of each
segment
is
that of the corresponding position in the sequence 1020.
We
therefore extend the procedure of 6.3 and extract from each of these
tone sequences yet another sequence, consisting of tone 3 plus extraloud stress on any one vowel and
its
neighboring consonants.
We
can
then say that 3030
is
our old contour 1020 plus two occurrences of tone
contour
3,
while 1320 and 1030 also contain that

in different positions.
same sequence plus

utterance.
one occurrence of contour 3

different sequences,
Instead of four or more
we now have 1020 extending over each
' Such subdivisions will be u.seful if we find in chapter 12 that these contours extend over the same morpheme class sequences (and have the same morphemic status when they exiend over part of an utterance as when they extend over a whole utterance).
and tone contour 3 placed at any vowel
the 1020 contour
is
51
in the utterance.'"
The
length of
the utterance; the length of the contour consisting

is
of tone 3 plus extra-loud stress
one word (rarely one morpheme or
vowel) within the utterance.
The search
some
cases.
for restricted sequences, therefore, leads us not only to
extract particular phonetic features, but also to repeat the extraction in
feature, into
thus break any sequences of tone, or of any other two simultaneously-occurring contours, if we can thereby analyze many different component sequences as being varying combinations of a few contours. We then say that the two contours were superposed upon one another.
6.6.
We may
Result: Suprasegmental Elements Extending over Utter-
ances
We now have for our representation

elements, contours whose length
is
of the
language a number of new
in general greater
than unit-segment."
lost those features
As a
result of 6.3, our original
segments have now
which have been extracted into the new long (contour) components.'^
Each contour
is
defined as occurring over certain stated lengths. It

(e.g. ?
may
be symbolized by a mark at the end of that length
at the
end of
an utterance, to indicate 123, 1234, etc.)."
'" In chapter 12 we shall find that this breakdown into superposed sequences not only is economical but also may correlate with morphemic
analysis.
"
6.1,
'^
The
and
mic status
fact that many (but not necessarily all) of them have morpheis irrelevant here, and will only appear later (cf. Appendix to
12.344).
extraction of the long components greatly simplifies our further many segments had differed only in features that have now been extracted to make up the long components e.g. the weakstressed, low-pitched [i] of I'm marking and the loud high-pitched first [i] of Kingsley. Now that utterance-long tone and stress contours have been extracted all we have here is two equivalent occurrences of the tone-less and stress-less remnant [i], which is identical in both utterances and occurs in them simultaneously with any one of the extracted contours. Instead of the great number of original segments we now have far fewer segmental remnants, plus the long contour components.
analysis. Formerly,
:
The
'^ The utterance-long intonations are entirely different from the onevowel -long tones which occur independently over each vowel. The latter are called phonemic tones (sometimes, tonemes) and languages containing them are often called tone languages. They are discussed in chapter 9, fri. 2 and the Appendix to 10.1-4.
52
.\|>(><Mi<liv
t)
6.1: Mtirphfiiiir
Independence of Utterance-long
Klonioiits
The
is
oxtraction of those contours from the segments of every utterance
particularly imi)ortant because in
many
hinguages some of the con-
tours will turn out later to constitute suprasegmental contour

(intonations, etc.) which
morphemes
may
occur elsewhere separately from the mor-
phemes constituted by the segmental remnants. For example, if we extract the tone contoiu' out of the segments of Fm going, and He isn't, we get the tone sequence 020 for each wecan later ident ify this onecontour as
;
a mor])heme indicating assertion which occurs in both of these utterances.
With this tone morpheme out of the way, we are left with tone-less morphemes [gow], [ii]]. etc. which are independent of their tone morphemes and which occur simultaneously with other tone contours as well, e.g. in Going? ['gowiT)]; here the tone sequence is 123, a morpheme
indicating question. It would be difficult later on to identify morphemes,
such as [gow],
if
we do not now separate out those soimd elements which

if,
belong to different morphemes (even
like tone,
if
they occur simul-
taneously with the former morphemes). For
we did not separate out

and [gow]
in
such elements, we would get units

they
like [gow] in 7 'to going,
Going? which would have to be considered as different morphemes, since

differ in
form and often
in
environment (and meaning).

breaking our segments into their simvd-
We have thus
pendent factors
two purposes
in
taneous components: Primarily, we wish to find the distributionally inde(e.g.
tone-less vowels,
and tone by
itself)
4.
which can be
if
variously combined to yield the segments of chapter
Secondarily,
we
have segments some

later
of
whose components
of
(e.g. sibilant
position) will
of their
appear to be members of one morpheme, while others

(e.g.
comit
ponents
tone) are
members
another co-occurring morpheme,
is
we separate these two groups of components. There is no procedure by which we can easily discover at this stage, when we have
desirable that
no knowledge
of the
phonemic limitations
in cha])ter 10.
of the language,
what breakis
down
ful
tell
;
of our
segments into independent component factors
most usewill
this will be
done
There
is
also
no procedure which
when we have no knowledge of the morphemes of the language, what components are members of simultaneously-occurring
us at this stage,
independent morphemes. However,

cedure which will separate
ponents. In
off
it
is
possible to carry out here a pro-
the independent utterance-long com-
many
cases this includes
most
of the
elements which
will
later turn out to be
members
of
suprasegmental independent morphemes.
Appendix to
If
53
6.3:
Formulaic Statement of the Procedure
the segments
(e.g.
ABCD
[ay],
oocur
(e.g.
Am
I? [spm ay]) while
ABEF
do
not
[sem ay]), where

(e.g.
feature
EF =
EF is CD =
equivalent to
[ay]),
CD
except for a stated
we say that
ABCD
includes
throughout
its
length a single contour component consisting of this
feature, e.g. 123,
and that the contour 123 occurs whereas 111 does
not.'^
Then
1
since
AB contains the beginning of some contour which begins with

we know
it
(as in [sem-]),
that
it
may
be the beginning of
123 occurs, but that

does not occur.
could not be the beginning of
ABCD, since ABEF, since 111
This formulation enables us to state what sequences of whole segments
do not occur:
If
123
I?,
is
a tone contour which extends over a whole utter-
ance, while 111

i.e.
and if we have an utterance beginning with [sem], an utterance whose first segments contain the beginning of the 123
not,
component, then we can predict that the remaining segments

tain 23, but hardly ever 11. If
may
con-
we have an utterance beginning
is he,
we know that the

be
sick.
rest of
the utterance
may
be
stch,
but
will
hardly ever
The procedure which has brought out

nents
of
is
these utterance-long
compo-
equivalent to two steps: First, the extraction from each segment

(e.g.
whatever unit-length components we wish

[i]
extracting relative
tone 4 from
and
from
[i]).
Second, the application of the procedure

is,
of 5.2 to the
components which have thus been obtained. That
we
join into one long

if
component any succession
of unit-length
components
part of that succession occurs regularly with the other part. For ex1, 2,
ample, the sequence of tone components
3 becomes one long
com-
ponent 123, and

not with a great
1, 2, 3,
4 becomes a unitary 1234, because the portion 23

1,
occurs only with the portion
or
4,
or various other portions, but
many
other portions, such as 33
33
(there
would be
no 332333)}^
In general the statement that an element does not occur indicates not that the feature it represents never occurs in speech, but that it occurs very rarely and when it does there is often cultural disapproval or non-recognition.
'''
'* It is generally found that when this second operation is attempted, the tonal or analogous components of each segment occur regularly with the particular tonal components of the other segments, whereas the consonantal and vocalic remnants of each segment do not have few regular sequences with the other segmental remnants. I.e. given the remnant
54
The whulc operation
of chapter 6
is
in effect a search for regularities
which extenii over whole utterances.

order to see
if
We
are investigating utterances in
there
may
be a small number of long stretches of some
sound-feature, such that each utterance can be represented as having
one or another of these few stretches.
If
we
find
such stretches
it?),
(e.g.
the
01123
of Is that your
home' and So Gardner drank
we
will
dearly
get a simpler description
by taking the whole tonal stretch

of that) as
it
as a unit, as-
sociated with
part (the
many particular utterances, than by

1
taking each successive
of 7s, or the
an indejjendcnt unit, each associated
with the segment in which

followed here so that
satisfy this specific
The method of attack in G.1-3 was we might have an orderly procedure which would objective: the limitations of occurrence among the
occurs.
1,
successive component features 0,
2, etc.
(in 6.22) yield
the few ut-
terance-long components which
we
seek.'*
if all
In view of this,
of of
it is
not important
the successive parts are grades
some one sound feature, e.g. if they are all various tones, or if some them are physically different features, e.g. loudness, whispering, etc.
contours consist of several features which vary throughout their
is
Many
length. In English, higher tone
usually associated with louder stress.'^
ho7ne after the tone has been extracted, we find a great variety of partially similar remnants: /oam, loam, whom, hum, hole, hose. After how,/ we may find almost any phoneme; but after tones 12 we usually find 3 or 0,
with other successors only in stated environments. Hence we will succeed in setting up utterance-long elements (dependent sequences) of the tonal parts, but not of the segmental remnants.
strictions
was not necessary to extract the contours in this way, via the reupon the segments which have the feature in question. The contours could have been e.xtracted from the utterances before the segmentation was carried out, by searching the unbroken utterances for features (such as tone) in which only a few variations existed, many utterances having the same variation in common. However, had we done so we could not have used the more e.xact method of searching for restrictions which is seen in 6.22. Furthermore, if we had extracted the contours before setting up segments for each utterance, the tone-less segments would not have represented whole successive portions of the utterance,
'*
It
such as could be impressionist ically heard in succession or could be snipped and substituted for one another on a sound-track. These contour-less segments would not have been amenable to the fundamental substitution operation of chapter 4. Therefore, it was preferable to carry out the operations of 3-4 before that of 6.
'^ But in varying ways. In the tone sequences which end in 20, preceding zero stressed vowels have tone 0, preceding loud stressed vowels
Many
utterance-final tone sequences, such as 20, are
55
accompanied by
an increased duration of phonemes and a laxness of articulation: in Look at his book, the second [u] is longer than the first. We must therefore
be prepared to recognize long contours (or fixed sequences) representing
combinations of various features of speech.
Appendix to
6.4:
Contours of More than One Utterance Length

which
When we
a contour,
test the extraction of various features
may
comprise
we may
find that
some
of the putative contours
extend not
over whole utterances but over
many
separated utterances. In an argu-
ment, for instance, one or

with high pitch
(or,
all of
the participants
may
speak loudly and
given a different culture or personality, slowly; with

;
low pitch and

over
fortis articulation)
these tone and stress features continue
many
utterances in that conversation, and are superposed upon the
previously-described utterance contours.
Some phonetic
features occur
regularly in particular social situations: in sufficiently stratified societies
there are recognizable differences between the

class
woman
is
talks to a social equal
way a, say, upper middle and to a servant (even when the ut-
terance
otherwise identical). Other features
may
be present
life,
in all
the
speech of a particular person during several years of his

fact that
witness the
we can recognize a person by his voice. Still others characterize members of a particular age group, social class, etc., witness the fact that in certain cases we can tell the class or age group of a speaker before we see him. All such features extend over more than single utterances, and can be described as superposed upon the utterance-length contours (or, as consisting of special combinations of them, after the method of 6.5).
the
Since
we have
limited our contours to those
whose extension
linguistics,
is
peculiar to
utterance length, these features are excluded from our present consideration.
For the purposes
of present
day descriptive
segments or
contours which differ only in these features are considered as free variants,
i.e.
descriptively equivalent to each other. In incidence and
mean-
ing, these features
border closely upon gesture and are of importance

of
to
any consideration
how language occurs
in social interaction. In
their representation of speech, these features can
be distinguished from
have tone 1. In those which end in a rise (23, or 34, etc.), the first loud stressed vowel may be said to have tone 1, the next 2, and so on, while every zero stressed vowel has the same tone as the loud stressed one before it.
oG
the sejimeiits and contours which have been treated in these procedures
only by the fact that they extend over more than single utterances.'*
Appendix
The
in
to 6.5:
Grouping Complementary Contours

and
6.5
is
effect of 0.4
to reduce the
number
of distinct contours
terms of which we describe the sequence of suprasegmental features
extending over the utterance. This number can be further greatly re-
duced
if
we
find that the differences

in their
among some
of our contours are de-
pendent upon differences
environment.'^
there fumbled.)
Thus, the difference between 0100120 {The fellow out
and 120
of loud
{I fumbled) correlates with the difference in
and zero stressed
number and position vowels. Following the method of 7.3 and 10.4,
we may group all the contours which consist of various I's and O's followed by a final 20, and list them as positional variants of one contour -30. The environment which determines what positional variant of 20 occurs in any particular utterance which bears 20 is the number of
loud and zero stressed vowels in that utterance.
Appendix to
6.6:
Phonemic Status of Contours

of reducing the stock of distinct segments,
The advantages
phemic
ter
it
and
of
separating out the elements which
may
to
later
have independent mor-
status, are obtained as soon as
how we view them, nor what we do

be of interest to note the status
may
we extract the contours, no matthem thereafter. Nevertheless, of the new contour elements rela-
tive to our other linguistic elements.
Both the contour elements and the segment-remnant elements are
now needed
in identifying
an utterance, for each represents features of
the utterance not indicated by the other. In chapters 7-9 the unit-seg-
pletely
ment elements will be subjected to certain operations, leading to comphonemic elements; these cannot, by their nature, be carried out upon the contours.^"
'
'^
Cf. 2.31-2 above.
In 6.5 the differences among 1320, 1030, 1020, etc., depended upon the differences in occurrence and position of the contour 3 among the respective utterances. Hence as soon as 3 was recognized as a separate contour, we were free to consider 1320, 1030, etc., as members of one 1020 contour.
^ This is related to the fact that the unit-segment elements and the contour elements have been established in quite different ways. The
However, just as the operations
of 7-9 will reduce the
57
number
of eleit
ments and make them more convenient

a particular language.
for linguistic analysis, so
may
be possible to reduce the number of contours which have been set up for
To do
this,
we would take
all
the contours in that
language and compare them. Several contours
may turn
out to be identi-
cal in part of their length, while differing in the remainders. It
may
be
possible to contrast one contour with another, in a single environment,
and to
cases
find that contours
while contours
A and B are equivalent except at one point and C are equivalent except at another point. In such
that the section of difference between
we would say
and
is
one
element, the section of difference between
and C another.^' These

and the contours
would be successive phonemic elements

could be identified as consisting of them.
of contours,
For example, we take the low-rising intonation
for /?/ {0123 in
Are
you coming?), high-rising for impatient question /??/ {1234 in Are you coming??), rising-falling for surprised question /?.'/ {0132 in Are you coining?!), mid-falling for assertion /./ {120 in He's coining.), high-falling
for excited assertion
/.'/
{241 in He's coming!), mid-level for to-be-con-
tinued assertion /,/ {122 in He's coming, ). Instead of considering each of these an independent irreducible long component, we may purely on
phonetic grounds say that the superposition of the mid-level intonation
upon one
of the other contours has the effect of raising the relative pitch
of the contour: thus high-rising /??/
would be merely low-rising /?/
plus mid-level /,/; and high-falling /!/ would be mid-falling /./ plus
mid-level /,/. Similarly, rising-falling /?!/ could be considered a super-
posed combination of low-rising /?/ plus mid-falling /./. Instead of the six original elements, one for each contour, we now have only three ele-
low
and /,/ for middle register (as against Whereas our previous six elements each had both phonemic and morphemic status, these three elements are only phonemes (stretching over the unit segments of the utterance, and sometimes over each other), while the six (or more) morphemic contours are each a parments: /?/ for
rise, /./ for fall,
register) base-line.
unit-length elements resulted from operations of substitution ((ha})ter.s 3-5), whereas the contour elements ex^jress limitations in the variety of succession of features of the segments.
since
be regarded as an extension of the procedure of 6.2-3, that it is the sections of difference between A and B, rather than the whole of A and of B, that constitute the stretches within which the successive tone components arc (lei)endent on each other.
^'
This
may
we may say
58
ticular
combination of various of these phonemic elements
write the
/./,
(just as seg-
mental morphemes are combinations of various segmental phonemes).
We now
morphemic contour 012S

as /,./, 122 as /,/."
as /?/, 12S4 as /,?/,
0132 as
/?./, 120 as
Ul
^^ This, of course, has nothing to do with the meaning or morphemic status of the contours; when the element /./ occurs with the element /?/ in /?./). it rio more has the meaning of the contour which is written with the component / ./ above than does the phoneme /a/ which represents the morpheme a in o man, represent that morpheme in /alart/ alerl. Note that the combinations suggested above are not phonetically exact. We do not have to restrict ourselves to cases where perfect phonetic similarities may be found among the contours. We can say that /,/ is defined as mid-level tone (e.g. 122) when it occurs by itself, but as a raising of tone-level (register) when it occurs simultaneously with other components (so that /?/ is 0123, while /,?/ is 1234). It is not necessary that the phonemic elements which we will combine in order to form contours should also constitute contours by themselves as they are in the example above. We could have taken any new elements common to several contours, e.g. level-mid, level-high-rising, etc., and have defined each contour as some simultaneous combination of these new elements. The contours can be defined as successions of shorter phonemic elements, or as superpositions of phonemic elements each of which is as long as the contour itself.
7.
PHONEMES
5,
7.0.
Introductory
after they
lost the
This procedure takes the segmental elements of chapter
components which were extracted in 6, and groups them into phonemes on the basis of complementary distribution.
have
7.1.
Purpose: Fewer and Less Restricted Elements seek a more efficient set of symbols for our segments,^ one in which there are fewer elements, and in terms of which we can state more compactly which sequences of them occur.
We now
The
language
literature concerning the technical setting up of phonemes in a is post-1930. The basic methodological considerations are given
in Leonard Bloomfield, Language (1933); Bernard Bloch and G. L. Trager, Outline Guide of Linguistic Analysis (1942) Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Anleitung zu phonologischen Beschreibungen (1935); Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Grundzuge der Phonologic (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, 1939); Morris Swadesh, The phonemic principle, Lang. 10.117-129 (1934); Morris Swadesh, The phonemic interpretation of long consonants, Lang. 13.1-10 (1937) ;G. L. Trager, The phonemic treatment of semivowels, La!^g. 18.220-223 (1942); J. Vachek, Can the phoneme be defined in terms of time?, Melanges van Ginneken (1937); Manuel Andrade, Some questions of fact and policy concerning phonemes, Lang. 12.1-14 (1936); H. E. Palmer, The Principles of Romanization (1931) D. G. Mandelbaum, ed., Selected Writings of Edward Sapir; K. Biihler, Phonetik und Phonologic, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 4.22-53 (1931); Witold Doroszewski, Autour du phoneme, ibid. 61-74; Daniel Jones, On phonemes, ibid. 74-9; J. Vachek, Phonemes and phonological units, ibid. 6.235 40 (1936); Daniel Jones, Some thoughts on the phoneme. Transactions of the Philological Society 1944.119-35 (1945); E. Haugen and W. F. Twaddell, Facts and Phonemics, Lang. 18.228-37 (1942). Articles giving the phonemic analysis of particular languages, or discussing phonemic problems in various languages have appeared chiefly in Language, International Journal of American Linguistics, Travaux du Orcle Linguistique de Prague, and the Proceedings of the International
;
;
Congress of Phonetic Sciences.
As examples, the following may be noted here: Leonard Bloomfield, The stressed vowels of American English, Lang. 11.97-116 (1935); Morris Swadesh, The vowels of Chicago p]nglish, Lang. 11.149-151 (1935);
Morris Swadesh, Twaddell on Defining the Phoneme, Lang. 11.244-250 (1935); Edward Sapir, Glottalized continuants in Navaho, Nootka, and Kwakuitl, Lang. 14.248 274 (1938); Morris Swadesh, On the analysis of English syllables, Lang. 23.137- 150 (1947). ^ In the remaining chapters, the term segments will be used for the remnants of our original segments after the component contours of chapter 6 have been extracted. 59
60
^^'itll
the segments as
we now have them, we can
represent any stretch
by one or more contours phis a sequence of letters (symbols for the segments), each representing a length of sound (or sound feature) which is substitutable for any other written with the same letter. For
of speech
many
is
lan2;uages this representation has drawbacks. First, each segment

e.g.
highly restricted in occurrence:

setting
it
the alveolar flap
(r']
written
It
in
I'm
here occurs only after a loud stressed
vowel and before a
weak
stressed one. It thus occurs in a relatively small variety of environe.g.
ments:
we have
setting ['ser'ir)] but
no
[seVit)] or [ser'l or [r'es], etc.

is
Second, the number of different segments
very great.
classification of our seg-
Both
ments.'
of these considerations
can be met by a
7.2.
Preliminaries to the Procedure
7.21.
Stating the Environments of Segments

each different segmental element.
all
We list
For each segment, we state
the environments in which

it is
it
occurs.''
Since this can be an almost endless task,
best to attempt tentative
approximations. For each segment,
we may
list
the most differentiated

if
environments we can
other environment
is
find,
within short utterances, and then see
every
identical, over a short stretch or in a particular
respect, with one of the
environments noted at
all
first.
We may
soon find that
our listed environments for any given seg-
ment have some one feature (or any one of several stated features) in common, and are otherwise random, e.g. [r'] is always preceded by '-|vowel, which is in turn preceded by any random segment including #.
We may
further find that this
is
also true of all additional environments
which we add to the
table. Wê then stop listing additional

results.
environments
and summarize our
That
is,
we
state that certain features, or
some one
or another of several features, are present (or absent) in every
' The classificatory operation of 6.3 will be carried out only upon the segments as they remain after the operations of 5.3. The contours which were obtained in chapter 6 have been subjected to an analogous classificatory operation in the Appendix to 6.5.
* As defined in 2.4, the environment of will mean the rest of the utterance (or of some stated part of the utterance) in which occurs, stated in terms of elements comparable to A'. In the case of our present segments, the environment is the other segments around it, plus the phonetically recognizable silence or pause.
PHONEMES
environment
before
7.22.
it
61
of the
segment
e.g.
[r']
always has a loud stressed vowel

[f, },
and a weak stressed vowel
or
rp] after it.^
Summing over the Environments We now arrange the segments according to

which each occurs. This totality
its
the
sum
is
of
environments
in
of
environments
of occurrence.^
called the distri-
bution of the segment, or

It is
freedom
how segments can be complementary in distribution. We take any segment and note the sum of environments in which it occurs: say, [i^] which occurs in [# V].^ We then cast about
possible to consider
now
for in
some other segment which never occurs

which the
first
in
any
of the
environments
in
[-j;]
segment occurs: say,

which
[t]
which occurs only

is
as
in ['triy] tree.
We
say that such a segment

is
complementary to the
first
first
one.
(i.e.
We then look for a segment

which never occurs
;
complementary to the
in
two
in
any environment
which either
of the first
two occurs)
[t'']
say,
[r']
which occurs
in the position stated in 7.21; neither
nor
[t]
ever occurs in that environment.
We continue the search
until
we can no longer find a segment which is complementary to all the previous segments. At this point we close the list of these mutually complementary segments and begin afresh with a new segment for which we will seek other complementaries, forming a second set of mutually complementary segments.
7.3.
Procedure: Grouping Segments Having Complementary Distribution

take any number of segments, each of which
is
We
complementary to
lines).
every other one we have taken, and say that they comprise a single class
which we
call
phoneme
(writing
its
symbol between slanting
Each of the mutually complementary sets of 7.22 may thus constitute a phoneme by itself. On the first chart of the appendix to 7.22 we can determine a phonemic group of segments merely by drawing a line which will pass, from left to right, through not more than one check in each column, i.e. not more than one segment for each environment: e.g. [t] in [# fl and [t] in [s se] can be crossed by one line and included in one phoneme, but
E.g. segments [K, k, k]* can all be included in a
phoneme
/k/.
The mark
under a
letter indicates vocalic quality (syllabicity).
*
'
'Privileges of occurrence' in Bloomfield's
indicates
it is
any segment
of a
languages
*
in contrast to
convenient to set consonants (C). indicates back k; k indicates front
Language. group which we call vowel. In most up this group, on distributional groimds,
k.

62
[t]
in
[s
ae]
and
[k] in
[s
se]
cannot.
Then
all
the checks which are

is
crossed by the line indicate
members
of the
])honeme which
represented
by the
7.31,
line.'
in the Course of Phonemicizotion The environments are themselves composed of segments; e.g. in a complete chart, the same segments appear both in the vertical segment a.xis and in the horizontal environment axis. Therefore, whenever a number of segments is grouped into one phoneme, we must find these segments in the environment list and replace them by that phoneme. E.g. when we group the segments [r] of cry and [r] of try into one phoneme /r/, we must change the two environments [# r] and [# r] into a single (phonemic) environment /# r/, since [r] is now identified with [r]. When we have done this, we can no longer group [t] and [k] into one phoneme, since they now contrast in # r/: both [t} and [k] occur be-
Adjusting Environments
fore /r/. This prevents us fore

[r],
from using a single restriction

twice: e.g. from grouping
[r]
[t]
([t]
onh^ beinto one

[r]
[k]
only before
[r])
and
[k]
phoneme because they
are complementary before
as against
(as-
suming that they do not contrast elsewhere), and at the same time grouping [r] and [r] into one phoneme because they are complementary
after
[t]
as against
[k].'
7.4, Criteria for
Grouping Segments
of 7.2-3
The operation
determines whether segment
can be asso-
phoneme. But it is not sufficiently selective to determine which of two complementaries. X and Z, shall be included with }' (if X and Z are not mutually complementary, so that
in a single
ciated with segment
only one of them, but not both, can be associated with
]').
^ This leaves the line free, for any given column, to pass through no check at all; in this case the phoneme (which consists of the segments checked for each environment) is represented by no segment in the environment indicated by that column. I.e. the phoneme doesn't occur in that environment. E.g. the line for /g/ in the chart of the Appendix to 7.22 may go through no checks in the [s columns; we then say that / g/ does not occur after /s/. '" If we did not do this, but had included [r] and [r] in one phoneme /r/ ([r] after [t], [r] after [k]) and [t] and [k] in one phoneme /T ([t] before [r], [k] before [r]), we would have try and cry both phonemically written /Tray/. This would conflict with a basic consideration of phonemics, namely, to write differently any two utterances which are different in segments. This inadmissible situation does not arise if we group [r] and [r] into /r/ while keeping [t] and [k] phonemically distinct from each other, since they contrast before the new /r/.
'
PHONEMES
In most cases there
into phonemes. If
63
will be more than one way of grouping segments we choose one segment, say, [t], we may find several other segments, say, [t*^], [k^], [p^] all occurring in /# V/ and so com-
plementary to
[t]
but not to each other. Only one

[t];
of these
can be put into
one phoneme with

It
is
which
shall
it
be?'^
therefore necessary to agree on certain criteria which will deterof the eligible
mine which
7.41.
segments go together into a phoneme.'^
Number and Freedom

general desideratum
is
A
give
to have as few
phonemes as
possible,
and to
have each phoneme occur

it
the
many environments as possible, i.e. to maximum freedom of occurrence among the other phonemes.
in as
To
this end,
we would
try to have every
phoneme include some segment
" In the chart we will have, for each column, a choice of any one of the blocks, checked or empty, since our only instruction so far is to take not
in each column. such criteria, of course, as will yield phonemes most convenient to our language description. Other criteria might be better for different purposes. The criteria should be stated not in order to fix a single method of segment grouping, but to make explicit in each case what method is being followed. It will be noticed that the criteria listed below serve primarily to give a simple distributional description of the phonemes, and only secondarily to give a convenient reference system for any description of the speech features represented by the segments.
'2
more than one check
We select
1/p/
or else]
f/b/
(i4
environment, as far as possible. In the Appendix to 7.22, this
selecting a check
of 7.22
it
for each
means
plicit
from every cokmin
if
possible; in the less ex-
form
requires that the

if
sum
of the
environments of
all
the
seujments in a
phoneme equal
it
possible the total of environments
any
segment could possibly have.

This means that
greatest
is
not necessary to set up
more phonemes than the

single
greatest
number number
of different of checks in
segments
in
any
environment (the
any
single
of
environment had the same number

(i.e.
column of the chart). '^ If every segments which contrasted in it

of the operation of
which were
different iated in
terms
chapter
4),
each phoneme would consist of one segment from each environment, and
the
number
in
of different
segments
phonemes would be the number of contrasting any environment. However, we will usually find that in
some environments there is a greater number of contrasting segments than in others. E.g., if we consider the small portion shown here of the English chart, we find [p*', t**, k*', b, d, g] in [# V], against which we can match only [p, t, k] in [s V]. If then we were to associate segments
[p, t, k] with [p*', t*", k*"] respectively, there would be no segments in the [s V] environment to associate with segments [b, d, g]. The phonemes in
which
[b, d, g]
are included w'ould thus have no representative in the
[s
V]
position; they
7.42.
would be said not to occur

in
there.
Symmetry
Representation of Sounds
7.421.
Idextity of representation among segments. Since the
segments are defined as identifying particular sound stretches or sound

features,
and since the phonemes

is
will
be defined as groupings
of seg-
ments,
it
convenient to have the definitions of the various segments

related to each other.
in
within a
phoneme simply
We may
in
try to group
segments into phonemes
such a way that
all
the segments of each
phoneme
represent sounds having
some feature
in /p,
common which
is
not represented by any segment of any other phoneme: to use articulatory examples,
all
segments included
would represent the feature

which would not
of
of lip closure plus
complete voicelessness
(or fortisness)
be represented by any other segment.
We
would then be able to speak
'^ The first chart in the Appendix to 7.22 shows at a glance in which of the listed environments the greatest number of distinct segments are
differentiated.
.'he
These environments are

of
[f
C], C], C].

[ae
[g
of single environment, with the aid of the operations of chapters 8-10. In some cases the criteria of 7.42-3 may lead to the setting up of more phonemes, for reasons of symmetry, than the arbitrary grouping of complementary segments would require.
number
in
phonemes may be reduced below the highest number
segments
any
PHONEMES
the
65
feature, rather
phoneme
as representing this
common
than as being
a class of segments. Relations between phonemes would then represent

relations
between sound features.
As a
of a
special case of this,

all its
we
try to keep in one

If
phoneme
all
occurrences
segment, in
environments.
[K] occurs in /u
C/
and
in
/s
u/, we would try to have both

:
sets of occurrence in the
same pho-
neme, say /k/. However, more powerful reasons will in some cases appear below which lead to listing a segment in two phonemes, depending on its
environment
only
[k]
e.g.
occurs after /s/,
rather than /k /
/k/,
contrast in most environments while some reason we preferred to have /g/ represented after /s/ we might assign [K] in /n C/ to
since
[k]
and
[gl
if
for
and [K]
in
/su/
to /g/.'"
'^ This is called partial overlapping of the two phonemes in respect to the segment [K]; cf. Bernard Bloch, Phonemic overlapping, American Speech 16.278-284 (1941). Complete overlapping, which associates a segmental element in one environment sometimes with one phoneme and sometimes with another, is excluded, since it conflicts with the one-one requirement of phonemics. E.g. if some occurrences of [K] in [s u] were /k/ and others were /g/, we could hear the segments [sku] and not know whether to write it /sku/ or /sgu/. Partial overlapping may also occur among the parts of segments (which are no longer considered here, since we are now dealing only with whole segments). Thus [h] in hill is a member of the phoneme /h/; but the somewhat similar [h] of pill was included in the segment [p''] (5.2). A different case arises with the crux of chapter 4, fn. 11, in which two distinct sounds were freely varying repetitions of one another in some utterances, but constituted different not mutually substitutable segments in the other utterances: [bgar'] and [bqar'] 'cow', but only [gr'a'] 'squash' and Iqr'a'] 'ringworm'; similarly, only [Trag] 'he was parched' and [iraq] 'it sank'. If we can show a difference in phonemic environment (short of listing all the utterances) between the cases where the two vary freely and those where they do not, we will say that there is partial overlapping: in the first environment [g] is a free variant of the /q/ phoneme, and in the second it is a member of the /g/ phoneme. The /q/ phoneme then will have free members [g] and [q] in the first environment, and only [q] in the second (while /g/ will have only [g] in the second, and will not occur in the first). If we cannot show such an environmental diff'erence, the best we could say is that in some ut terances, which we would have to list [gl is a free variant member of the ,'q/ phoneme while in others it is a member of the /g/ phoneme. That would be complete overlapping, since given Ibgor] and [gr'a'l we would not know which of these can also be pronounced with [q] unless we know the list of utterances or of morphemes. In such cases, therefore, we say that [g] is always in /g/ and |q) in q,', and that utterances like /bgar/ 'cow' and /bqar/ 'cow' are not phonemically repetitions of each other (as nick and niche are not), but are different utterances with similar or identical meanings; this will re(luire us to go back and correct our result in 4.21 where [bgor] and [bqor] may have been taken as rej)etitions of each other.

66
7.422.
It
is
Idkntity of inter-segmental relation among phonemes.
also convenient to
have the relation among segment definitions

with the relation in other phonemes. This
within one
phoneme
iilentical
several
phonemes in such a way that phonemes have correspondingly differing allophones (i.e. segment members) in corresponding environments. E.g. English [p, t, k] all
requires that the segments be grouped into
occur in /s
V/, as
with
in stone;
[p]
[p**,
t^, k*"] all
occur in
/# V/
as in tone.
We
could have grouped
and
[t**]
together, since they are
complemen-
tary.
But the above

[p]
criterion directs us (barring other relevant relations)
to group
so,
[p""]
into /p/,
we can say that the /#
identical with the /s
and similarly for /t/, /k/. For if we do member of all these phonemes is virtually member except that C"] is added; such a simple
'
general statement would not have been possible
if
we had grouped the

in
segments
differently.'^
if
W X (but not in Y Z), and and d occur in Z (but not in WX), and the difference between a and identical, in respect to
if
]More generally:
segments a and
c
both occur
environment
}'
if
c is
some
criterion,
with the difference between b and
d,
then we group o and

into another.
(rather than a
and
d) into one
phoneme, and
and d
We
can rename
as a'
and d as
\
b'.
PHONEMES
7.423.
67
Relative to complete phoneme stock. The criteria of 7.421we should grou}) the segments, and with which difference between a and c we should match an identical difference between b and d. If we select the articulatory feature of aspiration, we would associate the [t] of /s V/ with the [d] of /4^ V/. Alternatively, if we select fortisness or complete voicelessness, we would associate the [t] of /s V/ with the [t*"] of /# V/.
2 do not determine around which sound features
Similarly,
if
we
[f]
select spirantization as the articulatory difference bec,
tween two complementary segments a and

[p]
then the difference between
(spin)
and
or
[6]
(fin, ihin)
[f]
would be identical with the difference

satisfy this criterion
[tj
between
[p] of /s
[t]
(stini)
with
[f]
of
V/ with /# -V/ into one phoneme, and /s V/ /# V/ into another. Alternatively, we selected difference
\d]
and
or
[d]:
we could
by taking
of
of
'^^
if
of aspiration plus
remaining within one out of the three
(front,
mid, or
c,
back) tongue-palate contact areas as the relation between a and

the relation between
cal
[p] of
/s
-V/ and
[t]
then
[p**]
of
/# V/
between
on.
would be
[k]
identi-
with the relation between

[p]
and
[t^],
or
and
[k''J:
we
would put
If
and
[p*"]
into one
phoneme, and so
the objective
is
is
a minimal stock of
phonemes, the definition

it
of
each
of
which
to be as simple as our other criteria permit,'^
follows that
the selection of the
common
features or comparable differences should

all
be governed by the generality of these features and differences among

the segmental elements of the language.
fortis difference
If
the voiced-voiceless or lenis-
obtains
aspirated-unaspirated difference,'^
venient set of
if
among many more segments than does the we will usually obtain a more conSimilarly,
phonemes by basing our grouping on the former.
the difference
among
three areas of tongue-palate contact obtains
within a large or as yet undifferentiated class of segments, our grouping of
the segments on the basis of this difference will help in devising a more
simply-defined stock of phonemes, since the one statement of difference
among segment members
will
then apply to
many phonemes.
15a
^p
disregard here the ocicurronce of
initial [sf] in
a very few words,
e.g. sphere.
'" The criterion of environmental symmetry may in some cases lead to a grouping of segments in conflict with the immediate considerations of
phonetic symmetry.
'' Or if it obtains throughout a class of segmental elements which includes all those segments unaffected by the other differences hitherto considered. For example, he voiced-voiceless or Icnis-fort is difference can
t
also be
shown
in [x]
[s),
[v] (f),
etc.
68
Instead of independent statements about the membership of each
a single statement about the membershij) of
phoneme we wouUi make

several phonemes.
We
can say: the three English voiceless stop pho-
nemes have aspirated unaspirated members
(but otherwise equivalent)

after
/
members
after
#, and
find in
s,
The difference among members

other phonemic groupings too,
is
of a
phoneme, which we wish to

and
in general a relative difference in the
represented speech feature. Thus
when
[t*"]
[t]
are put into one pho-
neme
/t/, there is not
an absolute degree
but the post-#
s
of aspiration
will
which marks the
post-# member
of /t/;
member
be relatively more
aspirated than the post-
member.
In general, the bases upon which to group segments into phonemes

are therefore determinable only in relation to the whole stock of seg-
mental elements.
We
can discover which groupings
will yield
the most
simply defined phonemes by testing the differentiation, upon which we

propose to assign particular segments, throughout
7.43.
all
the segments.'^
Symmetry
of Environment
segments each
in a par-
Since the phonemes are to be defined not merely as consisting of particular segments, but as consisting of particular
ticular
environment,"
it
will
be convenient to group the segments in such

otherwise be grouped together, should have
if
way
that several phonemes, especially such as have similarities of
phonetic symmetry or
may
roughly identical total environments.^" Even
the
member segments
of
one phoneme do not severally have environments identical with those of
'* The considerations stated in 7.42 correspond to the differently stated studies of inter-phoneme relations made by N. Trubetzkoy, R. Jakobson, and the many linguists associated with the work of the Cercle Linguistique
de Prague. Cf. N. Trubetzkoy, Grundziige der Phonologic (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, 1939), summarized in Lang. 17.345-3-49 (1941); articles on phonemics in other issues of the Travau.x. Cf. chapter 10, fn. 48 below.
^ When we say
occurs after
ticular
^^
s,
,
member
that the phoneme p which includes [p*"] and [p], as well as in other positions, we mean that only a par[p] of the phoneme occurs in the /s / position.
,
exactly, because if long enough environments are taken, each phoneme will be found to occur in only some environments and not in others (the analysis of 12.1 is based on this); different phonemes will fail to occur in arbitrarily different ones of these long environments. say 'arbitrarily,' because the differences among these long environments are irrelevant for present purposes; in 12.1 these differences are taken into account.
Roughly rather than
We
PHONEMES
the segments of another phoneme, the
69
segments
of the first could equal the
sum of all environments of all the sum of the second. E.g., if we avoid
record the following segments in
(i.e.
the more delicate distinctions,

English:^'
[t**]
we can
in the
environment
C/, and often /#/;

[ri]
/# /
/V
after silence);
[t]
in /s
in-
[V] (with slight aspiration) in
/C V/ (C
in /
,'
dicating consonants except /s/), in

in in
'V/,
and often
in
/'V V/. We
all
also record
[p*^]
in
[p']
/C V, #, V V/. If we combine all the

the
[p]s into
/# /;
/#
[p]
/s
#/; C, #/;
[r^])
[t]s
(including
into
is
/t/
and
/p/,
:
we
will find that

,
identical with that of /p/ each occurs in
#, C C, VV/.
^V,
the distribution of /t/
This result obtains even though their several

being equalled by those of
member
allophones were
[r*]
not identical in distribution, the environments of [f] and

[p']
together
alone. ''^
in
More
}'
generally:
;
if
segment a occurs
if
environments
and in Z
;
and
segment
result
occurs in
and
in
Y ,
and
b in
curs in
Z we group a and b into one phoneme, say /A/, and e and /into
The
}'
,
while / oc-
another, say /E/.
distributions: each of the
member)
in
is that /A/ and /E/ each have identical two phonemes occurs (is represented by some
70
As a corollary
of this,
we
try to avoid having a
phoneme
limited to an
is
environment, or to a type of environment, to which no other phoneme

limited. If
we have not yet decided whether

t,
to consider
th,
[p**,
t"",
k*"]
as
members
of /p,
k/ or
of the
sequence /ph,
kh/ respectively, we
note that /h/ does not occur after any other consonants (except after
certain sejcments which
in
we
will
analyze as consonant plus open juncture;

initial
any case
'
does not occur after other
consonants). Rather
than say that /h/ occurs after no /C/ except /p, t, k/, we include the /) and say that /h/ occurs after no /C/. Saying ["l in /p, t, k/ Un /#
that /h/ never occurs in

sents open juncture)
tion,
still
/C
/ (except
for
/C-
/,
where
/ repre-
leaves /h/ with a unique distributional limita-
but at least the class /C/ appears elsewhere as limiting phonemic

in English: e.g.
environments
/p,
t,
/h/ never occurs before /C/ (including

is
k/).
However, to say that /h/

all
lacking only after /C"/, where
consonants other than /p, t, k/, is more out of the way, since nowhere else in English do we have a phonemic environment
/C"/
represents
limited
by
'all
consonants other than /p,

into /p/, etc.
t,
k,'.
We
would therefore
ones involving
prefer to put
[p**]
This criterion
overlapping.
is
may
in
be used in complicated cases,
e.g.
Thus
some
in
dialects the alveolar flap consonant of writer
identical with that of rider.
The preceding vowel

of
qualities,
however,
differ,
so that
we have,
terms
[r']
segments,
[sey]
[raeyr'a]
and
[rayr'a].
Be-
fore all segments other than

[sey]
the
and
[ay] are
complementary:
[fêyt]
ir[r^],
before voiceless consonants, [ay] before voiced segments, as in
fight, [pseynt] pint,
[maynd] mind.
We
have here two distributional

sounds including
regularities. First [gey] occurs only before voiceless
while [ay] occurs only before voiced sounds and
[r'].^^
Nowhere
else in
is it
English do
we have phonemes with

Second,
if
just such a distribution, nor
elegant to have
two phonemes which are complementary through so
much
of their distribution.
we
is
include
[r^]
in /t/,
then /t/
will
have general distribution, but /d/

quence
[seyr^]
will
not occur in /'V
V/. Our
writer,
alter-
native, following the criterion above,

as /ayt/,
to phonemicize the whole se-
and
[ayr'] as
/ayd/: /raytar/
/raydar/
^^ can avoid overlapping by placing [ay] in fight and [ay] in mind into different phonemes. Alternatively we can have /ay/ (with [ay] and [sey] as its members) occurring everywhere, its member before [r^] being would then have to define a new phoneme /sey/ occurring only [ay]. before [r'] where alone it contrasts with /ay/. In the latter case we would write /fayt/ fight, /maynd/ mind, /rayr'ar/ rider, but /r&yr'ar/ writer.
We
We
PHONEMES
rider.'^*
71
The segment [r'] is then a member of /t/ when it occurs after [sey], and of /d/ when after [ay]; [sey] is the member of /ay/ occurring before voiceless phonemes. The distribution of /ay/ is now quite like
that of /oy/,
etc.,
and the distribution

is
of /t,
d/
like that of /p, b/, etc.^^
Decisions involving whole groups of phonemes can best be

the aid of this criterion. Such
made with
the question of
how
to phonemicize long
vowels
whether
In
all
to consider
them sequences
is
of like
vowels /ee/, or
vowel plus length phoneme /e-/, or vowel plus some other phoneme
/ey,
e''/.
these cases the problem
to
what phoneme
or
phonemes
we should
In
all
assign the second
mora
of the long vowels.^*
cases of associating segments on the basis of environmental

in associating
symmetry, as
of
them by phonetic symmetry, the
final
de-
cision rests with the
way
the grouping in question affects the whole stock
in some environment, to a particular membership and environmental range of that phoneme, and its similarity in these respects to other phonemes, but also prevents any other phonemes from having that segment in that en-
phonemes. Assigning a segment,

affects the
phoneme not only
vironment."
is
^^ As in the case of chapters 8 and 9, the method used in this solution the assigning of a sequence of segments to a sequence of phonemes, rather than a single segment to a single phoneme.
^^
the other vowels are not comparably distinguishable before [r'], ladder are homonymous, we will have to say that /d/ does indeed not occur in /'V V/ when the first /V/ is one of these others, in our case a. Even so, the simplification of the [ay]-[ey] distribution into one phoneme remains.
If
i.e.
if
latter,
A somewhat similar consideration can be added to the reasons for as[p*"]
to /p/. If we phonemicize [p""] as /ph/, etc., we would have but no /#pV/, etc., whereas with the voiced stops we have /#bV/ but no /#bh/, etc. This would make the distribution of /p, t, k/ quite different from that of /b, d, g/; whereas if we assign [ph] to /p/, and so on, the distribution of /p, t, k/ will be identical to that of /b, d, g/ except that the latter do not occur in /s /.
signing
/#ph/
In some languages we will find a number of segments which differ all the others (though they may be similar among themselves) in the kinds of environmental limitations they have. These segments will in many cases occur only in exclamation morphemes, animal calls, words borrowed from foreign languages, and the like. We may create a separate economy of phonemic elements out of these segments, and note their limitation to a small or otherwise identifiable group of morphemes.
^^
from
72
7.5.
Result: Classes of
Complementary Segments
are now phonemes, each being a class of complementary se.zments-per-environment. We henceforth write our ut-
The elements of our utterance
terances with phonemes, after listing the segment

thereafter disregard the differences
members among the members.
of each,
and
The occurrence
ber of
its class of
of a
phoneme
represents the occurrence of
some mem-
member being environmentally defined. Whenever the phoneme appears we can always tell from the environment which segment member of the phoneme would occur in that position (i.e. we can always pronounce phonemic writing). Conversely since complete overlapping is avoided (fn. 1-4 above), whenever we are given a segment in an environment we can always tell in which phoneme it is included (i.e. we can always ^vrite phonemically whatever we hear).
segments, each
Phonemic wTiting up
in
is
therefore a one-one representation of
what was
set
chapter 4 (and 6) as being descriptively relevant
(i.e.
contrastive,
not substitutable) in speech. Phonemes are more convenient for our purposes than our former segments, since there are fewer of them, and each
has a wider distribution. Our elements
now no
longer necessarily repre-
sent mutually substitutable segments; only the segments in any one en-
vironment are mutually substitutable
(free variants). ^^
Appendix to
Our work
in a
is
7.21:
Tabulating the Environments of a Segment

if
simplified
we
record the environments of each segment
way
that permits immediate inspection.
^^ It should be clear that while the method of 7.3 is essential to what are called phonemes, the criteria of 7.4 are not essential 'rules' for phonemicization, nor do they determine what a phoneme is. At a time when phonemic operations were less frequently and less explicitly carried out, there was discussion as to what had to be done in order to arrive at 'the phonemes' and how one could discover 'the phonemes' of a language. Today we can say that any grouping of complementary segments may be called phonemic. As phonemic problems in various languages came to be worked out, and possibilities of alternative analysis were revealed, it became clear that the ultimate elements of the phonology of a language, upon which all linguists analyzing that language could be expected to aêe, were the distinct (contrasting) segments (positional variants, or allophones) rather than the phonemes. The phonemes resulted from a
classification of
complementary segmental elements; and
this could
be
carried out in various ways. For a particular language, one phonemic arrangement may be more convenient, in terms of particular criteria, than other arrangements. The linguistic requisite is not that a particular arrangement be presented, but that the criteria which determine the ar-
rangement be
explicit.
PHONEMES
For each segment,
e.g. [e] or
[r']
73
(alveolar flap),
we can arrange a
table
of the following type:
#'ni
iiw'
s#
Seg-
ments
PHONEMES
To avoid such
leave
75
confusing proliferation of environments^^
we may have
to
some segments out of the chart, adding them in an appended list, but keeping them in mind whenever we use the chart. Once this chart is completed, we can tell at a glance, for any environment, what segments occur in it. For any segment, we can tell at a glance what segments are complementary to it e.g. in the first chart, [t] is complementary to [t], but [K], [k], and [k] each contrast with (are distinct
:
from)
[t].3-
Appendix to
at the start
7.3:
Phonetic and Phonemic Distinctions
Note that it does not matter if more or fewer distinctions are recognized between sounds which are not in the same environment. It
different (e.g. as
would have been possible to recognize as phonetically

sailboat, etc.
to length) the various [ow]s in bow, bowl, bone, bode, both, boat, boatman,
However,
in 7.3
they would
all
have been grouped into one
phoneme, since they are mutually complementary.

tained the same phonemic result
if
We
would have ob-
we had
]
phonetically recognized only
one long [ow:]
in bow,
one medium [ow
in bowl, bone, bode,

if
and one short
[ow] in both, boat, boatmen, sailboat

difference
or
we had
failed to notice
any
among
all
these [ow]s.
is
What
does matter
that
we
recognize
all
the regular phonetic distinc-
tions which occur in each particular environment, such as the three
lengths or transitions of [ay] in minus, slyness, sly Nestorian.^^ Suppose
we had
failed to distinguish
between
[n]
(= /nd/)
of binding
and
of
[n]
of
two are not distinguished (do not contrast) in those exact environments; and suppose we had written both
tanner, since the
either of
them
as
[n],
thinking that they could be substituted for each other (as the [ow]
of bowl
and
of bode
can be, without noticeable distortion and without
obtaining a different utterance thereby).
Then
at
some point we might
come upon an environment
and [n] are distinguishable phonemically: two whole utterances where the two segments have the same
in
which
[n]
^^ The number of environments distinguished in this second chart would be even greater if we choose to recognize that [k] after [e] diflfers slightly from [k] after [i] and so on. ^^ We say that any two distinct (non-equivalent) segments which have at least one environment in common, i.e. which are not complementary throughout all their environments, contrast. More exactly, any two distinct segments which occur in the same environment (in the same column) contrast in that environment. They do not contrast in another environment in which only one (or neither) of them occurs. " Cf. Chapter 8, fn. 17 below.
76
it.
environment {We're banding

occur,
i.e.
if
We're banning
it.). If
such pairs did not
all
utterances which differed as to [n n] also differed in some
of their other sediments,
we might
fail
ever to notice the [N/n] distinction;
but this would, by definition, not affect ourability to identify utterances.'^
Note that our method does not depend upon
pairs (4.23) to yield the phorepiular differences
nemic distinctions. The phonemes are formed from the
noticed in each environment. Paired utterances or paired ])arts of utter-
ances are needed only to leveal linguistic non-equivalences which we had

failed to notice.'*
.\ppendix to 7.4:
The
Criterion of .Morphemic Identity
morphemes of the language was assumed in chapter 7, since the morphemes will later be defined in terms of the phonemes. Frequently, when we have to choose which of two segments to include in a phoneme, it happens that the choice of one of them would make for much simpler phonemic composition of morphemes than would the choice
of the of the other. E.g.
[t]
Xo knowledge
and
If
[p]
are each complementary to

[t**]
[t*"];
which
shall
we group with
and
[p'']
[t'>]?
we
associate
with
[p] in
one phoneme /T/,
with
[t]
in
another /P/, we would have /Teyk/ for take but

Pazes / for possess, /disTazes/ for dispossess.
misPeyk
This would
for iriistake,
mean
is
that later,
as
when we
of
set
up morphemes, we would have and

to-
/Teyk/ and /Peyk

after /s/. It
two forms
one morpheme, the latter occurring

[t^]
[t]
clearly preferable to group the segments
gether into /t /, so that there should be a single

ing the
morpheme /teyk/ havmakes

for a simpler de-
same form
after
both
and
/s
this
scription of the
morpheme
take.
'* This is so because while we get our original differentiations by seeking identical parts, we keep only those differentiations which distinguish different utterances. Our tests demand only that different utterances, i.e. sequences, be distinguished somewhere by the elements we set up (op.
if the utterances differ in, say, two respects (or neither of those two differences ever appears elsewhere regularly as the sole difference between two utterances; for we can then consider the two differences as constituting only one difference, (which extends over two unit lengths) or disregard one of them, or note both. ^ Other considerations too (such as phonetic or distributional symmetry of phonemes) may make us suspect our previous work and look for distinctions which we might have missed but only pairs can exactly force us to do this. E.g., if in Moroccan Arabic we find an emphatic phonemic counterpart for every dental phoneme except /d/ we might check back on all our utterances containing d to see if some of our d segments might not actually be emphatic, contrasting phonemically with nonemphatic /d/.
4.3). It
does not matter

if
two
places),
'

PHONEMES
77
We can generalize this as follows: suppose we have two utterances, YA and XB (/ take, and It's a mistake.), and we wish tentatively to consider A [f'eyk] and B [teyk] as two occurrences of one morpheme 'A' (take). If the only difference between A and B is that A contains segment a [V'\ where B contains segment b [t], we simply group a and b into one phoneme /a/.^^ As a result of this, B gets the same phonemic form as A
(both containing /a/), so that the
instead of two.^'
morpheme
'A'
now
has only one form
Since a major purpose in determining the phonemes

identify the
is
in order later to
morphemes, a phonemic arrangement which makes for simple identifications of morphemes would be a convenient one. However, since we cannot as yet identify the morphemes, but can only guess at
them, any assignments designed to satisfy this criterion could only be
when we identify the morphemes, we may some of those having two phonemic forms could be reduced to one phonemic form by reassigning their segments to other phonemes. For instance, if we had assigned the [t] which occurs in /s / to /d/ we would have /disdeyst/ for distaste and /teyst/ for taste.^^ We can give one phonemic form to both these occurrences of the morpheme taste by reassign/ to /t/. Having done this, we must go back and ina; the |t] of /s change the phonemic composition of all morphemes which contained the [t] segments: we had written stay /sday/, but must now change it
tentative at this stage. Later,
find that
to /stey/.
The
criterion of
morpheme
identity
is
not necessary for the carrying

7.
out of the phonemicization operations of chapter
Restricting ourselves
to the information which our previous operations have given us,
we can
group segments into phonemes at the present stage
of our analysis. In
most cases the morphemic considerations
will
turn out to yield the same
Only, of course, if a and b are complementary throughout. If they we must accept A and B as distinct utterances until we grouj) morpheme variants together (chapter 13). l'>.g. in knifing and k7iives we would like to consider knife and knive- as one morpheme, but cannot do so because segments [f] and [v] contrast elsewhere, as in fat, vat.
^''
are not,
and
essential that and occur in different environments (}' since otherwise a and b could not be com])lementary in these utterances: a occurs next to )' but not next to A', b next to A' but not next to y. Hence when we see morpheme 'A' written with ])honeme 'a/
It is
"
A'
),
we know what segment the phoneme

ment
'*''
indicates, according as the environ-
of 'A'
is
either
)'
or A'.
This e.Xiimple
will
/s-d/ does not occur,
i.e.
apply only to those dialects of English in which where disdain is pronounced /diz'deyn/, etc.
7S
phonemicization as resulted from the purely phonological considerations
example of Swahili in the Appendix to 7-9). In some cases we may pet more phonemes than we woultl if we used our knowledge of the morphemes of the language: e.g. we might have /p'', t*", k*", and unreleased /p, t, k/ as well as released /p', t', k'/. But the difference between the phonemic system based on knowledge of the morphemes and
of 7 (cf. the
,
that not based on such knowledge would only be one of convenience'*'^ for
morphemics; as elements
of linguistic description
ther analysis the two sets of
and subjects phonemes would be equivalent.
for fur-
^' Convenience primarily forms for one morpheme.
in
avoiding occurrences of two ])honemic
8.
JUNCTURES
8.0.
Introductory
procedure introduces junctures as a factor in phonemicization,
is
Tliis
but only, of course, to the extent that this

of
possible without knowledge
morphemes.
8.1.
Purpose: Eliminating Restrictions on Sets of Phonemes
of phonemes, and simplify the statement of reupon the environments in which they occur, by considering those restrictions of environment which apply to large numbers of pho-
We reduce the number
strictions
nemes.
In the
first
approximation toward phonemes, as we obtain them from

7, we may Thus on the
the operation of chapter

limited environments.
find
many which
occur in identically
basis of chapter 7
we would have
to
recognize at least two sets of vowels, distinguished chiefly
by length and
type of
off-glide. 1
There would be /ay/

of tray-ful,
of
minus and
/.\y/ of slyness, /ey/

of the shorter or less
of playful
and /sy/
and so
end
of
on.'^
Members
drawled
set
do not occur
at the
an utterance. Such general limita-
tions of occurrence affecting one of two parallel sets of tentative phonemes lead us to ask whether the limitation may not be avoided and the two sets somehow made into one.
8.2.
Procedure: Defining Differences between

or
Phoneme
Sets
more parallel sets of tentative phonemes, such as the /ay, ey/ and /Ay, Ey/ sets, cannot be combined into one set because they
in detail in George L. Trager and Bernard Bloch, phonemes of English, L.\ng. 17.225-9 (1941). Juncture indicators (without the name) occur in Edward Sapir and Morris Swadesh, Nootka Texts 237 (1939). Cf. also Z. S. Harris, Linguistic structure of Hebrew, Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 61.147 (1941). Some of the features of junctures are discussed under the name Grenzsignale by linguists of the Prague Circle: see N. Trubetzkoy, Grundzuge der Phonologic, 241-61 (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, 1939). 2 Differences in length between, say, [ay] of minus and the shorter [ay]
'
Two
This was presented

syllabic
The
mica are not phonemic, since the environments differ. In the cases under discussion here the environment following the vowel does not differ, so that /ay/ and /.\y/ must be considered phonemically distinct. (It is the environment following the vowel that correlates with vowel length in all other English cases. A few complete pairs may also be found, where the whole environment is identical, but the two vowel lengths
of
occur.)
79
80
rei)ies(Mit liistinct
segments
if
in identical
environments. However, they
could be combined
there were a technique for altering the environits
ment
cal
of
one of the sets so that

:
environment should no longer be identi-
with that of the other
if
every /Ay, and /Ey/ had some environmental
difference as against every /ay/
plementary to /Ay/ and the two could be

for /ey
and /ey/, then /ay/ would be comi)ut into one jjhoneme, and so
reversible; otherwise writing
and /Ey/. Any such alteration would have to be controlled and which included this alteration would no
effected
longer be a one-one representation of the descriptively relevant features.'
by taking the features which distinguish the phonemes, and setting them up as the definition of a new phonemic element, called a juncture. That juncture occurs with the set which had the features that have now been assigned to the juncThis alteration
is
two
sets of tentative
ture.
Thus
if
the difference in length,

is
off-glide,
and vocalic quality be-
tween /Ay, Ey/ and /ay, ey/

then the tentative /Ay/
is
now
represented by the juncture /-/,
now
replaced by the
new /ay-/ which

and /Ay/
is
defined as the old tentative /ay/ plus the differences represented

/-/.
by
it
But
since these differences are those between /ay/
follows that the
new /ay-/
is
equivalent to the old /Ay/.
possible to replace the original
There are several advantages to the use of the juncture. First, it is two sets of phonemes by one set, plus the
is
it
juncture which
curred. Second,
used whenever the corresponding

is
set
would have oc-
possible to include in the juncture not only the

first
features of a particular parallel set of our
phonemic approximation,
/-/'
but also the phonemic distinctions of other parallel sets of phonemes
which occur
in
comparable special positions. Thus the English
can
be used to express not only the phonemic difference between /Ay, Ey/
etc.
and
ay, ey,' etc., but also the aspiration of the
first
/t/ in night-rate
compared with nitrate.* Third, in addition to serving as indicators of phonemic differences, the junctures can also serve as indicators of speech
as
boundaries
(e.g.
intermittently present pause). This
is
possible because
one
is
of the chief occasions for setting
up junctures, as
will
be seen below,
its parallel
when one set

does not.
of
phonemes occurs
at
speech boundaries while
set
^ The alteration would be phonemic, since the environment of a phoneme is com])osed of the phonemes around it. * Cf Trager and Bloch, op. cit. 225. In the tentative phonemes of chapter 7 we would have had to distinguish these two forms as /nayTreyt/
.
night-rate
and /naytreyt/ nitrate. By using the juncture, which had not hitherto been defined in a way that would affect either /t/ or /T/, we write /t-/ for /T/, obtaining /nayt-reyt/ and /naytreyt/ respectively.
JUNCTURES
8.21.
81
Matching Sets of Tentative Phonemes
The simplest approach to setting up junctures is to watch, in the phonemic approximation of chapter 7, for a set of phonemes which never occurs at the end (or at the beginning) of an utterance, while a parallel set of phonetically somewhat different phonemes occurs both there and within the utterance.^ E.g. in the sets of tentative phonemes /p', t', k'/
and
/p',
t',
k'/, tlie slightly aspirated /k'/

final position,
which we hear
in
market never
occurs in utterance
whereas the unreleased or released-butThis fact does not
not-aspirated /k'/ of
suffice to
What a
lark! does occur there.
put these tentative phonemes together into one phoneme, bemarket today.) and [aym'gowii] tu 'mark'attu'dey.] (/'m gotoday.).
/
cause they contrast in other positions:^ [aym'gowii] tu 'mark'attu'dey.]
{I'm going
ing to
to
it
mark
However, because the

(utterance
final),
first
set does not occur in the
environment
plus
#/
we may decide
to say that /k'/
/#/
is,
substitutes for /k'/,
/pV+/#/
substitutes for /p'/, etc.
That
/k/,
the tentative /k'/ and /k'/ are being the

[k']
[k'l
member which
[k']
occurs before
now members of one phoneme #. To get around the fact
that both
and
of
occur in some identical environments within ut-
terances, as in the examples above,
we then extend # so that it is not phoneme which occurs after /k/, wherever that phoneme is represented by its member [k'l (whether within or at the end of utterances). Then I'm going to mark it
only a mark
utterance end but also a 'zero'
today
becomes
/aym'gowiT)tu'mark#attu'dey./,
is
/lark#/, while market

[k'l
/markat/.
is
Now
/#/
[k']
and lark becomes no longer contrasts with

[k'].''
anywhere, since there

it
always a
after
/k#/, we know
represents the segmental element

[k']
[k'],
Whenever we see and when we
hear the sound represented by
we
write
it
with the phonemic sethe points at which
quence /k#/. Furthermore, we

junctures like
will often find that
/#/
are introduced within utterances are also i)oints at

in
which intermittently present pauses are occasionally made

ing the utterance.
pronounc-
of
in general, that the second set has the same number as the first, and that the differences among the iihonemes of the second set are identical with the differences among the j)ho^
Parallel
means,
phonemes
nemes
^
of the first.
In certain American pronunciations. ^ In this case our rearrangement is useful because it will later apjiear that whenever the segment [k'] occurs there is a morphological boundary following it (a boundary whic-h also occurs at utterance end), so that #/ becomes a mark of that boundary. Cf. the Appendix to 8.2.
,
S2
The same treatment can be accorded
to sets of tentative
phonemes
and
which
fail
to occur at other recognizable pauses, phonetic breaks,

in speech,
ends of contours
In general,
o', h', c'
if
whereas parallel sets do occur there.

(or tentative
we have segmental elements

if
phonemes)
at
which do not occur next to utterance end, or do not occur
some
particular type of contour end or pause; and
we can match
these with
(as well as
the parallel
a, 6, c
which occur
in these
boundary positions
in other positions, a' as /o,
where
,
o', h'
c'
contrast with them),

-;
is
b'
as /6-
etc.,
where
new
In
zero
we mny represent phoneme or phonemic

cases there are large
sequence boundary.
8.211. Syll.\bific.\tion fe.^tures.
parallel sets of tentative
of
many
phonemes,
differ in
in
which the corresponding members

of syllabifica-
jihonemes from each set
what are called features
tion.
Such are the differences between the second elements

n
of analysis,
a name, and an aim, or the second elements of attack, a tower and at our.
Here, instead of speaking of three phonemically different

or three /t/ elements,
elements,
and instead
-'
,
of
speaking of one set of elements
/n, t/ etc. plus various syllabification rules,
we can speak
of
one set
of
elements plus one juncture
which
may
occur before or after the
element or not at
all:
analysis /aenaelisis/, a
name /ae-neym/, an aim
/sen-eym
8.22.
'.
Replacing Contours by Junctures

it is
In some cases
if
possible to
show that a contour need not be indicated

its
a juncture
is
written, because
presence can be recognized from the take a contour

it
occurrence of the juncture. This
may happen when we

is
which has occurred over whole utterances, and wish to identify
even
when
it
occurs over a length which
imbedded
in a longer utterance. E.g.
in Swahili there is
loud stress on the penult vowel of every utterance:
waxmli 'two' (speaking of people). But there are also loud stresses else-
where
in the utterance.
Furthermore, corresponding to almost every
stretch (enclosed in an utterance) which contains a penult stress, e.g. the
parts of walikuâivanawdkewavnli 'two

identical
women
came',
we can
get
an
whole utterance
(i.e.
we can
get waliku%a 'they came' and
wanawdke 'women' as separate utterances).* Therefore we insert a zero phonemic boundary mark /#/ after every post-stress vowel, and say
* This fact gives us the assurance that there is a morphological boundary after the post-stress vowel. Any other hint that a morpheme boundary occurs at a point which can be operationally related to a pho-
netic feature
would also do.
JUNCTURES
83
that stress occurs automatically (non-phonemically) on the penult vowel before /#/.^ We now write walikuâ:^wanawake:^wawili:^ (or we use phonemic space instead of #) and know the position of the stress from
the position of the
# (which
is
also the position of intermittently present
pause and
of utterance-end silence).
Similar treatment can be accorded vowel and consonant harmonies,

stress
their effect can be
and tone contours, phoneme tempo, etc., so long as the range shown to be automatic with respect to some points
of in
the utterance.'"
8.221. Periodicities
of segmental features. This applies not only

6,
to the contours of chapter
but also to any other feature or sequence of
phonemes which
'wind', kt9bt
'I
is
restricted in respect to simply divisible portions of
the utterance length. Thus Moroccan Arabic sfdn^ 'doughnut', bdrd

wrote',
xddma 'work'
all
have the pronunciation
of the
string
of
consonants phonetically interrupted (by consonant release

last.
plus /a/) at every second consonant counting from the

zbdl 'hill', hrdd 'cold',
all
In contrast
sdwwdl 'he asked', ktdh 'he wrote' kdthdl 'she wrote',

of the
have the pronunciation
consonant sequence phonetically
in-
terrupted before every second consonant counting from one after the
last
(i.e.,
counting from the juncture after the last consonant). These

of short
two types
of
latter:
two junctures, say

/sfn3-,
,
Moroccan utterances could be distinguished by the use - at the end of the former and = at the end of the brd = brd-, ktbt-/ for .s/^ns, hdrd, ktdbt, and /i,h\ =
, ,
swwl =
ktbt = / for
263/, brdd,
sdwwdl, katbdt.
We now
consider longer
in
utterances in which there
may
at first appear
is cold'. It is
no simple regularity
respect to /a/: Ibdrdbrad 'the wind
possible to divide such an
utterance into successive sections, within each of which the distribution

of the /a/
is
regular, either of the /-/ type or of the /
=/
type.
The
the
utterance would then be written: /lbrd-brd

write /a/, since the occurrence of /a/
is
= /.
It is
not necessary to
in respect to
now automatic
is
two junctures The

:
[a] is
no longer phonemic but
included in the defini-
^ We must make sure that it is actually automatic, i.e. that given the position of /#/ or other juncture, we can predict the position of the stress or other phonetic contour.
In going from hearing to writing: The points in the utterance are basis of the end-points of the effect which we are treating. We write a zero phoneme (juncture) at that point, instead of marking the effect under discu.ssion over the whole stretch between points. And in going from writing to speaking: we can tell what the efTect under discussion is, and over what stretch it applies, by seeing what junctures are written, and at what points they are j)laced.
'"
marked on the
84
sTiu'crrHAL M\(;risri('s
tion of the junc'tures, which also servo to indicate points of intermittently
present pause."
8.222.
P.\HTI.\L
DEPKNDENCK OK JUNCTURE ON CONTOUR. The exact
distribution of the contour features (including segmental features like the
Moroccan
whether
vowels,
it
[o]
as well as suprasegmental features like tone) determines
is
possible to replace the contour feature
by the juncture withall
out further information.
Thus
in Swahili,
where
utterances end in
(or
we can uniquely
replace any length such as

(or
V CVC V CV
if
VCCV) by V C V
ended
in a
#CVCV#
(as
VCCV#). But
it
some utterances
replaced
vowel and others in a consonant,
would not be determined
whether a sequence such as
VCV
#CVCV#
is
V C V C V C V should be above) or by V C V C # \' C V
by
#.'2 In such
cases, the contour
is still
automatic in respect to the juncture, but the
juncture
not automatic in respect to the contour. In order to replace
the contour by a juncture

as
we would need
will in
additional information, such
where the points
of intermittently present
pause
in the
utterance are.
Obtaining such information

techniques of chapter
8.223.
12.
many
cases involve the morphological
Partial dependence of contour on juncture. In some cases

is
the various segments (or contours) whose occurrence
limited to the
neighborhood
of
junctures do not become automatic, but remain phoneis
mic even after the juncture
inserted into the
phonemic sequence. This

in a
happens when the segments or components vary
way
that does not
depend upon the neighboring juncture alone. For instance, the acute
accent in classical Greek occurred only on one of the last three vowels
before word juncture, but one could not always
tell,
merely from the
place of the juncture, exactly where the accent occurred.'^ Writing the
juncture here would not obviate the use of the accent.

" And of certain morphological boundaries. The juncture /-/ can, of course, be indicated by an empty space (between words); = would then have to be separately marked, as a different kind of space between words, e.g. a hyphen. Or else, when the /- / juncture is marked by an empty space, the = / juncture can be marked by a/ before the final consonant plus empty space after the final consonant: /ktbt for ktabt 'I wrote', /ktbat for kdtbal 'she wrote'. This would mean that in effect we mark only one juncture (space), but consider pre-final-consonant [s] as phonemic, all other [a] being automatic (two consonants before space or/9/).
'
'^ For an example of this type, see the Hebrew case in Jour. Soc. 61.1-18-54 (III 1.4, III 3.16-8, IV 2.1) (1941).
Am.
Or.
'' Choice of position for the accent, in respect to the juncture, remains even after a descriptive analysis such as is given in R. Jakobson, Z zagadnien prozodji starogreckiej, in Kazimierzowi Woycickiemu (Wilno 1937).
JUNCTURES
This also happens when more than one feature
ture, with
is
85
bounded by the junctell
nothing
in
the phonemic structure of the utterance to
us
which
of these features has occurred in
any particular
case.
Thus both
the /./ and the /?/ contours occur over the interval between utterance
junctures
both 020 and 0123 over

of the
You're coming
but the mere placwould not indicate

it is
ing of the utterance juncture, say, /'yuwrkamir)#/,
which
of these contours
had occurred. In
all
such cases
possible to
make only one
contours or segments non-phonemic with respect to
the juncture, and to differentiate the others by a phonemic

tion to the juncture.'* Alternatively,
if
mark
in addi-
every juncture
is
accompanied
by one or another of these features, we mark the feature and let the boundary or silence, which would be indicated by the juncture, be indicated directly by the
mark
of the
contour or other feature:'* we write
/yuwrkamiT)./ and /yuwrkamii]?/.

8.3.
Result:
Group of Similarly Placed Features

now
also
In addition to the segmental and contour elements, there are
juncture elements. These last are defined so as to represent the difference
between some segments and others
(or
between some contours and
their
absence), as well as such features as intermittently present pause.
The
for
juncture elem -nts are important as constituting part of the environment

of
phonemes, even though they
differ
from the traditional phonemes;
by virtue
juncture
of their presence in the
environment a phoneme
may
be de-
fined as representing a different

is
not present.
phonemic
status,
member segment than it does when the The juncture must be understood as having however, since the environment of a phoneme has been
it.'^
defined as the phonemic elements around
'* We would be doing this in English if we set up /./ as the juncture marking utterance end, and allowed the statement intonation ( 20) to be non-phonemic, automatically indicated by the occurrence of /./ without any contour mark. The other contours would then be indicated by additional marks added on to the /./: e.g. addition of /"^ / for question
intonation, /' for exclamation intonation, etc. Since these contours occur only over whole utterance intervals, the contour marks would never occur without the /./ juncture: /?/, /!/, etc.
'
do this in the usual English orthography, when we write /./ or /?/ at certain points, each mark indicating a particular contour, but either mark also indicating a morphological boundary and a possible
''
We
point of silence.
'*
The one-one character

we know that
it
of
phonemic writing
of the last
phonemic junctures. In terms

see 'a-X /
is not lost by use of paragrajjh of 8.21, when we
corres])onds imiqucly to segments [a'A'];
and
86
Hy
the sotting up of the junctures, segments
wliicli
had i)roviously con-
trasted
may now
be associated together into one jjlioneme, since they
are comi)lementary in respect to the juncture. Other segments and contours,
which are periodic
in respect to the juncture, in
may
he considered
non-phonemic and incUided

Although the
mental technique
words.
involved
the definition of the juncture.

is
explicit use of junctures

is
relatively recent, the funda-
in
such traditional linguistic considerations

of
as 'word-final', 'syllabification',
When
a linguist sets
and the use up the phonemes
space between written
of a language,
7,
he does not
of
stop at the complementary elements of chapter

these complementary elements
8.4.
but coalesces sets

of juncture.
by using considerations
More than One Juncture

that one
The fact
junctures.
phonemic juncture has been recognized
in a
language
does not preclude the recognition of additional independent phonemic
Thus
it
has been shown that in English we must recognize,
two phonemic junctures: internal open juncture and external open juncture." The basis for this is as follows. There are many segments which we can assign to particular phonemes only by
aside from the contours,
saying that whenever they occur a phonemic juncture

represented by
is
present
[a :y] is
/ay#/
as in
tie,
[k'V]
by /k#V/
as in
mark
it,^^ [p^]
by
/#p/
as in possess, etc.
The one juncture /#/

segments
serves as differentiating
environment
to the
for all these
in their respective
phonemes.
How-
ever, there are other
segments than these, which we would wish to assign

of slyness to
same phonemes: we cannot assign the [ay]

it
/ay/ be-
cause
contrasts with the [ay] of minus, nor can

it
we
/-/
assign
it
to
'ay^
because
differs
from the
[a:y] of sly
which has been thus represent ed.'^

which occurs after
We
therefore set
up a new phonemic juncture
[a'X] we know they correspond uniquely to /a-X/. ['sla'ynas] is uniquely phonemicized /'slay-nas/, and /'slaynas/ is uniquely pronounced ['slaynas]; while ['maynas] is uniquely phonemicized 'maynas/, and /'maynas/ uniquely pronounced ['maynas].
when we hear segments
'^ George L. Trager and Bernard Bloch, The syllabic phonemes of English, L.^NG. 17.223-46 (1941). See also Bloch and Trager's Outline of Linguistic Analysis 47 ( 3.7 (1)). may also use 'open juncture' for Trager and Bloch's 'internal open juncture' 'word or phrase juncture' for their 'external open juncture.'
We
'* '
When no
Compare
[s]
precedes the
[k].
the increasing lengths of [ay] before /nas/ in It's miniks forty. His slyness fortunately worked. The sly Nestorian monks.
JUNCTURES
morphemes within a word
[a'y] to
87
assign the segment sequence
or phrase,
and
the phonemic sequence /ay-/-^
The same new juncture
serves
as the differentiating environment
which enables us to include other
elements within one phoneme.
These
tours.
different junctures
may
also delimit the lengths of distinct con-
Thus the Swahili /#/
indicates the distribution of stress, but an-
other juncture would be needed to indicate the distribution of intonations

(e.g.
question and assertion) in a long utterance where various of these
intonations follow each other.
Appendix to
The
8.2:
Junctures as Morphologic Boundaries

lies in
great importance of junctures
the fact that they can be so
placed as to indicate various morphological boundaries. For exami:)le,

replacing Swahili
V C V by
VCV#
is
particularly useful because the
following
V is
regularly the end of an independent morphological ele[k'] is
ment, now marked by the #. Similarly, when English
represented
by /k#/ (while
[k'] is
represented
by /k/) the
is
thereby regularly
placed at the end of a morphological element.
However, things do not always work out so

[t]
nicely. In
but not
[d]
before
([bunt] 'group,' [vort] 'word'), while
German, we find [t] and [d]

'in
occur in identical environments within utterances ([bunde]

[bunte] 'colored,' [vorte] 'in word'). If
group',
we insert # after every [t], and then group [t] and [d] into one phoneme, we would find that we are writing # in the middle of morphemes {e.%. /d#ayl/ Teil 'part'). We could still phonemicize [t] as /d#/, i.e. use the /#/ to indicate that a preceding /d/ represents the segment
[t],
but
many
of the occurrences of this
/#/
would not correlate
\Vith
morphological boundaries.
it
In the case of the English /-/, each point at which

a minor morphological boundary;
i.e.
is
set will
be
the phonemically equivalent seg-
ments differentiated by /-/ always occur at morpheme boundary. However, not every morpheme boundary will be marked by /-/; in
Instead of speaking of junctures as differentiating the environments it is possible to speak of them as phonetically distinguishable types of transition between successive segments in an utterance; so, for example, Bloch and Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis 35 (2.14 (3)). We then recognize in each language one less phonemic juncture than the mutually different types of transition. Thus in English we have noted three types of transition, but only two phonemic junctures. The remaining type of transition (e.g. that between (ay] and [n] in minus) is non-phonemic: it is automatically indicated by the juncture-less succession of phonemes.
^'^
for otherwise contrasting allophones,
88
l']nglish
many boundaries
occur without phonemic junctural features.
[ey] of playful
For example, the
and the
is
[ey] of safe
are both phonemicized
/ey/, while the [ey] of tray-full

tray-full
phonemicized /ey-/. Both the /ey-/ of
and the ey/

,
of playful occur at the
end
is
of
morphemes, while the
ey
there
of safe
is
does not. The only restriction
that whenever /-/ occurs
morpheme boundary;
of the junctures set
the converse does not hold.

in
Many
up
chapter 8 without reference to mor-
phologic boundaries turn out nevertheless to

logic boundaries.
come
precisely at
morpho-
This
is
due partly to the
fact that utterance-end, pauses
(including intermittently present pauses), and ends of contour lengths,

all all
occur in the great majority of cases at morphologic boundaries almost

:
utterances, intonations, etc. stop not in the middle but at the end of
It is also
a morpheme.
partly due to the fact that in
many
languages
there are features which extend over

of morphological stretches.
morphemes
or over particular types
Thus
will
in
English almost every word spoken in
isolation has precisely one loud stress. If
we note the number

is
of
loud
stresses in
of
an utterance, we
it.
have an approximation to the number

'bound',
is
words
in
In a language like Swahili, where the stress
we
can go beyond this and investigate what division of the utterance
such
that the stress would be regular within each division. ^^ Since the stress
occurs regularly on the penult vowel of the word, including the last word
of the utterance, the only division in
w hich
is
all
stresses (including the last
one of the utterance) would be regular

vowels.
the division after the post-stress
The agreement between

boundaries
is,
the operation of chapter 8 and morphological
furthermore, due in part to the partial dependence between

is
phonemes and morphemes. Suppose there

release)
a certain difference
(e.g.
non-
which occurs in the
final
segment
of
many morphemes,
as
comphofinal
pared with otherwise similar (but released) segments when they occur
within morphemes.
Then
since various
morphemes end
in various
nemes,
it
will often
be the case that these different (non-released)

will
segments
will
be members of various phonemes. There

at the ends of
thus be several
a consistent
phonemes occurring
morphemes which have
^' Experience shows that this technique is particularly reliable. If we notice a contour which is automatic in respect to the end of utterances and also occurs elsewhere in the utterances, it is a safe bet, even without knowing the morphemes or points of morpheme boundary, to place juncture phonemes throughout the utterances, at such points so that each occurrence of the contour will be automatic in respect to these points in the same way that the last occurrence is automatic in respect to the end of the utterance.
JUNCTURES
difference as
89
of
compared with an equal number

[k], etc. If,
phonemes which do not

[t'l, [k'],
occur at the ends of morphemes: there will be non-released

as
etc.,
compared with released

in addition
[t],
without knowing about mor-
phemes, we seek for parallel
sets of phonemes as defined in fn. 5 above, we note that one of these sets occurs at utterance-end (which is a special case of morpheme end) and the other set not, there is a good chance that we will come upon the differences which occur at morpheme boundaries. In contrast to this, we may find certain segments which we could hard-
and
if
ly
group into one phoneme without having some knowledge about mor-
of junctures can be best performed when we have some information concerning the distribution of two segmentally different individual morphemic segments ([t'êyk] and [teyk]), and also some information concerning the distribution of other individual morphemes which we can use as models: only if we know, say, that a morand after mis (in mismanage) would pheme manage occurs both after we want to have the two different segment-sequences [f'eyk] take and
phemes. Such setting up
[teyk] of mistake identified as occurrences of just
one morpheme
take,
which, like manage, would then occur both after
# and after mis}'^
In
much
linguistic practice,
where phonemes are tentatively
while preliminary guesses are being
made
as to
of
junctures
ticular
may
be defined not on the basis
set up morphemes, tentative any knowledge that par-
morphemes are worth uniting or that their distribution equals that of some single morpheme; but only on the basis of suspicions as to where morpheme boundaries lie in given utterances.
^^ For a more general statement of this consideration in setting up morphemes, see chapter 13. If we wish to be completely orderly in our work, we would not recognize at this stage any criterion of morphemic
identity, except as the personal intuition of the particular linguist. would assign the segments to phonemes on the basis of the preceding
criteria, plus
We
any considerations of chapter 8 which can be objectively Then, when we set uj) mori)hemes in chapter 13 we would stop to reconsider our phonemic assignment of segments and see if we cannot
ajjplied.
simplify the
membership of some morphemes by revising our original assignment (see 14.6). The revised grouping of segments into phonemes would, of course, be the one used in any full grammar, and it would be noted that this grouping is used for the convenience of our morphemes.
9.
KKIMIONKMir.IZATIO.N
9.0.
Iiilroduclory
This j>rocedurc breaks up some segments into two elements, each of
which
is
assigned to a separate phoneme.
The
effect is to regularize
the
distribution of jihonemes.
9.1.
Purpose: Eliminating Exceptional Distributional Limitations
Or,
more exactly,
to increase t he
freedom
of occurrence of cxcei)t ioiiaily
restricted
phonemes.
languages we
will find, after
In
many
7,
carrying out the operation of
chapter
that one
in
phoneme
it
or another does not occur in jiarticular en-
vironments
which other j)honemes do, even \vhen those ])honemes are

in distribution.
in general similar to
This results from the fact that
in
some
cases
we may be unable
to group segments into
phonemes
in a
way
that would satisfy the criteria of 7.4, because there are too
many
or too
few distinct segments recognized
in a given
environment, or because two
segments which we would
like to
group together happen to contrast.

of these exceptional restrictions not
We
would
like to eliminate
some
by modifying our operational definition of a phoneme (7.5), nor by changing the criteria which we seek to satisfy, but by performing a further operation, if possible, on the restricted segments in order to make them
amenable to those phonemic groujiings which would
erence.
9.2.
satisfy our ])ref-
Procedure: Dividing the Segment

take the segment with whose ])honemic membcrshij) we are not
We
satisfied,
and reconsider what, in the stretches of speech in which that segment occurs, constitutes the segment proper (member of our ])honeme) and what constitutes the environment. Suppose we have previously segmented a stretch
of speech in
such a
way
that
is
a segment and the rest of the length

[c]
is its
environment B:
e.g. let
church be represented by the segment

[arc]
(our
A) and the en[c]
vironment
of
(our B).
We now
reconsider whether the whole of

first
should be our se'^ment, or whether we might not keep only the

it
part
as the segment proper, leaving the rest of
it
to be
added to the en.4^: [c]
vironment instead. Wê cut
into
two segments,
90
.4'
and
a back
REPHONEMICIZATION
[t]
91
As soon as we have done this, we have changed the segment-environment relation. If A is regarded as consisting of AÂ^, the new A^ does not have the same environment B that A had, for the
plus a front
[s].'
environment
the
of
A^
is
A^B, and the environment
of
A^
is
A^B. Thus
of
the environment of the
new
[] is
/t
-V/; while the environment of
new
[t]
is
/# sV/,
and the environment

[c]
had been
/^ V/.
member
Since the segment-environment relation was basic to the operation of
chapter 7 (each phoneme contained not more than one segment
per environment), this redivision permits us to rearrange some of the
phonemic grouping. Whereas formerly

ments that occur next to
and with /s/
and so could be included
with /s/ (since /s/ has no
are about to include
A'^
contrasted with every other
segment that occurred next to B, now A^ contrasts only with those seg-
B. Formerly
[c]
had contrasted with /t/

cheer, tear, shear),
(since all these occurred in

in neither
/# V/:
[t]
phoneme. But
[]
does not contrast

[s]
with /t/ (since /t/ did not occur before
or /s/); nor does
contrast
member
after
[t],
or after the /t/ in which
we
[t]). If
therefore, instead of writing cheer as /6iyr/
we
write
it
as /xsiyr/,
/xsiyr/; hence
we find that there is no we can use the simpler writing

first
/tsiyr/ distinct
/tsiyr/.
from
this
More
briefly,
we
could have said in the

original /ciyr/, so that
place that there
is
no /tsiyr/ distinct from our

the /c/ here
we could have immediately replaced
we have obtained A' and A^ in place of the old segment A, new segments in any phoneme into which its environment will permit it to enter. In doing so, we merely repeat, for the new segments, the operation of chapter 7. E.g. [t] can now be included in ft/, [s] in //. The result is that we now have one phoneme less (the old /c/), and that two phonemes now have wider distribution: ft/ now occurs before /s/ as well as elsewhere, and /s/ after /t/ as well
as
by /ty. As soon
we
are free to include each of these
as elsewhere.
The phonemic representation of a language may be simplified by means of this operation when the segment A cannot be yjut into any phoneme without disturbing the over-all symmetry, and when it is possible to partition A into such segments A' and A^ as would fit well into the phonemes of the language. Assignment of A^ and A.^ to some other
' This is possible because both the segment A and its environment B consist of the same type of constituent segmented stretches of speech. are merely changing the point of segmentation which we had fixed for this stretch in chapter 5.
:
We

92
yield a
phoneme^ should
nemic stock than
more symmotrieul
or otherwifê convenient photo
assij^ning the original
some phoneme.
9.21. Special Cases'
In the resegmentation of A, the portions or features of speech repre
seated by A' and
A'^
may be
simultaneous instead of successive.' E.g.
the flapped
[n]
segment
of /'peyNir)/ painting (in
some American prowith /n/ (as
nunciations) occurs only in /'V

in paining),
V/.
It contrasts there
with /t/ (which has the
tion: rating), and with all other two segments: articulatorily these may be called alveolar nasal continuant and alveolar flap. The nasal segment or feature then occurs in ['V flap V], and the flap in ['V nasal -V]. If we include the flap segment in /t/, we find that the nasal segment is complementary to /n/, since we previously had no /n/ in /'V lY/. And if we include the nasal segment in /n/, we find that the flap is complementary to /t/, since we
member segment [r'] in that posiphonemes. We now divide the [n] into
previously had no /t/ in /'Vn

ing to recognize /n/ as a
-Y /
We
have
th'us
been saved from hav-
new and
highly limited phoneme, and have
eliminated from /n/ and /t/ two limitations of environment of a type
which did not occur among phonemes having generally similar distributions to theirs.''
Similar considerations lead to representing English syllabic
[f]
as a
sequence of /a/ a"nd /r/;
/'starir)/ for stirring, as
against /strit)/ string}

is
An example
in
which a whole group
of
phonemes
involved
is
given
2 The redivision of tone-bearing vowels into separate vowel phonemes and tone phonemes may be considered a special case of this rephonemicization. This is done in 'tone languages', where the sequences of tones do not show a limited number of contours as is required in chapter 6. However, the division of, say, high-pitched [a] into /a/ and /'/ (high tone), and [e] into /e,' and /'/, and so on, is based not on any exceptional
distribution of a particular tone-bearing vowel, or of the tone-bearing vowels in general. Rather, it is based on the convenience of separately describing the vowels of a sequence and its tones (see Appendix to 10. 1-4).
Division of these segments into simultaneous parts could not have efficiently carried out at the beginning, before we had performed the phonemic grouping of chapter 7 because we would not have known which segments would turn out to be very different in their distribution from any other segments. Now, we are performing individual reconsiderations within an already existing tentative phonemic system.
3
been
* There is also a morpheme-identity consideration, since prior to this reconsideration we would have considered /peyN/ in painting and /peynt/ in paints as two phonemically different forms of one morpheme.
Leonard Bloomfield, Language
122.3.
REPHONEMICIZATION
93
by Chao,* who notes that in the Wu-dialects in China there is a group of breathed vowel phonemes parallel to the regular vowel phonemes, and
then analyzes each breathed vowel as /voiced h/ phoneme plus a regular
vowel phoneme.''
9.3.
Result: Dependent Segments as Allophones

of 9.2 affords the
The operation
criteria of 7.4
opportunity to regroup the component
parts of certain segments into different phonemes, so as to satisfy the
more
fully
than the requirement

It
of
complementary
rela-
tion
among
the old segments would permit.

:
extends the range of defi-
nitions
which segments could have whereas our previous segments were
independent successive portions of utterances, except for the extracted

contour features, our reconsidered segments
tions
may now
portion of
be successive por[i]),
which are not independent

(e.g.
(e.g.
the
[n]),
[]
or else simul-
taneous features
the flap out of
or zero (junctures).*
At
this point
usually performed.
cases in 9
we have reached the end of phonemic analysis as it is The phonemes of 7-8, modified in some individual by reconsidering some of our segmentation points of 4.4 and 5,
of the
are the
9.4.
phonemes
language as usually worked out by
linguists.
Sequences of Segments
of 9.2
is
The operation
equivalent to establishing contrasts
among
se-
quences of segments instead of
among
single
segments alone. ^ The nasal
'
Op.
cit.
(chapter
1, fn.
2 above)
p. 372.
following not infrequent situation is also a special case of resegmentation of a segment for purposes of rephonemicization: We may find that two segments are almost always complementary in environment: e.g. [s] may occur only before [a, o, u], [s] only before [i, e]. We would then phonemicize [sa] as /sa/, and [si] as /si/, saying that [s] is the member of /s/ before [i, e]. However, we may find a very few utterances which contain [sa]. Rather than rescind our previous phonemicization, we may salvage it by phonemicizing [a] as /sia/. To do this, we must make sure that no other /sia/ representing a segment sequence other than [a] (e.g. a sequence [sia]) occurs.
* The present operation is thus a rejection of the operation of 5.2. The rejection does not vitiate the previous results of 5 because it is carried out under controlled conditions and after other operations (those of 6-8) had intervened. The joining of dependent segments in 5 was performed for all segments. The phonemic separation of dependent segments in 9 is performed only for those few segments which are found, after 6-8, to have a distribution exceptionally different from that of the other seg-
The
ments.
^ The contrasting of sequences, rather than single segments, occurs also when we decide the point of phonemic difference between two pairs
94
ttii])
STRUCTURAL LINCUISTICS
[n],
beforo
it
was brokoii up
it
in l).21,
(.'ont
rusted in /'V
V/ with each
single sejcnient. but

nt
in a
.
was even then complementary
to the sequence
The operation
of 7
permits any segment, or sequence of segments,
given environment to be phonemicized as any sequence of phonemes

in
which does not otherwise occur

cize (ray,
that environment.
[trey], as
/
We
could phonemi-
composed
of the
segments
tlney/ since the phonemic
sequence /tin/ does not otherwise occur
in that position;
but there
would be no point to doing so unless the criteria of 7.4 could be better satisfied thereby. In 7 it had been assumed that the operation of grouping complement aries would be performed only on single segments. We
now
see that advantages result from extending the operation to apjily to

in 7
sequences of segments, with the application to single segments

ing merely a special case of the application to .sequences.
9.5.
be-
Reduction of the Phonemic Stock

of
The operations
7-9 are designed to reduce the number of linguistic
elements for a given language, and to obtain elements whose freedom of

occurrence in respect to each other was less restricted.
are used on what segments, and in what
What methods
way
the methods are applied,
depends on the segments
of
each language
their definitions as speechphoneme, and to

of re-
feature representatives, and their freedom of occurrence.
For many purposes,
it is
very convenient to reduce the phonemic stock,
to simplify the segmental interrelations within each
broaden the distribution of the phonemes.

linguistic
The
current development of
work
is
in part in this direction.'"
However, any degree
duction and any type of simplification merely yields a different, and in

the last analysis equivalent, phonemic representation which
may
be
more
or less suited to particular purposes.
Appendix to 9.2: Considerations of Symmetry The linguist may, however, decide against such broadening of the distribution of old phonemes if the occurrence of the phoneme in the new environment conflicts with general distributional statements which
(4.23). Furthermore, it is this contrasting of sequences that gives us the freedom to pin the phonemic difference between writer and rider on the middle consonant (7.43) rather than on the vowel. (The sequence in this case is the vowel plus the middle consonant which follows it.) '"Cf., for example, Z. S. Harris, Navaho phonology and Hoijer's
analysis,
Int.
Moroccan Arabic,
Jour. Am. Ling. 11.239-46 (1945); The Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 62.309-318 (1W2).
phonemes
of
REPHONEMICIZATION
he could have
95
[<S]
made about groups

(,'f,
of
phonemes. E.g. before

of
was broken
up we were able to say that there occurs no sequence

d, k, g/), spirant
v, 6, 3, s, z,
s,
i/).
/s, i/
still
After
#, stop (/p, b, t, we make [c] a member of

after /p, k, b, g/.
/ts/
and
[5]
of /di,/,
we must omit
s,
from the preceding statement,

do not occur
but we then have to note that

Similarly, in dialects
i/
which do not contain the sequences /sy/ and
which pronounce soon /suwn/, sue /suw/ rather than /syuw/, the pho-
neme
to be
S/'
does not contrast with the sequence /sy/ (since /sy/ does not
is
by [s] two members, one being the member of /s/ before /y/ and the other the member of /y/ after /s/ we would write sue /suw/,
occur). It
therefore possible to consider the sounds represented

of
composed
shoe /syuw/, shift /syift/, shrimp
syrimp,', ash /asy/. If
we
in"
consider
how
fore
this affects our
phonemic distribution statements, we

[s]
find that be-
we
reinterpreted
as ;sy/, the
phoneme /y/ occurred

/k, g, p, b,
f,
/# \7, /V I
/,
/C u/
in
(C =
V,
m, h/)
Now, however, /y/ occurs
/#-V/, /\-l/, V
The
last
,/'C'-u/. ,'#s^;/,
/Is-l/ *
two environments also indicate the newcomers to the range

of /s/.
of
environments
Our
/s/
now
occurs in
/#->/
and
in
in
addition to
its
previous environments.
The changes
in
range of en-
and /y/ are not particularly happy ones, /y/ had a peculiar distribution before; it now has an even more peculiar one: note
vironment
for /s/
especially the environmental restriction to /s/
distribution different from that of
which involved classes
of
and /r/. /s/ also had a any other phoneme, but it was one phonemes which had other distributional and
sound-representation features in
common:
e.g.
the class
C=
/p,
t,
k/,
which occurred
in
such environments of /s/ as
/# C^V
and
/
C^ C^ CV." Now we have /y/

,
in
/syrimp/, so that we must
'^Symbols above and below each other are mutually substitutable: V represents s r and s V. Commas may be read 'or'.
^'^
Meaning that
t,
initial /s/
/p,
k/
(in
the case of /I/
occurred before Cr, CI, Cw only is only /p/, in the case of /w/ C
/]>, t, k,
if
is
is
only
/k/: spring, string,
scroll, splash, squish.
that /s/ occurs only with /sks, kst/ a.s'A;.s, axed.

:
" Meaning
in clusters of
the form

96
STRUCTl'HAL LIN(;UISTICS
now
rostato
tlio
iMivironnuMit of
S/
tis
/#-Cî/
where
C=
p,
t,
k,
and we have /y/ inserted
in clusters of
the tyjê
/Cs C,'.
If
as /sy/,
we now review the considerations for and against reinter{)reting [s] we find as an advantage the elimination of one phoneme /S/,
and as a disadvantage the complicating of the distribution of the phonemes /s and y/. As an advantage, again we have a consideration of
,
morpheme identity. When morphemes which end in /s/ occur before a morpheme beginning with /ya/ with zero stress, we find [s] instead of [sy]: admissible, admission. If we could say that [s] was a member of the sequence sy/ we would not have two phonemic forms for each of hese would-be morphemes: we would write /ad'misibal, ad'misyan/.'''
t
Appendix
analysis,
to 9.21
Junctures as a Special Case of Resegmentation

which involved junctures depended,
as
in the last
All phonemicizations
upon the reconsideration procedure of chapter 9. Phonemicizing segments (or tentative phonemes) bX
/a-X/
in-
volved the following steps: since

a,
aX
and bX both occur,
b contrasts with
b
and so must constitute a

',
different
phoneme. However, we resegment

--X/)
into b' plus juncture /-
where the juncture represents the difference

environment
in the
/
between
a
(in /
and
b'.
Then
is
b' (in
is
complementary to
phoneme /a/. bX is b' + juncture -1- X, which is phonemically represented by /a-X/. When a contour component is phonemicized as an automatic feature
X/), and
grouped with a
of a juncture (see
chapter
8, fn.
14),
the following steps are involved:

6,
The contour
nemic status.
(as
if
is
extracted by the procedure of chapter
and has pho-
We may now
reconsider the composition of the contour

it
it
were a segment) and say that
consists of the contour (e.g.
stress) plus zero at a point

(e.g. at its
which can be determined from the contour

is
end).
The
point
then given phonem.ic status as a juncture,

definition of the pho-
and the contour becomes merely the sound-feature nemic juncture.'*
'An analogous discussion could be held

/tsy/ or /ty/.
'*
for reinterpreting /6/ as
In some cases several contours,
e.g. stress
and intonation and vowel

the same juncture.
all of
harmony, may together be automatic

together.
in respect to
This procedure then applies to each of them separately or to
them
APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 7-9: THE PHONEMES OF SWAHILr

A Sample Phonemic Analysis Prepared with the
Collaboration of Nathan Glazer
1
The segments
1.0. 1.1.
1.2. 1.3.
Introduction
Stress
and tone features
List of consonants List of vowels
2.
The phonemes 2.0. The criteria

2.1.
for setting
up phonemes
2.2.
2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 2.7. 2.8.
segments on these criteria Phonemes with exceptionally limited distribution Non-phonemic status of dependent segments Breaking phonemes up into a sequence of other phonemes Identifying with y, u with w
of
i
Grouping
Stress
phoneme
Automatic sequences of stress and pitch Summary of phonemes and allophones
I.
The Segments
Introduction
sounds we found
it
1.0.
All
useful to distinguish in Swahili are represented
below by segments.^ Each symbol below represents
many different sounds

to
which could be distinguished from each other

phonetic distinctions more detailed.
tions not represented here
if
we wished
of
make our
We know
no phonemic distinc-
by
distinct segments.
This analysis is based on the speech of Adballah Ahamed, a native Grande-Comore, who went to school in Zanzibar from the age of 13 to 15, and lived in Zanzibar for five years after he left his native island at the age of about 17. The investigation was carried out with the support of the Intensive Language Program of the American Council of Learned Societies, to which we are indebted for making this work possible. We are also glad to express our thanks to Dr. George He. zog who gave us valuable sug^
of
gestions in the phonology.

^
them
In almost all cases the symbols used below have the values given in B. Bloch and G. L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis (1942).
97
98
The
table of sound types gives the following information: the
;
symbol
for a
sound description
of the
segment
in question,
if it
is
not clear what
the symbol represents;' the environments, in terms of other segments,

in
which the segment

sounds which
is
in
question occurs; examples of the segment in
each environment distinguished; and, for each environment, the ranpe

of
may
vary freely with the sound
in question,
if
such a
range
noteworthy.'*
1.1.
Stress
and Tone Features

'
The mark
stands for any stress and tone louder and higher than
'
others in the utterances; absence of
indicates the weakest stresses
and
lowest tones (both to be called zero) in the utterance.
The
'
thus indi-
cates the position rather than the physical description of stress and tone
other than zero. Certain sounds occur only in the neighborhood of

others occur only in the neighborhood of zero; therefore
'
'
and
seg-
and zero are
included as differentiating environments in the following table.
No
ment occurs regularly
ne.\t to
one non-zero grade
of tone or stress as
against another; therefore the difference between these will not be given
until later. In the symbolic listing of
environments
in 1.2
'
and
1.3
we
use
to indicate regular lack of stress.
Where
is
neither
nor
'
occur in an
environment, presence or absence of stress
not significant.
^ Sounds heard once or twice, which we were not able to get back in later repetitions, are not listed. Since our informant Ls acquainted with other Swahili dialects, as well as with Arabic, we assume that these were
forms as pronounced by him when speaking other dialects.

In the column of environments, C stands for any of the segments of V stands for any of the segments of 1.3; stands for the beginning or end of individual utterances; stands for the segment in question. In some statements, the use of the collective terms C and V obscures certain limitations of distribution. Thus, in some cases we will say that V occurs in a certain position, e.g. VpV, even though we do not have examples of every vowel in that position. We will do this, however, only if the vowels which we do not have in that position do not correlate with any feature of the environment, leading us to suspect that the absence of these members of the V class is due merely to the paucity of our material. When we have no reason to suspect this, we list precisely the vowels which occur in that position. Parentheses around a symbol indicate that it sometimes occurs and sometimes does not in the given position. An asterisk before an environment indicates that only one morpheme (or rather, only one utterance aside from repetitions) illustrating that environment occurs in our ma^
1.2;
terial.
V V V
'
THE PHONEMES OF SWAHILI

1.2. List
99
of Consonants
Free Variants
Seg- Environ-
memt
ment
p' (strong aspiration)
# ^V
V -V ^V
p'embeni
p'aka
inap'aa
rnp'ira
in the corner
cat
it
soars
m V uV
V
V'
rubber
p\iani
beach
p (medium aspiration)^
\vai)i
where
fool
m
V u V
*;'
mpumbavu
amelipya
IPPJ!!. k'l'pia
^'
he was paid
new
t'
(strong aspiration)
#
V
m
f
t'atu
three
t'izama
k'it'anda
watch
bed
child
mt'oto
(almost interdental, with labialized aspiration and labialized
#-vyV
fwayeni
carry ye
V w \
wamefwlfwa
they called ns
varies with
lar
t,
alveo-
and unaspirat-
ed, before penult y:
wameletya 'they were brought
mw V
t
mfwaye
atakyenda
carry
him
(medium
aspiration)
he
will
go
m
n
^V
mto
nta
j)illow
wax
* We hear varying degrees of aspiration in the same morphemes when they are repeated individually, and when they are heard in connected speech. Different statements of degree of aspiration are derived from the two types of material. For example, in words repeated in isolation, heavy aspiration is heard after the stressed syllable (fut'a or futa 'smear'). We have given the statements based on material drawn from connected speech.
100
Sco- Environ-

Seo- Environ-
101
102
Seo- Environmen't
f
STRUCTURAL LIN(;UISTICS
ment
k t

Seg- E>rvinoN-
103
Free Variants
MENT
s.
ME.NT
Examples
(released with very short vowel)
*u
*a
bus.ti
coat
kas.kazi
wind
#-v
104
Seo- Env

Seg- Environ-
105
Free V'ariants
ment
MENT
Continued
IOC)
Sko- Environ-

Seg- Environ-
107
ment
MENT
108
Sko- Environ-

Seo- Environ-
109
no
continuous series of
e,
A seemingly
ating:
(1) After
a's
from front to back
is
distinguish-
able, as in the case of
with a number of independent influences oper-
very far back: qaSi 'judge';

(2)
and before the consonants t, q and S, the a fiiîla 'a good deed'; xatoari
is
is
pronounced
'danger'.
After (C)\v, the a

'people'.
pronounced quite
far back: hi'nva 'these';
wana
(3)
After labial, labiodental and velar consonants, the a
is
central:
baxati 'luck'; papa 'shark'.

(4)
After dental consonants, the a

'to follow'.
is
slightly fronted: S9sa 'now';
kuandama
(5) After
h and y, the a
is
very fronted; hawa 'these'; mayayi 'eggs';
hay a
'these'.
(6) Final position overrides
the effect of the preceding consonant
mak-
ing the a
somewhat
farther back.
Two
(1) (2) o
'alley';
o's
only are distinguishable, a high and a low:

first
In o((C)C)o, the
is
is
opposite in height to the second
o.
low before
or ((C)C)V,
where
V is other than
kico^co^ro^
ko^ndoô^ 'sheep'; o^na
'see'.
may be half or fully unvoiced finally. Vowels are longer before nasals than before other consonants: pe"mbe
All vowels
'corner';
2.
peke
'self;
mu"me
'man'; miike 'woman'.
The Phonemes
The Criteria for Setting up Phonemes The segments represented by the symbols of the preceding sections may be grouped into phonemes by applying the criterion that no two segments included in one phoneme ever occur in the same environment
2.0.
unless they vary freely (in repetitions of an utterance) in that environ-
ment. As frequently happens,

yield a unique grouping into
either
t, t',
this criterion alone

e.g.,
does not suffice to
phonemes:
t],
could be combined with

y,
'^,
k, k', g, d,
N,
x],
n,
t
z,
v,
B,
S,
?i,
t, x,
q, y, or
1,
but not
with
all of
ing of
and k and g contrast. The particular grouj;Swahili segments presented below is achieved by application of the
them, since,
e.g.,
following additional criteria

(1) If
two segments vary two segments vary
freely with one another in every position in

in
which they occur, they are grouped

(2) If
one phoneme.
freely in one environment,
and only one ap-
pears in another environment, they are grouped in one phoneme, so long

as the difference
111
between the two environments
is
stateable in terms of
the other segments (not in terms of morphemes).

(3) If several sets of
non-contrasting segments
(i.e.
segments
in
com-
plementary distribution) can be selected in such a way that the
differ-
ence between the segment in environment a and the segment in environ-
ment
in
b of
one set
is
identical with the difference

in
between the segment

b of
environment a and the segment

of these sets as a
environment
every other
set,
we recognize each
(4) If
phoneme
(see 7.42).
the
sum
of the
environments of two or more non-contrasting

with that of some other phonemes, a and
b are
segments
grouped
a, b is identical
in
one phoneme.
We
try to avoid grouping sounds into one phoof
neme
if
their total
freedom
in the
occurrence
is
restricted
by segments
is
which do not appear

limited. I.e.
environments to which any other phoneme
we want the
restrictions on occurrence of one
phoneme
to be
identical with those of other

(5) If
phonemes
(7.43).
two segments having different environments (i.e. non-contrasting) occur in two morphemic segments which we would later wish to consider as variants of the same morpheme in different environments, we will group the two segments into one phoneme, provided this does not otherwise complicate our general phonemic statement. Our assignments of
segments to phonemes should,
if
possible, be
made on the
1,
basis of criteria
of analysis.
list
1-4, since 5 introduces considerations
drawn from a later level

since in our
We
will
not have to deal here with criterion

free variants
of seg-
ments we represented
by one symbol. Criterion 2 enables us to make the following combinations into tentative phonemes (already made in the segment list by putting the rarer variant in the Free Variant
column)
the
;
:
f,
>
ft/ in
phoneme
z, z
/t/); d',
y V (read segments f and t are assigned to d > /d/; n, n > /n/; 13,13-^ /t)/; Ji, n -^ /ji/ in
:
V;
>
/z/;
it is
g, g^
^ /g/;
s",
sV
>
/sV/ before #.
criteria
Therefore
the
new evidence admitted by
3-4 that
is
most
important in deciding the grouping of segments into phonemes. Below

are listed
all
the necessary groupings, with the reasons for them; in
some
cases several groupings of segments will be
made
for
one phoneme.
2,1,
P, P'
t, t'
Grouping of Segments on These

-^ /P/ -^ /t/
Criteria
k, k'
k, k'
-^ /k/ -> /k/
112
(3)
The
lueiubeis of each of the proposed
in corresponding environments: unaspirated
phonemes differ analogouslj' and aspirated. As between
various combinations of aspirated and unaspirated, considerations of
symmetry
mentary
of
call for
the grouping as given above.
(4) Since no segments except the aspirated stops above are comple-
to the unaspirated, the only alternative to

is
phonemic grouping
in
such pairs
to
have each aspirated or unaspirated voiceless stop conitself.
stitute a
phoneme by
it is
These phonemes would then occur only would then become

a
certain stress positions. Stress
phonemic environas well as
ment, whereas
not a limiting envii-onment for any other tentative
phoneme.
We
thus have reasons of environmental
symmetry
economy in number of phonemes for grouping aspirated and non-aspirated

stops together.
(5)
Any
other grouping would require morphophonemic statements,
since, e.g.,
p alternates with
p' as
changes in the morpheme's environ-
ment
t^
t'
yield changes in its stress.
- A/
The The
respective segments are analogous.
alternative grouping, k'
d^ d -^ /d/
(3) (4)
and
t'
or d' (k' does not occur be-
fore w, so does not contrast with f, d'),
would yield a phoneme which
never occurs before
a, o.
Since other tentative phonemes are not limited
in distribution before vowels, this
would introduce a new phonemic enreplaced by
vironment
(5) Final t
and d
of a
morpheme
ai-e
t^
and
d"'
when
a suffix
beginning with
k,
follows.
k^/k,
(3)
;k-,
k-^
/k/
to those of /g/ (see below).
Differences
is
among members analogous
This grouping
preferred to grouping the complementary k, g into one
phoneme.
(4)
No
other segment except g
is
complementary to
k.
The remaining
alternative, keeping k,
k as separate phonemes, would yield phonemes

e,
occurring only before

for
g,
i,
or before o, u, a kind of limitation not required
any other phoneme.

>
g/
(3), (4)
b.
Analogous to k above.
^ /b/
among members analogous
is
(3) Differences
below). This grouping
to those of phoneme d (see more symmetrical than grouping b with some
Arabic segment which doesn't occur after m.

(4)
113
No
other segment
is
complementary to
b.
The
alternative, to
keep 6 as a separate phoneme, would introduce a phoneme not occurring after m, which
is
an environmental restriction found only

is
in
some
of
the Arabic sounds (below) whose validity in Swahili

(5)
uncertain.
prefix precedes
Morpheme-initial b
is
replaced by b
when
the
m-
the
(f
,
morpheme.
d -^ /d/
(3)
(4)
Analogous to b above.
Separating these two would yield a phoneme
d
r
which does not ocn, all
cur after n. While furthermore,

(these are
tinct
t,
many
consonants do not occur after
dentals do;
all
other consonants which occur after
also occur after n
k, g),
whereas this would give us
after r phonemically dis-
from d
nj, m''
after n.
m, N, m, N,
(3) (4)
m''
>
/m/ /m/
>
See under n and
below.
Separation of any of these would yield phonemes occurring only

f,
or never before
v, ui, ue,
1,
r,
which do not otherwise appear as
dis-
tributional limitations for phonemes.
Grouping them
all
together gives
us a
phoneme with no
limitations in distribution before consonants as
well as vowels. This does not introduce a
phoneme with a new range
of
distribution, since vowels also occur before all consonants
and before
vowels.
(5)
initial
The prefix m- appears in all four of these phoneme of the following morpheme.
> /n/ -^ /n/
forms, depending on the
n, n,
T),
n**
n'^
T),
(3)
Analogous to
above: nasal homo-organic with following con-
sonant.
Grouping n in this way yields a phoneme which occurs before denand palatal consonants as well as before vowels. Grouping the segment 1] with g instead would yield two phonemes, /n/ occurring before dentals and vowels, and /g/ before palatals and vowels.
(4)
tal
(5)
initial
rn,
A morpheme
phoneme
-^
>
t)-
appears both as n and as
t)
depending on the
of the following
morpheme.
m
n
(3)
/m/
of each of the
n,
/n/
proposed phonemes are analogous in
in
The members
corresponding environments; syllabic initially before consonants (and
the case of m, before final consonant except, b), non-syllabic otherwise.
114
(4)
These phonemes introduce a new phonemic environment they oc;
cur in the positions of vowels and consonants. There

distribution of other phonemes.
(5) Initial fixes are
c,
rji
is
no analog
in
the
and
i\
in
morphemes
are replaced by
and n when pre-
added.
/s,
(3)
The
difference
between nc and ns
may
is
be considered analogous to
the result of closing off the
the difference between m''r and mr. Each
nasal passage before opening the oral passage in
moving from n
to
s,
or
to
r.
(4) Since c occurs
only after n, where s does not, this grouping makes n
occur before
eliminated).
i, I
all
dentals except
(later,
even this limitation
will
be
^ /i/
Analogous to
i
(3)
u,
below. This grouping
is
selected rather than
grouping
with u.
i i
el
(4) Every alternative grouping except and u (or and u) yields a vowphoneme whose distribution is limited by factors of stress and the fol-
lowing consonant cluster. These limitations do not occur for other
phonemes.
(5)
In a given morpheme,
varies with
as the stress shifts with
change
of the
u,
environment
>
of the
morpheme.
/u/
analogous to
i
(3), (4), (5)

ii,
above.
>
/u/
alternative would be to keep these as distinct phonemes,
to either of these. This
(4)
The only
since
no other segments are complementary
would
yield vowel
(5)
y,
phonemes with
i,
distribution limited to particular positions.
Before
final
in the
morpheme ku-
is
replaced by
ii.
Q,.w -^ /y/
(3) Partial
support for this grouping comes from comparing the interin the /u/, /o/, /w/,
segment relations
(4)
and
/i/
phonemes.
some consonant, to of them occur after t, d, or t, and few consonants occur after s. That would yield, however, a phoneme which would occur after only two or four of the consonants, namely after t and d, t and s. Our tentative /y/ has a simpler
alternative would be to group
or o with
The
all
almost
of
which these are complementary, since none
distribution: after
(5)
all
consonants.
in
single
morpheme appears
both forms.

y,
115
^ /w/
Analogous to y below. from the grouping above,
is
(3)
(4) y, as it results
complementary to no
other consonant (except y and possibly some of the rarer Arabic seg-
ments), since both y and
all
the consonants occur after m. Grouping y
with
all
i,
w gives /w/ a
distribution comparable to that of
m: w occurs
after
C,
before
all
C.
^ /y/
Analogous to /w/ above.
This gives y a distribution comparable to that of n n occurs before
:
(3) (4)
dental and velar consonants, y after labial and labio-dental consonants.
Setting apart the dental-velar group implies recognition of the separateness of the remaining labial group.
Vowels ranging from

(3)
e'^
to e
>
/e/
Analogous in part to a
(as to
dependence on
w and
of
y),
and
in part
to o (as to
dependence on position within a sequence
segments which
are being grouped into the

C4)
same phoneme).
y,
Separating any of these segments from the others would yield

in
phonemes
(5)
its
which
and
and position
one height
in
a sequence of
e's,
are the
limiting environments.
Within a morpheme,
or
e of
is
is
replaced
by
e of another,
if
position in the sequence

e,
if
altered
by the presence
of a suffix contain-
ing
a suffix containing
ae
is
present.
Vowels ranging from ^ to (3) See under e above.

(4)
-^ /a/
Separating any of these segments would yield phonemes in which
a particular group of consonants, or position before pause, are the limiting environments.
(5)
Within a morpheme, back a
is
replaced by front
a, etc.,
according
as suffixes are or are not present, etc.

o,
(3)
,
/o/
(4)
Analogous to
above
as far as
dependence upon environment
of y)honemically identical
vowels goes.
2.2.
Phonemes with Exceptionally Limited Distribution
Additional phonemes must be set up for a few segments of limited distribution which occur in words borrowed from Arabic, constituting a
recognizable semi-foreign vocabulary
in
Swahili. x varies with h

"^
when-
ever X occurs, and S with
'6,
q with
k,
and
with
'
(glottal stop) or zero.
116
h,
6,
However,
k,
and zero also occur

x, S, q,
in utterances
?
(morphemes)
in
which they do not vary with
and
respectively.
of
The
difference
between the utterances

those
or
in
in
which the members

of the utterances
"^
each pair vary, and

in
which there
is
no variation cannot be stated

list
terms of segments
phonemes, but only by a

therefore recognize
(morphemes) involved.
h, S, k, or
We
x, S, q,
as
phonemes, and note that every morprobable that the
pheme which
ants with
contains any of
them has a variant form with

is
zero respectively in their place. It

X, 3, q,
"^
morpheme
vari-
occur only
in
the speech of relatively
more educated
Swahili speakers.'
t,
5, d,
7 also occur only
in
words borrowed from Arabic and having

in Swahili.
perhaps the status of semi -foreign vocabulary
They do not
mor-
appear to vary with other segments such as occur
in native Swahili
phemes, and must be recognized as separate phonemes.
From
other studies, however,

in the speech of
it
appears that
15,
6,
and y would be
X
phonemes
non-educated Swahili speakers, but that
would not appear

2.3.
there.
Non-phonemic Status of Dependent Segments

i.e.,
Segments and components which are dependent on particular phonemic environjnent,

terms
of
whose limitations
of distribution
can be stated in
the presence of other phonemes, do not have phonemic status.

"^
On
this basis,
and
between vowels can be eliminated.
We state that
' It is possible to set up a single phoneme /'/ to indicate the differences between h and x, 3 and 3, k and q, zero and or respectively. Then x = /h'/, 3 = /S'/, q = /k'/, or ? = /'/ (when not after h, 3, or k). Words like hawa 'these', w^hich do not contain /'/, would never be pronounced with the /'/-effect (i.e. would never have x instead of h, and so on). Words like h'adifli 'story', which contain /'/, would sometimes be pronounced with the /'/-effect (as xadidi) and sometimes without it (as hadiî). The /'/ is thus an intermittently present phoneme (see Appendix to -4.3), i.e. its presence in an utterance indicates that some but not all the repetitions of that utterance will have the segmental distinctions which it represents. This /'/ occurs only in morphemes borrowed from Arabic, and may be said to indicate a learned or 'foreign' pronunciation of these morphemes, as against a native pronunciation
'
"^
'
without
It
/'/.
be noted that the new phonemic /'/ does not occupy a unit length of its own after h, 6, and k. In this respect it is similar to the /t/ of painting (9.21) and to the components of chapter 10. However, the basis for setting up the '/ was not an ordinary simplification of distribution as in 9.21, nor a sequential dependence as in 10, but a desire to isolate those phonemic features which occur only intermittently in various repetitions of an utterance.
may

in
117
slight ^
medial sequences of vowel phonemes, there

if
is
often a
is
i,
glide
between two vowels
the
first is e
or
i,
if
the second
and
in aa, ae;
and a
slight
'^
glide
if
the
first is
o or u, the second u, and in ao. Thus, in

:
certain positions
(iu, eu, oi, ui)
both glides are heard ki^'umbe, kiûmbe.
Certain other factors influence the presence of these glides.
or
w adit is
jacent to one of the vowels will reduce the corresponding glide: weûpe,
but nyeupe or nye'ûpe. Stress

difficult to
may
also be of
some importance, but

it is
disentangle the various dependences at this level of analysis.

also pos-
On
tion.
the basis of dependence on phonemic environment,
sible to eliminate
most
of the full w's
and
y's that occur in pre-final posi-
In the
list
of segments,
two types
of full
and y are distinguished
in pre-final position: those that
vary freely with zero (analiya, fiukuwa)

iwe). In the pre-final position,
i,
and those that do not (huyu,

sometimes
If
y
is
in free
variation with zero occurs after e and

o;
and
a,
after a, before
i,
e, a,
and
appears after o and u; after
before o and u,
heard.
y and
occur in other positions, they do not vary freely with zero.
Distributionally, the less full w's heard in ao
and au belong with the
full
w's heard after o and u.
On grounds
of phonetic
symmetry, the ao position could be put with
either the automatic
and nga'ô 'shield'. nnayo ('I have', used with substantives

tion
is
y group or the * glide group, since we have ngayo However, there is also a contrast between nna'o and
of different classes).
'''
This posi-
similar to the medial vowel clusters in which ^ or
can be heard.
A
are
statement of the various glides heard between vowels enables us to

^,
dispense with ^ and
and with most y and
w in pre-final
position.
They
now dependent on
the surrounding vowels.
Parallel to the
reletises
h, ,
1,
y and
glides
between phonemes are the short vowel

in the list
between consonants, which are indicated

'
by a dot
after
They are variously heard as and ", their quality being determined by the succeeding vowel. For example: bar"gumu, bar"g6wa,
r.
sir'kali, tar'tibu.
We
state that in consonant clusters, where the

is
first
member
()
of the cluster
not a nasal, a vowel-colored release
is
heard beis
tween the consonants.

or u, the release
If
the vowel following the second consonant

or
i,
is "; if it is a, e,
the release
is
'.
2.4.
Breaking Phonemes Up into a Sequence of Other Phonemes

can eliminate some tentative phonemes by considering the segto
We
ments which compose them
be simultaneously composed of the
mem-
bers of a sequence of other phonemes, to which sequence the tentative
phoneme
is
complementary (chapter
9).
Of
coui-se,
it
is
necessary to find
118
we found
for the steps in
the saiup support for these steps as
which we
combined segments; otherwise we could, for example, break every vowel into a sequence of consonants which did not occur together.
-> /vyx/
This step
is
of
advantage
in
that
it
adds v to the consonants that occur

f
before w, giving v the
same environment
has,
and
the
same environ-
ment y
ji
has.
-* /ny/ -* /dy/
-^ /ky/
-*/sy/
This grouping eliminates four phonemes, on grounds of distributional
and phonetic symmetry, and morphophonemic

Distribution:
simplicity.
The
distribution of /y/
is
limited after consonants, in

will
that
it
only occurs after labials and possibly labiodentals. This

its
broaden
distribution,
the other hand, this
now approximate that of grouping introduces the new cluster /yw \

which
will
/wf.
On
by
as in the
new /mnywe/
for ippue 'drink ye!'; but this can be eliminated
equating /y/ and /i/ (see below.). Phonetic: ji is very close to ny;
dy.
z varies freely in
many
positions with
Morphophonemic: The widely appearing

the form
chair'.
c
class
mark
prefix /ki/ has
before vowels /kiti kizuri/

Avrite
Tme
chair',
but /kiti ceupe/ 'white

is
When we
/kyeupe/ the morphophonemic change

/c/,
/ki/
to
/ky/ instead of /ki/ to
which
may ])arallel
other morphophonemic
changes.
2.5.
Identifying
ttilli y,
iiilh
i,y-/i/
u,
/u/
this
Support for
tion bet wen
l)art of
i
grouping
y,
is
largely mor})hological: there

in
is
alterna-
and
u and
is
many morphemes, and an

if
important
i
morphophonemics
eliminated
we phonemically
identify
with
y,
and u with w.
For the most
part, they are
complementary: y and
occur in
"
V;
^ This step also eliminates the reason for i, y /y/ given under (4), as the distribution of y is no longer complementary to the distribution of n, if we break p into ny, etc. However both steps have sufficient justifi-
cation on other grounds.

i
119
C and C #. However and u also occur in c V, and u occur in v where they contrast with y and w. To compare spellings before the identification is made (first column)
i
and
after (second
(1) (2) (3)
column)
it
V C
V: V:
fwe 'that
be'; yiie 'kill
it'
/lue/, /iue/
kwa
kiya
'for';
kiia 'to be'

'to hide'; kusi-
/kua/, /kua/
kufikya (for kufica)

'to hear'
/kuffkia/, /kusikia/
(4) kyiimba (for ciimba) 'room';
kiumbe
/kiiimba/, /kiumbe/
'I
'creature'
(5)
syona
see'
(for sona) 'sew'; sioni
don't
/siona, /sioni/
and non-vocalic segments in examples i and u are vocalic, we therefore add c -^ V, and to the environments in which i and u are consonantal we add c -^ V (where the /i, u/ is unstressed).
Stress distinguishes the vocalic,
1, 2,
and
3.
To
the environments in which
However,
between the
(2.4
in the
6
new
spellings for 4
and
5,
we
lose the distinction
and
segments which had been phonemicized as /ky, sy/
vocalic
of
above) on the one hand, and the sequence of C plus the semimember of /i/ which occurs in C -^ V in /siona/ there is no way
:
knowing whether the first two phonemes indicate the segments si or the segment s (which had been phonemicized /sy/). Rather than revert to y and w in order to distinguish these contrasting segments, we introduce a new phoneme, written
the position
',
which occurs only above

i
and u
in
and u consonantal. So far, we need it only after /k, d, s/, to represent the sounds c, i, s. We write tentatively: /kiumba for the segments cumba but /kiumbe/ for kiumbe; and which makes
/siona/ for sona but /sioni/ for sioni.
C V,
2.6.
It
Stress
is
Phoneme
component
of stress so that
possible to reassign the
we no longer
require a stress phoneme. Non-zero stress occurs on the penultimate

syllabic of every utterance,
and on various other syllabics (but never
on two successive syllabics) within the utterance.

ances into parts such that stress position
is
We now
break utter-
penultimate in each of these
parts (such parts will turn out to be 'words' in the morphology).

this
We do
occurs
by placing a juncture mark
immediately after the vowel followover
ing the stress vowel. Then, instead of writing
V when
i,
it
before ((C) C)
V#
(V representing the syllabics
/a, e,
o, u,
m, n/),
120
state that stress occurs automatically on the penultimate
we now
in
becomes depentient on a phonemic word juncture #. Determining, the jioint of juncture on the basis of the i)!ace of stress is possible because all words end in \, so that we have no problems
respect to
#.
Stress thus
lus
to whether a
C
;
following the post-stress (word -final)

it
is
part of the
next word or not
always
is.
i
However, the
identification of
in
t
and
y.
u and
w
,
in 2.5
above required
jihonemic dist inct ion of st ress
he environment as a basis for not mark-
ing the difference in syllabicity. If
we
cease marking the stressed vowel,
we would pronounce when i, u in c V# are not stressed, and incidentally not syllabic. This need can be met by extending the use of the consonantizing phoneme of 2.5. Its distribution is now over and u, in some utterances, in the environments C V, V#. and VV# (the latter is necessary for cases in which we have to use two unstressed semivowels before the final vowel; e.g. ifinywe 'drink ye'). We now write /iiie#/' for fwe, .'iue#/ for iue; kua for kwa, /kua/ for kua; /kufikia/ for kufica, /kusikia for kusikiya; /kiumba/ for cumba, /kiumbe/ for kiumbe; /siona for sona, /sioni/ for sioni and we write mniiie/ for mnywe (mpwe).^
writing both lue and iue as /iue/, which
we shall be
only as
iue.
We therefore require a way of
indicating
'
The phoneme
syllabic
'
is
thus defined as indicating, in certain positions, nonof

/i,
segment members
u/. It overlaps in effect but not in dis/i,
tribution the semi-vocalic positional variants (members) of
u/
when
they occur
in other positions.
We may say that
/i,
u/ have semi-vocalic
'.
members
is
in
the positions stated above (2.5) and under
This phoneme
it
thus equivalent to bringing back the i-y (and u-w) distinction, but
i
has the advantage over keeping

distinguishes
tions
and y
in different
phonemes
in that
it
where
ferentiated
them only in stated positions, which are precisely the posiand y do not alternate. If and y were phonemically difin the other positions, the two phonemes would alternate
i i
there morphophonemically.
Stress
is
not phonetically uniform. Over longer utterances, certain
stress contours are distinguishable.
However, any
stress
may, independ2.7,
ently of contour, be raised between one and two levels of tone (for the
levels see 2.7 below)
stress
is
when the word
is
emphasized. In
emphatic
" which
extracted.
We
therefore recognize a loudness

i.e.
phoneme
may
'
occur in the position of any stress,

there are
final
on any penultimate V.
When
is
vocalic.
plus two nasals before a vowel, it is the first which The word-bounding # were omitted in the above examples,
except for
'^ the first two.

2.7.
121
Automatic Sequences of Stress and Pitch

of
While position
final,
loud stress in an utterance
is
dependent on word
and
is
thus non-phonemic, the varying degrees of loudness and
height of tone which occur on penultimate vowels are not automatically

defined
by #. Utterances are occasionally distinguished from one anby contours of tone alone. Below we mark the tone-stress sequences by raised numerals after the stressed vowels; we distinguish four contrasting levels of tone a^d accompanying loudness, 1 being the lowest
other
and weakest.
umetoke'a nyumba^ni
umetoke^ nyumba'ni The most frequent contours

3 2 (Question, with question
Are you coming from home? You are coming from home.
are the following:
word
at
end
will
of utterance)
utali'pa
ni'^ni
What
word
you pay?
4 2 (Question, with question
at beginning of utterance)
wa^pi umeku^la
1
Where
did
you eat?
3 (Question without question word)

ye'ye pamo'dya nasi'ye
Is
he with us?
(Command)
ndyo'ô ha'pa
Come
I
here!
(Statement)
nimeku^la mgahawa'ni
All these contours can be varied
ate at the coffee house.

occuri-ence of emphatic stress "
by the
on any stressed vowel.
The
lengths of these contours are the lengths of
minimum
utterances.
Utterances contain a succession of one or more of these contour lengths.

2.8.
Summary
of
Phonemes and Allophones

t,
The phonemes
" (loudness),
I
of Swahili are /p,

e,
i,
k, b, d, g,
f,
v, s,
'
z, 1, r,
m,
n,
h/
(referred to as C), /a,
o,
u/ (referred to as V),
(non -syllabic),
(word divider, usually written as space), and tone-levels

V, and /m/, and before V. All
to 4.
occurs after
#,
except
/I,
h/ also
occur before /u/.

t,
k, d, g, s,
z, 1, r, n,/
occur after /n/.
/t, d, k,
g/ occur after /r/.

occur after /s/.
/t, k, 1/
/k, d,
s,
n/ and
rarely, /p, b,
f,
v,
m/
occur before
/!/.
Each
of the following
sequences occurs uniquely, each
in
some one
122
moiplieino of
Arabic origin:
sx, Ig, Iz, Im, Ix, fs,
ft, fr,
bd,
bl. It
may
be
that other Swahili speakers do not have these consonant clusters.
Below are
If
listed the chief
members
of each
is
segmental phoneme with
the environments in which the j^honeme the last
represented by that member.

it
member
in
it
a phoneme group has no environment for

occurs in
all
in the
h\st
column, then
positions of
or
V
for
respectively (as
given above for C, and at the head of the vowel

in
list
V) except those
which other members
of that
i)honemc occur.
Pro.nemi:

Phoneme
Segment
123
Environment
m
m
/n/
T)
#C; C(V)V#,
not /b/
when C
is
n**
g,
N
list
n h
Certain segments are represented by a sequence of two phonemes.
We
se-
phoneme sequence, segment, and the environment
in
which the
quence represents that segment.

/ki/
6
/di/
/si/
/nV
/vu/
/sr#/
occurs after
#,
C, and V, and before
#,
C, and V. For
VV, there
are examples of every vowel occurring next to every vowel.
#
124
()
STRUCTl'HAL LINGUISTICS
o^
((C)C)V, where Vis not o;

first
In o((C)C)o, the
It is
is
opposite in height to the second.
necessary to recognize, for the speech of our informant, a group of
phonemes with limited C distribution. These occur in morphemes borrowed from .\rabic. They are (on the basis of fn. 7 above) jB, t5, 7, t, '/ V. None occur before /u/; and The first four of these occur in I and 7/ occur after m. /'/ occurs after h, k, <S, and is an intermittently r present phoneme. It is probable that only /9, S, 7/ are phonemes in the
:
si)eech of
most Swahili speakers.

of zero:
Members
Non-phonemic segments defined by zero
in stated
environments:
V#/, /oV#/. V/, /oV/, /a /a:#/. #/, /eV#/, /a i#/. y occurs occasionally V/, /e V/, /a occurs occasionally where C not /m/ or /n/. occurs occasionally in /C C
w
occurs occasionally in jw
"
occurs occasionally in /u
in /i
/,
a, e,
'
"
'
in /i
re, i/.
is
"J
first
occurs occasionally in
/C Ca,
V
e, i/,
where
first
is
not
/m/
or /n/.
Stress occurs on penultimate
before
(with
i.e.
'\'
not included in V).

is
Emphatic
written
".
stress occurs in
.stre.ss
position,
en stressed V, and
or tone
Four phonemic levels morphemes.
of tone occur
on stressed V, arranged
in
contours
10.
PHONEMIC LONG COMPONENTS
10.0.
Introductory
This procedure breaks the usual phonemes up into long components so

as to yield
new phonologic
elements, fewer in
number and
less restricted
in distribution.
10.1.
Purpose: Replacing Distributionally Limited Phonemes

seek to express the limitations of distribution
less restricted elements.
We
among phonemes,
and to obtain
we will find in most languages phonemes have no members in various environments e.g. vowels will not occur in some positions, a group of consonants will not occur in another.' It would be convenient to develop a compact way to indicate these restrictions, and to bring out the similarities among the various limitations upon various groups of phonemes.
after the adjustments of chapter 9,
Even
that various groups of

:
Furthermore,
it
would be convenient for
many purposes
to replace the
phonemes by a system of elements which would have no individual restrictions upon their distribution.- Such extension of the freedom of occurrence of our elements is impossible with the phonemes which we have been using, since the operations of 7-9 have gone as far as the phonemic contrasts of the segments permitted. The phonemes were set up so as to be the least restricted successive (and in some cases simultaneous) elements representing speech. Therefore, the only possibilities for further
analysis
lie in
the direction of changing our segments.^
The
is
chief oppor-
tunity which
we can now
find for
changing our elements
to consider
each segment as susceptible of analysis into simultaneously occurring
component elements.^
The operation of chapter 9 removed the exceptional limitations of distribution of individual phonemes. The operation of chapter 10 will in most cases remove or reduce the limitations of distribution of whole
'
groups of phonemes.
^ For many purposes, of course, phonemes will remain the most convenient representation of speech. ^ Something of this kind had already been done in 8-9, as when it was decided that instead of considering the nasal flap [n] as a troublesome single segment we would consider the nasal eh^ment a segment occurring in the environment of the Hap, and the flap element a separate segment, occurring in the environment of the nasal. For the sound-feature considerations of simultaneous features see N. S. Trubetzkoy, (Jrundziige der Phonologic (Travaux du Cercle Lin''
125
126
10.2. Pror>(lurf:
Phonemes Occurring Together Share
u Cloni-
ponont
We diviile phonemes into simultaneous components in such a way that phonemes occurring with eadi other have a component in common.' What we seek is not a division into components for their own sakes, but an expression of phonemic restrictions. Given a phoneme, we know that certain other phonemes occur ne.\t to it, and certain ones do not. The phoneme is therefore not independent of its environment. We seek
these dependences of
phoneme on environment, over
short stretches,^
guistique de Prague 7, 1939); R. Jakobson, Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze (1941); Charles F. Hockett, A system of descriptive phonology, L.\ng. 18.3-21 5.31 (1942). For the distributional considerations leading to long components, and for the methods employed in various situations, see Z. S. Harris, Simultaneous components in phonologj', L.\ng. 20.181-205 (1944). For a new field of possibilities in componential notation, along the lines of chords in musical notation, see Charles F. Hockett, Componential analysis of Sierra Popoluca, Int. Jour. Am. Ling. 13.258-267 (1947).
* As will be seen below, this affords an expression of the limitation in distribution among the phonemes: if x occurs with y but not with z then x is to that extent limited in distribution (limited to occurring with y as against z). The componental indication of this is to say that x has a long component in common with y but not one in common with z (i.e. there is a long component one part of which occurs in x and another part of which occurs in y, but there is no long component shared by x and z). Stating the occurrence of long components is thus equivalent to stating limitations of phonemic distribution; but the long components can be dealt with much more conveniently than the statements about distribu-
tion.
* Long dependent sequences are generally too complicated to be representable by components. I.e. expressing the limitations of distribution of a phoneme in respect to long environments would not in general yield new elements with greater freedom of occurrence. The limitations in respect to long environments are utilized in chapter 12, in setting up morphemes. One case, however, in which long components are established over long stretches is the extraction of contours in chapter 6. There we dealt with the limitation of distribution of, say, high and low toned vowels throughout an utterance, and e.xpressed the limitations by saying that all the vowels in the utterance shared in a single long component (a contour of various heights of tone), each vowel in the utterance bearing its respective portion of the contour. The difference between chapters 10 and 6 is comparable to that between 4.22 and 4.21 in each case, the two different sections apply the same fundamental operation. But just as it would have been difficult to know where to apply the substitution test of 4.22 if we had not first carried it out on repetitions of an utterance in 4.21 (see chapter 4, fn. 8), so we would have been lost trying
:

and
the
will express
127
them by long components extending over the length of dependence (phoneme and environment). Since these long compoit,
nents express the dependence, they themselves will not be subject to

as will be seen below. In this
strictions
way we
is
will at
one time express the
re-
and also obtain elements which are themselves

to note
is
less restricted.^
The
basic technique, then,

i.e.
what sequences
it
of
phonemes
do not occur,
in certain
how each phoneme

If
restricted so that
does not occur
environments. These non-occurring sequences are matched
with sequences that do occur.
phoneme
is
X occurs with
occur),
Y {XY
occurs),
is
but does not occur with

restriction
{XU.does not
we say that
there
on
is
(its
distribution
limited so as not to include /
U/),
and that
limited
partially dependent
of
number
environments
is
in
upon Y (since / Y/ is one of the which X occurs). It is this partial
dependence which
expressed by long components.
is as follows: Suppose we have, say, four phoW, U, which are such that the sequence XF occurs, and the sequence \VU occurs, but the sequence XU does not occur. Then we
The
general operation
}',
nemes, X,
exti-act
from the sequence XI' (or from X and Y separately) a single long component a which is common to both X"^ and Y. We now say that
WU
does not contain this component, and that the sequence

of the
XY
a
is
consists
sequence
WU plus the component

XY,
i.e.
a.
The component
defined
as spreading over the sequence
as
having a length not of one
unit segment but of two,
and
it is
this definition that expresses the limiit is
tation of distribution of the to say that
phoneme. For
now no
longer necessary
XU does
not occur:
contains
a,
and a extends over two
to decide how to break down our original segments. The extraction of long (contour) components from whole utterances, which was relatively easy, enabled us to group our segment-remnants into relatively few phonemes. And the limitation of distribution of these phonemes shows us how to e.xtract smaller long components which will escape these limitations.
' Determining what are the independent successions of phonemes is similar to the operation of chapter 6, but the different conditions here lead to different methods of application. Since the contours of 6 were dependent sequences over whole utterances, the number of successive .segments was usually too great to make a detailed check of all dependences among the segments; instead, we sought those components for which only a very few sequences occurred, and by experience turned primarily to tone components. In the present case, we have no such guide as the preponderance of tone and stress among utterance contours: almost any feature may occur in short dependent sequences. On the other hand, the sequences over which we seek dependence are conveniently short: two phonemes, three, and the like.
12S
phoneme
following
a (which
A',
unit lonpths; therefore a extends over the
and
if
r
as
follows .Y
}').
we obtain
not a simjile C, but
U+
we
define
if
The
If
length of the long component a

is
may become
clearer
its
the
component
and and
symbolized instead by a bar

occurs
extending over
length.*
XY
E.g. since /sp/ occurs in English
AT does not
occur
and /sb/ does not occur and /zb/ occurs,
WU occurs,
= WU,
u.
is
we
define A'l'
we
define /sp/
X^W,
y =
The long component
In terms of articulation,
/s/
= /zb/, = /z/, /p/ ^ /b/.

WU.
and
defined as the difference between XI' and

that the difference between /sp
we may say
/zb /
10.3.
is
one
of
the voicelessness or fortisness.'
Properties of
Components
in Various
10.31. Various
Lengths
Environments
The number
of unit lengths
over which a component extends

if
may vary
successive
in different environments. E.g.
English
will
extends over
all
consonants (up to
say,
# or vowel),
in
it
occur over one consonant in /zey/
and over two
zdey/
stay.^"
* For a somewhat different approach if phoneme U does not occur in environment A" (e.g. /h/ does not occur after s ), we select a phoneme )' in whose which does occur there (e.g. p, as in spin), and a phoneme environment U does occur (e.g. /z' in asbestos). Then we say that the sequence XY ( sp ') contains a long component which stretches over two zb, ) does not contain ( sp/ contains unit-lengths, and which ( voicelessness or fortisness, lacking in zb ). We can also say that when this component is exiracted from A'}', the residue is WU: when we add zb we get the voicelessness component (which we mark with ) to /sp/, i.e. /zb/ = /sp/.
:
WU
of 10.2 thus enables us to select the feature of speech di.stributionally relevant in the distinction between p and /h/: it is that feature which we can say is also represented in the distinction between /s/ and /z/. That feature would be voicelessness or fortisness
^
The operation
is
which
rather than aspiration, thus supporting our assignment of the unaspirated [p] segment which occurs after /s/ to /p/ rather than to /b/.
^"
When
A'}'
= WU,
if
X also occurs by
XZ
itself,
we may say
that A'
that the bar component extends over the next unit length but without effect since there is no segment there. In many cases A' also occurs in the environment of segments which we do not wish to analyze as occurs where we do not wish to analyze Z being dependent on A", i.e. as equalling some other phoneme V plus the bar component. This may be the case when there is no V to spare (such that A']' does not occur) or when there is no convenient distributional connection between Z and
W and

10.32. Various Definitions over
129
Various Segments
The
speech-feature definition of a component

its
may
vary over different

it is
parts of
length. E.g.
if
extends over
all
successive consonants,
defined as representing voicelessness only over
what we may
call
1,
stops
and spirants.
\v,
When
if
it
extends over a cluster which includes

(i.e.
/r,
m,
n,
y/,
it is
defined as indicating zero
those phonemes:
we
write /zdrey/ for
no phonemic difference) over stray and /drey,' for dmy, we
have /r/ = /r/ whereas /d/ does not equal /d/."

If
a language has consonant or vowel clusters of fixed length, a long
component could indicate the limits of the cluster by extending over it, and having in the last unit-segment of the cluster the definition of 'cluster end.''^
the proposed V. E.g. /s/ (our X) occurs next to all the vowels (our Z); but there are no phonemes which don't occur with /s/ and which we could
identify as vowels
because
etc.
all
minus the component (there is no V such that 1' = Z), the phonemes which don't occur next to /s/ have already
been matched up with consonants that occur next to /s/:/p/ = /b/, In such cases we say either that the bar component stops when it gets to Z, so that XZ = WZ (without the bar extending over), or else that the bar has zero effect over Z, so that Z = Z and XZ = WZ. It may be noted here that the environment of a component is not only the phonemes or components next to it, but also the components (or segmental remnants) with which it is simultaneous. " In this case, /r/ indicates different particular segment members of the /r/ phoneme, since the members of /r/ which occur immediately before or after voiceless consonants (and which would therefore have extending over them) are devoiced toward their end or beginning. the If components are extracted directly from the various segments, without going through a prior complete grouping into phonemes, the partial dewhen it is over [r]. In general, it is voicing would be the definition of
not essential that the speech-feature representations of a long component be identical in all portions of its length. It is essential only that the speech feature represented in one portion be limited in its occurrence to the occurrence of the sp>eech feature represented in the next portion of the component. It is, of course, easier to recognize this limitation when the features in question are identical, i.e. when the long component records the presence of an observed speech feature such as voicelessness throughout its length.
fact that English has morpheme-medial (ilusters like /rtr/ (parbut never like /trt/, could bo expressetl by saying that all l*]nglish consonants contain a long component which extends over all successive consonants (within a morpheme), and which is defined to indicate 'vowel' when it is preceded by any continuant which is in turn preceded by a stop. I.e. any unit segment over which this component extends, and
'^
The
tridge)
130
10.33.
STRUCTrRAL LINCJUISTICS
Extension of a i.ornpoitent
succession of unit segments over which a comjxment
calleil its
is
The
defined
may be
extension (or domain, or scope).
Navaho word
's.
Long components may extend from one juncture to another. Thus if a ha.^ any of the phonemes /, i, t, 3, 6'/ it will have none of
z, c,
3, c',
'it
and vice versa: zas 'snow',

in
5."2 'joint',
"^
31-ca h 'he
is
big',
''ai-d'a"h
has fallen
the
fire'.
We extract
as a
component extendon
ing over
all
the phonemes between any two word junctures, and de-
fined as indicating tongue blade approach (to the alveolar ridge)

/s, z, c, 3, c'/
and zero on
all
other phonemes.
Then we have '#zas#/,

is
/#sa-zv#',
It is of
#3i-cah#/, ,'#'?az-c'^"hv#/."
if
course convenient
the extension of a component
from one
juncture to another, for the statement of the boundaries of the com-
ponent
is
then simpler.'*
which is preceded by stop + continuant, can only indicate some vowel. Such a component, included in all the segments of the morpheme, would admit consonantal indication to the segment which follows the /r of curtain, or those which follow the t/ of ostrich or of partridge (the latter two are preceded by continuant + stop). But it would require the .segment which follows the tr of mattress to indicate a vowel; hence the sequence /tr/ + consonant will not occur. '^ See Harry Hoijer, Xavaho Phonology 11-4 (University of New Me.xico Publications in Anthropology 1945). The domain of the component #ca''aszi"'*#bi70sigi'-'44^/ 'a is only within word boundary; compare yucca, whose spines where the affects the s of the second word, but not the phonemes of the first word (for the form, see Edward Sapir, Navaho Tex-ts, edited by Harry Hoijer 46 (1942)). E.xtracting the eliminates some morphophonemic statements, since we have members of the same morpheme appearing with and without depending on the presence of elsewhere in the word: dez-ba'' 'he has started off to war'; dez-'^ki 'they have started off.' We write #dez-ba"'# and #dez-'â'z^#,
"^
.
.'
'^
'''
"^
'^
considerations give the preference for place of writing the mark, since although the extends over the whole word, it is a phoneme of the last morpheme in the word which contains any of /s, z, c, 3, c'/. (I.e. the phonemes of this set which occur earlier in the word assimilate to the "' or lack of "^ of the last morpheme in the word.)
'"
The morphophonemic
'^
^* A similar case occurs in Moroccan Arabic, where a word containing /s/ or /z will not have /s/ or z within it, and vice versa. We extract ^ as a component extending over all the phonemes between any two word junctures, and defined as indicating tongue-curving on /s, z/ and zero on #^suf# all other phonemes. Then we have /# iams#, 'yesterday', for the previous phonemic suf/ 'see', ^t'^ssr'zam^/ for our previous /r'J8m/ 'the window', #''sft#''ssr'z9m#iams#/ for phonetic [saft assar'iam iams] 'I saw the window yesterday'. Since the component is set up to express a limitation in phonemic distribution, and since it is
,

10.4.
131
Complementary Long Components Various long components may be found to be complementary to each other, and may then be grouped into one long component in a manner analogous to the Appendix to 6.5 and to 7.3.
This
is
involved in the very frequent cases of a component which
is
present in a whole class of substitutable phonemes.
Thus one component

is
was extracted from the /sp/
of spill, etc.
(where there
no /sb/); an-
other component was independently extracted from the /st/ of still, etc.; and a third from the /sk/ of skill, etc. The environments of these three components (in this case, the segmental remnant occupying their
second unit length) are complementary.
It
is
therefore possible to group
the three components into one component element (indicated by a bar),
marking that element by an

/st/
identical bar in all the cases: /sp/
/zb/,
/"zd/;
/sk/
/zi/.'^
A
if
slightly less trivial grouping of
complementary components
This
possible because
is
seen
we
extract from
English clusters (primarily in morpheme-medial

of voicelessness.
is
position) a
component
mixed
voiced-and-voiceless clusters (of consonants which have voiced-voiceless
homo-organic pairs) do not occur here: we have /bd/

possible to analyze /pt/ as /bd/. This
in
hebdomadal and
is
/pt/ in apt, but no /bt/ or /pd/ within a morpheme. It
therefore
component
etc.,
is
complementary to
the one which differentiates /sp/ from /zb/,
and
may
therefore be
grouped with
of
it.
We
thus obtain a voicelessness component the domain
is all consonant clusters which do not cross morpheme boundaiy. Any English component which extends only over vowels, or over consonant clusters which do not contain consonants which are members of
which
the voiced-voiceless homo-organic pairs, or over clusters which always

cross
morpheme boundary, would be complementary to the voicelessness component and could be grouped with it, and marked by the same bar.
defined to extend over the whole succession of phonemes any of which are involved in this limitation, it follows that the occurrence of a component in one domain is independent of its occurrence in any other domain. Thus /#'^sft#^ssr'zam#iams#/ contains three successive domains of ^. In the first two domains "^ occurred, and was independently noted in the third it did not.
;
advisable to establish the identity of the three original comway, even though they all have the same speech-feature definition, because we cannot test the substitutability of these components after the manner of 4.22 since these components are only features of segments, not whole segments.
'^
It is
ponents
in this
132
10.5.
Koducing
Vi'hole
of
Phonemic Stocks into Components

its
Given the stock
phonemes, each with
limitations of occurrence,
we can proceed to extract the long components by asking what sequences of phonemes which occur can be matched with
for a particiihir language,
non-occurring sequences.'*
From each such
occurring sequence, or from
each of the more general tyjies (where a whole series of occurring se-
quences),
matched with a corresponding series of non-occurring seextract a long component. The phonemes from which the component has been extracted have thereby lost part of their speechfeature definition; and two phonemes which were previously differentiated only by this feature are now identical. If we originally had four phonemes /s, p, z, b/, and if we extracted the voicelessness component
quences
is
we
from the sequence /sp/ (and from /s/ and /p/ when they occur without we no longer have four elements each other''), so that /sp/ = /zb
,
but three:
/z, b,
/.
The number of post-extraction phonemic elements, i.e. components and segmental remnants (which may be termed residues) is thus smaller than the number of original phonemes. When we have expressed by means of components the restrictions
upon distribution
of all the
phonemes
of a language,
we may
find that all
'* We may approach the problem by asking what speech features (or sequences of speech features) are such that if they occur over one phoneme (in a particular position) they will always occur over its neighbor, too (or over some farther-removed phoneme). E.g. in English consonant clusters within a morpheme, if one component is voiceless so will the others be (not counting those which have no voiceless counterpart); but if one of them is a stop the others will not necessarily be so (there is /pt/ in apt, but /ft/ in after). Therefore, voicelessness will be representable by a long component, while the stop feature will not. In seeking which limitations of distribution may best be expressed by components, it is often convenient to begin with the more obvious limitations of clustering, vowel harmony, and the like. Useful signposts may be found in relations between the morphemic alternants of chapters 13 and 14, such as are included under the terms morphophonemics, assimilation,
and dissimilation. " One of the major difficulties in deciding whether to extract a component is the requirement that if we extract a component from the sequence /XV/ by saying that it equals /WU/, we must e.xtract it from /X/ and from /!'/ even when they are not in this sequence. I.e., we must always replace /X/ by /IF/ and /!'/ by /U/. We can do this with the aid of such techniques as are mentioned in 10.31-2 and fn. 10 above; but it will often be hard to decide how much is gained or lost from writing /X/ as /W/ even when it occurs alone.

or
133
to components,
most
of the
phonemes have been reduced completely

phoneme. English /s/
'.
each component representing one or more of the distributional characteristics of the
plus residue /z
Rather, /s/
various long components,
may no longer be component may be a simultaneous combination of and /z/ may be another combination; with /s/
in that /s/ contains the voice-
and /z/
lessness
differing from each other at least component while /z/ does not.'*
In
many
cases
it
may
be impossible to express
of
all
the restrictions in
terms of components.
a
Some
them may
conflict
with each other in such
way
that componental treatment of one precludes the other. In this
case a
number
of special statements
would have to be made about the

(or
restrictions
on certain phonemes or residues
combinations of com-
ponents) which remain after the components have been extracted.

10.6.
Result:
Components of Various Lengths

a group of
We now have
new elements, long components formed from

of
the phonemes on the basis of their restrictions. These elements represent

features of speech,
and have the length
more than one unit segment,

com-
but not necessarily of a whole utterance. Combinations of components

])Ius their
residues, or unit-length sections of combinations of these
ponents alone, equal our previous phonemes.'^
single
eliminates /p,
component often supplants several phonemes. E.g. the use of t, k, f, 6, s, s/, since /s/ = /z/, etc. Each component
it
eliminates at least one phonemic restriction, since
is
on that basis
that the components are set up. E.g. the wTiting /zbin/ for spin and
/sez'bezdaz/ for asbestos eliminates the need for the statement that /b/
does not occur after /s/: there with
is
now no
/s,
p/; and /z, b/ occur freely,

of course, lies in
free to occur or not occur over

if
"
them. The gain,
the fact that

(of
occurs at
all it
must occur over the whole sequence
one or more consonants). The new requirement of having to state the
length of a component (not only in

of explicit
tions.
number
of unit lengths
but in terms
or restric-
domain)
is
the cost of eliminating the
phonemes
it
The
'**
usefulness of componental analysis
is
not that
yields a new,
and
For the reduction to components of the consonant stock of a language, see the Appendix to 10.5. '^ I.e. particular combinations of component-marks (in stated environments) identify particular phonemes, and the components are given such speech-feature definition as will make the coincidence of their representations equal the speech-feature definition of the particular phoneme which
they identify.
134
of indicating
more complicated, method

combination
of
each phoneme (as a particular

it
components), but rather that
yields a
system
of
base
elements in terms of which the distribution of descriptively distinct
sound features can most simply be

the analysis
is
identified.
The
test of usefulness of
that phonologic statements about utterances should be
much
simpler
is
when couched
in
componental terms than
in
phonemic
set up.
terms. This
possible because of the
way components have been
The components
of
replace not only the
defined.
in
phonemic dLstribution. The phonemes had been defined to represent particular segments particular environments, the relation of segment to environment being
phonemes but also the limitations They do so by the manner in which they are
always the same: the occupancy of a unit length within a succession of unit lengths. In contrast, the long components are also defined to represent particular residues or
components
in particular
is
environments, but
in all cases:
the relation of element to environment the element
no longer the same
may
be any number
of
of unit lengths,
and
it
occurs simul-
taneously as well as sequentially in respect to other elements. In this
way, the definition
each component expresses the distributional rela-
tion of one element to the environmental elements,
which
is
thus elimi-
nated from further discussion.
Components
are therefore useful primarily
when they
full
are fully defined
as to their various lengths
and domains
in various
environments, and
of all ab-
when utterances
written componentally take
advantage
breviations permitted
by the component definitions, rather than spell out the successive phonemes in componental representation. For exis defined as a cluster-long devoicing component, we do not ample, if
have to specify its length in each environment, since the length is determined by the environment: if it is more convenient, we can as readily
write /sez'be
zda
z/ as y'sez'bezdaz/ for asbestos.^
^^ Components can also be so set up as to make phonemically different alternants of one morpheme turn out to be componentally identical. When written componentally, then, the morpheme does not have different alternants, and a morphophonemic statement is thus avoided. An example of this is seen in fn. 13 above, where the basis for identical componental writings is the fact that a component of one morpheme is so defined as to extend over another morpheme which itself does not contain the component. (The domain of the Navaho "^ is the word, and since de'z has the alternant de'i only when the last morpheme of its word conin de'^ unmarked, thus tains V, it is possible to leave the occurrence of writing it identically with de'z). For somewhat different cases, see Z. S. Harris, op. cit. in fn. 4 above, pp. 195-6.
"^

Appendix to 10.2: Phonemic Status of Long Components The methods of chapter 10 show that the long components, like
relatively to each other.
135
the pho-
nemes, are determined not on the basis of any absolute considerations, but
elements, but as symbols for relations
nemes are symbols
of
The components may indeed be viewed not as new among phonemes, much as phorelations among segments. When we supplant the
stock of phonemes of a language by a smaller stock of long components,
we have
in effect
broken down the distributional interrelations (mutual
restrictions) of each
phoneme
into partial restrictions (in respect to parof
ticular other
phonemes) which are independent
each other and the
sum
of
which constitutes the
total limitations of occurrence of that
phoneme (in respect to all other phonemes).^' The original grouping of segments into phonemes was designed to express the contrasts among the segments. Distinct phonemes were to represent contrasting segments. However, we often find that there are
fewer contrasts in one position than in another: /p/ contrasts with /b/ after but not after /s/ (pin, bin, spin). This is the source of the re-
strictions
upon phoneme distribution. It is therefore a step forward to phonemes in such a way that /A/ is distinct from /B/ only in the environments where [A] and [B] contrast. This was done, for example, in the Appendix to chapters 7-9, section 2.6 (paragraph before last), where /y/ was redefined as /i/, and was thus distinguished from /i/ only in those positions where [y] and [i] contrast (these being the only
redefine
positions where /'/
was
defined).
Such
redefinitions are readily obtained
by means
low);
of
components: Swahili /d/ and /r/ are distinguished compo(fn. 27,
nentally only in those positions in which they contrast
29 be-
Navaho /z/
setting
is
not distinguished from /i/ in the same word (10.33);
/p/
is
not distinguished from /b/ after /s/ (10.2).
The
If
up
of long
components
is
equivalent to making distribu-
tional analyses of sequences of segments, rather
than of single segments.

5,
unit length
had not been determined
in
chapter
and
if
we had been
willing to deal with
any segments
considered restrictions of
any length, we might then have succession among these segments, and have arof
series
rived at long components supplanting the varied original segments. This
would have been a
far
more complicated task than following the
of intervening procedures presented here.

^' Just as the phonemes of a language could be described as marking the independent distinctions among utterances (4.31), so the long components of a language can be described as marking the independent restrictions among these phonemes.
ir?0
>\
hen
all
the
phonemes
of a
language have been expressed as combi-
nations of components, the components constitute a distributionally preferred set of

d,
b.'isic
elements for linguistic description. Defining
/z, b, ele-
/ (or a reduction of these residues to

/z, b, d, s, p, t/
components) as the new

for a simpler spelling of
of /sesp/
ments, in the place of

like asp
makes
forms
and
asbestos:
/aezb/
and /sezbezdaz/ instead
and
the
/sezbestas/.
The components
differ
from the phonemes
(or residues)
both
of
in
variety of their lengths and in the fact that various
occur over any one unit length. In ^vîting
them may utterances by means of phonumbers
nemes, or
of
in discussing the distribution of

it
phonemes, only the sequence
phonemes mattered:
followed from the definition that every pho-
neme occupied only one unit length and that in each unit length only one phoneme occurred. In the case of components, there is a choice of methods of combining (e.g. that every unit length shall have not more than 4 components over it). If we state that in a given language all combinations of the components occur, we must specify within which method
of
combining
this holds.
Appendix to
10.5:
of
Component
how
Analysis of Swahili
As an example
sider the
the whole phonemic stock of a language

of less restricted
may
be supplanted by a smaller stock
components, we con-
phonemes
of Swahili as obtained in 2.8 of the

is
The
representation below
only one of
many
possible
Appendix to 7-9. ways of analyzing
the phonemes into components. '^^
The list of phonemes given there contains 25 segmental phonemes (5 of them vowels, and 5 of the consonants being restricted to words of Arabic
origin),
1
juncture, and 6 suprasegmental phonemes. are the result of extracting tone and
The suprasegmental phonemes

stress features
from
all
the segmental phonemes (in particular, from the
vowels), and consonant features from two of the vowels in certain positions.
The major
privileges of occurrence of the segmental
All consonants occur in
/#
phonemes
are:
/,
/V
/V/.
/,
"^^ The particular distribution and number of Swahili consonants (excluding most of the Arabic ones) makes a complete componental analysis clearer and easier than in many other languages. In the following analysis, geometrical marks are used instead of alphabetic or numerical marks, not out of any attempt at a 'visible speech' writing but only in order to show the varying lengths of our components, indicated by lengthening the geometrical marks.

All except /0,
(5,
137
t, '/
1,
occur in
/m
in
ft, d, k, g, s, z, /t, d, k, /t, k, 1/
r,
n/ occur
/n
/. /.
g/ occur in /r
occur in /s
/.
/.
Iz,
Unique
fr,
clusters (in single Arabic words): /sh', Ig,
Im,
Ih', fs, ft,
bd, bl/.
All vowels occur in
/#
and
is
/,
/C-/,
/V /, / #/, / C/, / V/.

we
first
The major
nemes
is
limitation in the freedom of occurrence of segmental phoclustering.'-^^
in
consonant
Therefore,
seek a representa-
tion for the consonants
their limitations of distribution.

first
Of the 20
consonant phonemes,
the two
(t, ')
it
convenient to omit from
consideration
which are probably restricted to the relatively few speakers

Arabic. Of the remaining 18,
all
who know some

occur after /m/.
as second
but two, /6/ and /S/,

16. All of these^''
We
consider
first
the remaining
occur
first
members of a members, hence we may

on what consonant
/m,
n,
r,
cluster,
but only 4 of them occur also as
best consider the clusters in groups depending

first
is
the
s/ as
first
members
types we will want to
member. There are four such groups, with respectively. For each of these 4 cluster have a long component (or a combination of long
over the whole cluster. Since there are so
components) which
few
first
will e.xtend
members, we can have these 4 consonants marked by the long components alone, without residue,^^ while the consonant which follows
them
in
the cluster
is
components) which indicates the

residue.
vSince
marked by the component (or combination of first member, plus a differentiating

all
/m/
occurs before
all of
16 consonants,
it
should have a component
in
common
with
them. However, we want the components not only

16 consonants could not
to express the clusters which occur, but also to differentiate the pho-
nemes.
component which occurred over
all
serve to differentiate one from the other. Therefore,
we mark /m/ by
the component zero,^^ defined to extend over the whole consonant clus-
" E.g. there is no limitation in /* V/, where every C occurs; but there is great limitation in /* C/, where only four consonants occur.
The only phoneme restricted to Arabic words which remains in group is /-y / This does not mean that each of these four will be marked by a different single component. Some of them can be marked by special combinations of the components which singly mark the others. Writing this zero component by a space between letters will not conflict with the space usually printed between words, for in the present
^'
this
'^^
^^
138
tor:
componeutal /V V/ represents /VmV/, and componcntal /V
CV/
represents
/VmCV/.
we
represent
Since /n/ occurs before about half of the IG consonants,
/n/ by just one component, and say that that component extends over
it occurs: /V V/ represents /VnV/, and VnCV/- This bar component can eliminate 8 of the 16 consonants, since we can differentiate half of the 10 from the other half by use of it: e.g. we can write /p/ instead of /k/ Since 8 phonemically different consonants occur after /n/,^'' we match these 8 (which
the whole cluster in which
CV
'
represents
include /n/) against the other
8,
and say that the 8 which occur
after
/n/ include the bar component plus a residue; the 8 residues can be
simply the 8 phonemes which do not occur after /n/. Then /n,
d,
t,
s, z, 1,
g,
k/
will all
contain the bar component. Following 10.2
we
write
/nk/
we
/l)/; since np does not occur and /'mp/ occurs, and since are writing /m/ componentally as zero, this is equivalent to saying
that /nk/
= /mp/ +
the bar component. Similarly

is
/VnnV/ = /V
V/.
no distinction between /p/ and /k/, or between /m/ and /n/, when these occur after /n/; since /p/ and /k/,
In componental terms there
or
/m/ and
/n/, are
now
identical except for the bar,

is
and the bar
is
necessarily present in the position after /n/. This
as
it
should be, since
/p/ and /k/ did not contrast, nor did /m/ and Jn/, in the environment
/n-/.
Swahili analysis the phonemic juncture between words is marked not by space but by \. It maj' seem peculiar to use space not for word boundary but for a sound. However, our marks are phonemic, not phonetic, and are therefore selected so as to express phonemic relations. In Swahili, it is /m/ that has least environmental limitations (and is marked by zero), whereas word boundary has greater restrictions.
^^ A problem arises here since /n/ occurs before 9 phonemes. However, happens that /nr/ occurs only initially and never in our material before /o/, while /nd/ occurs chiefly medially, with its only initial occurrence in our material being before /o/. If this difference is not erased by later material, therefore, /nd/ and /nr/ do not contrast. In phonemic writing it is convenient to distinguish them, since /d/ and /r/ contrast otherwise. However, the analysis into components is designed to show exactly what sequences occur, so that it is permissible to identify /nd/ and /nr/ in this analysis, and thereby reduce the number of phonemes after /n/ to the desired 8. This reduction is supported by the considerable similarity between /nd/, representing the segments [nd] and [nd'], and /nr/ which represents [n'^r]. We thus have /V d/ = /Vnd/ = [Vnd];/# do/ = /#ndo/ = [#nd'o]; /#-de/ = /#nre/ = [ttn-^re]. it
139
We
next consider clusters of /r/ plus consonant, /r/ occurs before

all of
4 consonants,
which also occur after /n/.
We therefore
write prethis
consonantal /r/ as a combination of 2 components
and say that
combination extends over the whole

follow /r/,
cluster.^*
Then
/t, d, k, g/,
which
must
also contain this combination. Since /d/ does not occur
before any other consonant, and since
ponental writing to /nd/ and /nr/,
we have given the same comwe can write /d/ as and say that
part of a cluster they represent /r/,
If
when
these comjjonents are the
first
and when they occur before a vowel they represent /A/ P

sented by the component / and /g/ by /,
/v/
is
repre-
we say that
^ followed
by
^^
"^^
But
"
when not accompanied by
does not extend.
In keeping with the 10.2, /r/ should contain any component which is common to all the consonants that follow it. One of these components since each consonant which occurs after /r/ also occurs after /n/. is Since the bar component differentiates the 8 post-/n/ consonants from the 8 non-post-/n/ ones, and since cluster-initial (pre-consonantal) /r/ has to contain this component, then pre-consonantal /r/ should be identified with one of the post-/n/ consonants. But /r/ is not listed as one of the phonemes which occur after /n/, since /nr/ has been componentally identified in fn. 27 with /nd/; i.e. /r/ after /n/ has been written /d/. We now see that the /r/ which occurs as first member of a cluster must also be componentally equated to the /r/ = /d/ which occurs after /n/. This is possible because /r/ and /d/ contrast neither after /n/ nor before consonant. However, /r/ and /d/ do contrast after vowel or or /m/, and in that position they must be written differently from each other. Therefore, we cannot write /r/ in /# / with the /, /V /, /m sign used for /r/ and for /d/ in /n /, / C/. All this is only an apparent confusion, due to the fact that in this case the components require a different grouping of segments than did the phonemes. The grouping of [r]
,
and
[d]
segments directly into components

[d]
is
relatively simple. If
we
write/-^/ for
in
/# /, /V V/, /m
/,
and /"/
for
[r]
in these
/n/ or after itself); for [d"'] in /# -of; for [''r] in -V'/ (V = vowels other than /of). Thus / / represents segments which had been grouped into the /r/ phoneme; while /'^/ represents segments which had been grouped some in the /r/ phoneme and some in the /d/ phoneme, but which were complementary in distribution. Phonemically, /r/ = /d/ after /n/ or before (-, while it equals /r/ in other positions. This partial overlapping in phonemics would have led to morphophonemic statements, since prefix n- plus -refu 'friend' would have had to be written /ndefu/ (pronounced n''refu). But no morphophonemic statement is required by our new writing, since followed =^^^=^^ by " would in any case be e. /nr/ and /nd/ are identical.
/
(i.e.
~~
same environments (where the two segments contrast), and if we define the component combination /"/ as extending over a whole consonant cluster, we may then write this same /"/ for the following segments in the following environments (in none of which it contrasts with the previously defined /~/): for [r] in /V CV/; for [d] in / ,
/#
after
140
either
or = /rg \ so that /rv/, which does not is in either case occur, cannot be written.'" -^ followed by zero is ^"^^, i.e. /rd/."
'^
/s/ occurs before 3 consonants,
all
of
which also occur after
/n,'.
We
k/.
write /s
ivs
tlic
ctmibination
^
,
which extends over the whole
cluster,
/I, t,
and
If
wlucli
V,
is
,
must also be contained in the component writing for
and
/I/
is
case yield the sequence

in
/ then " followed by / or / will / = /si/, so that a distinct /sv/ can

~
in
either
not occur
component
writing. Since
before zero yields
which should
define the two-unit
indicate the non-occurring sequence /ss/,
we may
.
to indicate the sequence /sh'/ which occurs in a single morpheme.'^
We now
cluster,
have three components,

~"
"~,
extends over the whole
and so do
all
and
'
indicate
the limitations
when they occur with it. These suffice to upon consonant clusters," but they do not
phonemes,
if
suffice to difTerentiate all the 16
each component
is
to oc-
cur not more than once over any unit length.
each include the components -^
and /k/ must because they each occur after ^, ~.

/t
,
Thus
it
One
of
them must have a
residue to distinguish
from the other. Simi,
larly,
but one
=, /d/ and /g/ must each include ^, since each occurs after of these two must have a residue to distinguish it from the other.
/t,
Since the residue distinguishing
k/
is
complementary to that
dis-
tinguishing /d, g/ (the former occurs with ~- and the latter with ~),
we may use one mark
for
both residues. One unit-length residue, together
'"Because of the extension

p?
of
_|_ / = Hence, /rv in components is 1^^ I ig identical with /rg/ and the distinction between the two (which does not exist, since /rv/ does not occur) cannot be made componentally. " I.e. /rd/ = /nn/ -|- '~ '; or mm/ -|- //. Clusters like /rn or /rm/ which do not occur cannot be written.
~-p;^
g^^j
"over
a whole cluster, /rg/
is~
'
one of the phonemes e.xcluded from the selected 16. Iz, Ig, Im/ occur once each in the material on which this analysis is based. If it was found desirable to include them, we could define the combination /, which is necessarily the representation for /I/, as extending over a whole cluster (i.e. ; would extend over a cluster, -|- zero would yield the but only when it occurs with ~). Then
''^
/'/
is
" The
clusters
two-unit length
/li/),
'^
~~
(which could be defined to represent /Im/ instead of
and
/+
would yield
Ik/).
Jp
(which could be defined to repreof these
sent/lg/ instead of
sible, since
No
other distinct combinations would be pos-
two:
e.g.
/ plus anything else / + 7 would merely

'
would equal one or the other

yield
^^
over again. Therefore, /Iz/
could be taken instead of /sx '^^ noted above.
as the definition of the two-unit-length

with the three long components,
sonants.
will suffice to differentiate all 16
141
con-
We
neme
can represent
all
16 as different combinations of these four eleor not at all over each unit length)
will
:
ments (each occurring once

will
one pho-
be zero (no component), 4 phonemes

will
be one different com-
ponent each, 6 phonemes
be composed of different combinations of
2 components, 4 phonemes will consist of 3 components each, and one
phoneme phoneme
will consist of all four
components together. This means that

will represent
whatever combination
for
of
components we can make

like /t,
some
one
each unit length.
Starting with
phonemes
k/ whose components (except
for
differentiating residue) are determined

enter,
by the
,
clusters into
which they
and ending with phonemes
like /v,
,
b/ to which we can assign any
combination which does not include

after these),
(since /v,
b/ do not occur
we can
identify the
phonemes
as follows:^''
142
oomponeiils.
ing /
They would be
differentiated
from
tfie
vowels by contain\.
and from the post-/m/ consonants by containing

can
We
now make
a general statement about the sequences of pho-
nemes, or rather
of comliinations of comj)()nents,
which occur
in Swahili.
Before or after a combination which has been defined as not extending
beyond
its
unit length^*^ there occurs only a
combination which does ex-
}'' tend (including zero), or a combination which includes \ and not j Before a combination (including zero) which has been defined as ex-
tending, there always occurs a combination including \ and not I }^ All other sequences occur. Furthermore, except for some consonantal com-
binations of \ which do not occur,
we have
all
all
combinations of com-
ponents. With these limitations, therefore,

tions of the 4
all combinacomponents occur. This means that after a juncture or a vowel we may have another juncture or vowel, or any consonant. If the
sequences of
consonant
is
zero, or
any extending combination, any other consonantal
combination or a vowel
may
occur after
it.
If
the consonant
after
it.'^
is
other than
an extending combination, only a vowel occurs
Since these components identify phonemes, they represent features of
speech and can be identified with articulatory movements or with features of sound waves. Their simultaneous combinations would be identi-
^^ Extension over a cluster combination not including \.
will
now be
defined as extension over any
" Except for the unique clusters of /I, f, b/ C, which occur each in only one morpheme. These may not occur among most Swahili speakers. It is possible to include the IC clusters in this system by using the method of fn. 33 or otherwise, but this was considered undesirable since they are on a par with the other unique clusters, which have not been included in this system.
a vowel. Even this last limitation upon the random occurrence sequences can be eliminated by various devices. We could add to all phonemes a component which would have consonantal value in the positions where consonants occur and vocalic value otherwise. Or we could symbolize the components by numbers rather than geometrical marks, and define the values of the numbers in such a way that no sequence of consonants could contain more than the one non-extending combination.
'*
I.e.
of all
^^ It is noteworthy that zero (written as space), the absence of all components, indicates not juncture but /m/. Juncture is quite free in respect to what follows it (C, CC, or V), but is highly restricted in respect to what precedes it (only the 5 V phonemes), /m/ is followed by every phoneme except juncture (and most of the Arabic consonants); it is preceded by V, m, or juncture. Had juncture been assigned the simplest mark (space), that mark could not be used to express restrictions of postvocalic (i.e. word-medial) clusters.

fied
143
of the
with the total articulatory
movement
or
sound waves
phoneme
all
they represent. In particular:

"
"
indicates unvoicing, except

"
;
voiced segments contain
when alone or with / when alone indicates voiced

'
or \;
un-
velar spirant
with
y
"^
it
indicates lateral; with \
it
indicates non-front position.
Zero indicates labial nasal. with

"^
it
indicates in general retraction in
indicates palatal, otherwise dental position.
mouth: With \ and not / it

it
indicates far front or far back position.
indicates
mouth
closure, except that
when alone
indicates the
special closure of a flap,

ing.
and with
'"
it
indicates
maximum mouth
open-
With \
it
indicates the least open position with which \ con-elates.
/ indicates front position, except as retracted
by other components.
\.
\ indicates considerable
mouth opening, except when with
Appendix to
10.1-4:
Unit-Length Components; Tone Phonemes

possible to break each
Quite independently of the setting up of long components as a

set of less restricted elements,
it is
new phoneme or
segment into unit-length components. Such analysis results not fromthe purpose stated in 10.1 but from other and only indirectly related considerations.
One
of these considerations
is
the
compound
character of the sounds
represented by our segments, whether these sounds are observed articulatorily or acoustically. Various organs of the speaker are in
motion
while he pronounces any one sound, and the resulting sound
wave can
It
be described as the resultant of waves of various frequencies.
would
thus be possible to set up elements representing individual movements of

organs involved in speech, or simple waves of various relative frequencies,
and identify the phoneme as a simultaneous combination
of these ele-
ments.*" Furthermore, such elements could be so defined that each pho-
neme should not be composed

sist of
of
unique elements, but rather should con-
a different combination of a few out of a limited stock of these ele[v]
ments. Thus, the English sounds represented by
and
is
[z]
normally inabsent in
volve vibration of the speaker's vocal chords, which

[f]
not the case for

is
[f]
and
[s]
[s];
[v]
and
[z] is
have a feature
in
common which
and
and which
noticeable, for instance, in the fact that [v]
and
[zJ
''" Various attempts have been made to represent these several articulatory factors in a speech sound, without regard to phonemic analysis. Cf. for example, the analphabetic system in Otto Jespersen, Lehrbuch der Phonetik.
144
fiin
be lieard
[f]
at
much
greater distances (everything else being equal)
than
or
[s].
Another consideration
of
is
the availability of simultaneity, in addition
to successivity, as a relation
among
linguistic elements.""
is left
The
possibility
having elements occur with each other

6, 10),
open by the previous
procedures (except in chapters
where the operations involve only
the relation of segments being next to each other (in determining inde-
pendence, length, environment,
etc.)-
The
consideration of elements
among which there obtains the

limitation
is all
relation of simultaneity involves
removing
of this
the limitation to one dimension from linguistic analysis.
Removal
the easier in view of the ease of arranging letters on paper
two-dimensionally, and of the ready availability of mathematical ter-
minology for two-dimensional
relations.''^
Identifying each segment as a combination of unit-length components

will
not in general eliminate the limitations of occurrence of the segments.

of
of
However, when the same components are extracted from a group

phonemes, we can reduce the number
different elements
of elements, since
any number
can in general be identified as different combinations

of elements. ^^ In
of a smaller
number
terms of speech features, we could
represent by components such features as
we can
find in various seg-
ments.
In certain situations, the extraction of unit -length components from
segments reduces the number
of distinct
elements so greatly as to have
become a regular practice
in the setting
up
of linguistic elements.
This
has occurred chiefly for features like tone and stress which differ considerably from the other speech features (such as tongue position). ^^
This was investigated explicitly by F. de Saussure in his Cours de linguistique generale, and by the linguists who followed him.
"
*^
For the simplest transfer from one-dimensional to two-dimensional
elements:
if we can identify utterance A as ab (where letters written above and below each other indicate features which are simultaneous
cal in
*^
with each other), and utterance B as cd, we say that A and B are identione set of their simultaneous components, namely xz.
We can take any elements.

of
number
C =
**
as
F=n + o, D = 7n + n, E = And which have come to be regarded as distinct because they appear long components and morphemic contours in many languages.
new elements m,
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and define a smaller such a way that A = m, B = n, 7n-\-o, o, G = 7n-\-n + o.

n, o in

Thus a language may have
and which are
high tone
e,
145
several contrasting vowels,
among which
there are no dependences which can be expressed
by long components,
differentiated in tongue position, tone, length, etc.: e.g.

e, ae, o,
^, o; low tone
or
e, a, d.
Instead of assigning these

difference,
to 6 different phonemes,
resulting in
-4
it is
customary to extract the tone

('),
phonemic elements: high tone

')^^
and toneless
e, ae,
o (low
tone being marked by absence of
We
then consider each segment to

is
be the simultaneous combination of two unit-length elements: e

ten
e,
writ-
while e
is
written
e,
and so
will
on.*
Extraction of this component
under these circumstances

stricted distribution (e.g.
'
not in general yield elements of less re-
on one vowel can not be used to determine
*^
Languages
in
which such independent distributions
of differently
pitched vowels occur are called tone languages; and the phonemic tones which are extracted from the variously pitched vowels are often called tone phonemes or tonemes. For some examples of tone analyses, see Kenneth L. Pike, Tone Languages. Cf. chapter 9, fn. 2 above.
Analysis of tone in this distribution is to be distinguished from that used in other types of distribution. In the present case, the tones occur independently of each other and independently of any other phonemic feature, except for the fact that each tone is restricted to occur with a vowel. The recognition that one segment may be analyzed as containing two elements (cf. also 9.2), therefore merely leads to setting up new componental (suprasegmental) phonemes indicating tone and limited to occurring over vowels. This limitation may be expressed, somewhat after the manner of 10.1-6, by regarding tone as a general vowel indicator, and using marks like e, a only to indicate differences in vowel quality. In a second type of distribution, successive tones (or degrees of stress) are dependent on each other, in that only certain sequences of them occur. (These various sequences may correlate with various morphological constructions or with various meanings.) The independent sequences of such tones or stresses are set up as contours if they occur over whole utterances (including such utterances as single words: cf. chapter 6), and as long components if they occur only over stretches shorter than any utterance. The fact that these tones are also restricted to vowels (if they always are) may not be expressed in the case of a contour, although in the case of a long component the domain of the tone (if it is marked) may be used to indicate the position of vowels (or the vowels may be used to indicate the domain of the long tone component). Finally, there is a third type of distribution, in which the o(;currence of a particular tone or stress depends upon the position of a morphological boundary: e.g. every word end may have a loud stress on the second vowel before it. In this case, the tone or stress is used as the speech feature definition of a juncture, and usually the juncture is marked instead of the tone. (It is not necessary to give the tone any additional mark, if penult vowels before various occurrences of the juncture all have the same tone.)
*'
14(1
STKUCTliRAL LINGUISTICS
tlu'
wht'tluT
next vowol has
'),
but will in
some
cases simplify
morpho-
phoiuMnic statements.^''
The
and
or
extraetion of unit -length components in the rare type of case de-
scribed in 9.21 (where [n] was consitlered as simultaneous /n/ -f /t/),

tiie
extraction of long components from whole utterances (chapter 6)
from shorter stretches (10.1-6), were so designed as to reduce the num-
ber of elements and to reduce the limitations upon their
random
occur-
rence relative to each other. However, the extraction of unit-length com-
ponents which
is
described here would have the effect of reducing the
number
ment or
of elements,
and
of
providing elements which can more con-
veniently represent observed independent features of articulatory moveof
sound waves.
a
V>
Appendix to 10.1-5: Unit-Length Components of nemic Stock

analysis into unit-length components
it is
hole Pho-
Aside from such special cases as a group of tonally different vowels, the
is
of interest to linguists only
when
carried out for
all
the phonemes of a language. Only then can the

set of
components be so selected as to yield the simplest identifying and supplanting the phonemes.
new elements
preliminary to this supplanting of phonemes by a

is
set of unit-length
components
the classification of phonemes by the speech feature repre-
sentations which they have in
common. In
this classification, each
pho-
neme
is
considered as representing a combination of articulatory or

(e.g. /p,
acoustic speech features

position
may
be considered to represent a labial
and a stop articulation), and a given feature is represented by several phonemes (e.g. /f/ may represent labial position with continuant articulation). Such classification becomes of interest to the descriptive linguistic analysis of a particular language only when it is based not on
absolute phonetic categories (such as particular tongue positions, or even
tongue position in general), but on relative categories determined by the

differences
among
the phonemes of that language. ''^
*'' E.g. morphemes beginning with 6, ae, 6 in one environment may have variants beginning with e, ae, o in another; instead of stating this as three changes (e to e, etc.) we state it as one (' to zero).
most traditional grammars into and the like is usually based largely on traditionally accepted absolute categories. Nikolai Trubetzkoy and several other linguists of the Prague Circle paid much greater attention to the relative differences as determined by the phonemic stock of the language in question. The important point of basing the analysis
*'
The
classification of
phonemes
in
labial, dental, etc. or stop, spirant, trill, etc.,

The
center of interest
is
147
of a
shifted from the
phonemes
language to
the pho-
their classification,
when the
relations of classification
among
nemes are studied; in such work the investigation is directed toward discovering what are the differences among the phonemes in terms of the relative speech-feature categories." However, the final stage of this development is the setting up of the relative categories as the new elements
of the language,
with the various phonemes identified as various simul-
taneous combinations of them.^
The
ments
unit-length components (or the classifications of phonemes) are
relative to each other in that they are based

in
on the contrasts among seg-
way them express all the contrasts in a compact way. The contrasting phonemes are grouped in such a way that all the phonemes in one group may be said to represent some stated feature of speech which the phonemes in another group do not represent. The phonemes in the first group are then said to include, among other things, a component representing this feature. Then other groupings are made, cutting across the first one, and each leads to the extraction of a component common to the members of the group. This is continued until every phoneme can be differentiated from every other one in terms of the
that various combinations of
each environment. The components are set up in such a
combination
of
components which
it
equals.^'
relative considerations (cf. 2.1 above) is, however, most fully brought out in such work as Roman Jakobson's Observations sur le classement phonologique des consonnes, in Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic Sciences at Ghent, 34-41 (1938).
upon
This work was done largely by Trubetzkoy, most fully in his Grundder Phonologie (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, 1939). Analyses of this kind do not have to be done with the particular logical categories used by Trubetzkoy; and new developments in laboratory work in linguistic acoustics may yield much more e.xact informat ion than has heretofore been available. In any case, however, the comparison, classification, and componental reduction of the phonemes of a language is descriptively relevant only if it is based on relative considerations.
*^
ziige
^
^'
This work has been done in

It is for this
ms by Roman Jakobson.
reason that linguists engaged in such phonemic classification or analysis are interested primarily in binary contrasts (binary oppositions). lOach binary contrast between groups of phonemes can be expressed by the (contrast between the) occurrence and non-occurrence of a particular component in the unique combination of components which will indicate each of these phonemes. Suppose we are able to state not that there are, say, four stop positions /p, t, k, q/ in a language, but that there is one binary contrast between /p. t/ and /k, q/, and another
14S
STRl'CTURAL LINGUISTICS
how they
This extraction of components can be performed directly upon the

contrasting segments in each environment, independently of
are formed, and can indeed serve as a criterion for grouping comple-
mentary segments
component,
ponent
will
into phonemes. This
is
so because once a {)articular
in
combination with others, replaces a phoneme, that comwill indicate the
occur in every position in which the phoneme had occurred,

it
and
in
each of these positions

it
occurrence of the speech

set
feature
represents; these unit-length
components would not be

(i.e.
is
up
with various definitions in various positions
with positional variants)

to indicate which speech
because the chief purpose in setting them up

features occur characteristically every time a
phoneme occurs. Thus in Danish [t], [d] occur in word initial, and [d], ['5] in word medial position. Since only two of these segments are contrasted in any position, only two phonemes need be set up (7.41). Each phoneme will have to contain some component which represents a speech feature characteristic of that phoneme in both positions. We. must therefore select a feature represented by both [t] and medial [d] as against [t5] and initial [d], or by [t] and [3] as against any [d]. The suggested solution is to group [t] and medial [d] into one phoneme, and to saythat this phoneme includes a component representing some feature such as 'relatively stronger air pressure' (in the mouth): initial [t] may be said to contain this component as against
medial
[3].*^
initial [d]
[d]
which lacks
it,
and so medial
[d]
as against
Since the two
represent by definition descriptively substi-
tutable segments, but are nevertheless differentiated here in their components,

it
follows that the speech features represented
by the components
between p, k and t, q/. Then each contrast can be e.xi^ressed by a component, such that one contrasting group has the component while the other lacks it. In Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague 4.97 (1931) Trubetzkoy indicated such contrasts as a relation of a to a + 6, where b was called the 'Merkmal', or the differentiating element between two elements which were otherwise considered identical. (This b would be the component in the present case, where each Merkmal of phonemic contrast is set up as a new component element indicating the phonemes which it differentiated.) If, in the example above, the first binary contrast is marked 1 (as against absence of 1) and the second contrast marked 2 (as against absence of 2), then /p/ = I, /t/ = 1, /k/ = 2, q = zero (i.e. whatever other components it contains, it includes neither of these two): The speech-feature definition of component 1 will, of course, have to be something which is involved in the sounds represented by p, t/' and lacking in those represented by /k, q, ^^ The example and the final solution were given by Roman Jakobson in a lecture at the University of Chicago in 1945.
, ,

need not be statable in terms
relative differences in
of absolute
149
measurements, but
may
be
measurements, as compared with phonemes which
are componentally identical except for the
component
in question.
As may be seen from the operations

cedure,
of the
of setting
them
up, the unit-
length component analysis of a whole language differs in purpose, pro-
and result from the analysis into long components. Combinations two techniques may be possible in some languages, if it is desired to set up elements which can express both the distributional limitations of 10.1-6 and the speech feature characteristics of this appendix. In any case, when an analysis into unit-length components is carried out, it is
desirable to do so on segments from which the greatest possible
of restrictions
number
on occurrence have already been removed, by the opera-
tions of 6-9.
11.
1 1
.
PHONOLOGICAL STRtCTLRK
Purpose Phonological Constituency of Utterances

:
We
represent every utterance in our corpus of data in terms of the

10.
phonological elements defined in 3
in
The elements which have been set up for a language have been defined such a way that wlien a stretch of speech is represented by them any-
one acquainted with their definitions would
know what
i.e.,
descriptively
relevant speech features occurred in that stretch;
he would be able
to pronounce the written representation, to produce a stretch of speech
descriptively equivalent to that which was originally represented

writing.
by the
However, we
may also
wish to have a compact statement of
these elements occur in any utterance of the corpus, so that
how we can make
general statements not only about the elements but also about the utter-
ances which we represent by these elements.
11.2.
Procedure: Stating
What Combinations Occur
11.21.
If all
Not
All
Combinations Occur
and the statement that
all
combinations of our elements occurred, there would be nothing
to say except a listing of the elements
combi-
we would upon occasion find zero, one, or more of them simultaneously, and zero, one or more of these simultaneous combinations in succession, down to any number.
nations of
occur, with the specification that
them
However,
it is
almost impossible for

the elements (in
all
all
sequences of
all
simultaneous
combinations of
all
degrees of repetition) to occur, in
any language. Even if we can describe consonant clusters as any sequence of consonant phonemes (or any sequence of any combination of consonant components), there will still be a limit to the number of consonants in the clusters; and we may be unable to describe the vowels by equally unrestricted phonemes or components. And even if we can describe all sequences of consonants
and vowels
as equaling
all
possible
combinations of a number of elements, we
will usually find that junctures
occur only in restricted places (will there be utterances consisting of /d/

alone?),
and that the contour elements are something
else again. If "we

of
need say nothing more than that every utterance consists
some non-
contour elements and some contour elements, we have already a state-
ment
of limitations.
150
PHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE
11.22.
151
Utterance Formulae
of all the
is
Our statement
in it: first,
combinations of elements which occur in any

list of all
utterance of the corpus
shorter than an actual
the utterances
because we do not distinguish between sequences which are

of the
composed
all
same elements
in the
same
order;
and second, because

in
elements which occur in the same environment are included
the
same general statement of occurrences, and may be indicated by the same mark. If each of /p, b, t, d, k, g/ occurs before each of /a, i, u/ we write the phoneme-class mark /S/ for any one of the six stops, /V/ for any one of the three vowels, and say that /SV/ occurs.' The statement
that
/SV/
occurs
is
then equivalent to the statement that /pa/ occurs,
/pi/ occurs, /pu/ occurs, /ba/ occurs, etc.
We now try
to find a sequence of
phoneme
is
classes
which
is
constantly
being repeated, so that
we can say
that every utterance^ and the whole
succession of utterances in our corpus
merely a repetition
many
times
over of this one sequence.
Thus
where
for
Yokuts
it is
possible to state the following formula:'
mcvic)]
cvicm
and any utterance contour over C any consonant, V any vownot);'' sec-
indicates utterance juncture
the preceding stretch, up to the next 4t;

el,
.
the length phoneme; items written above and below each other arc
(i.e. if
mutually exclusive
'
one of them occurs the other does
Using the one symbol S for all six consonants is, of course, quite diffrom using phonemic symbols for the various segment members of a phoneme. Each member (allophone) is defined as occurring in a. particular environment. By itself, the phoneme mark indicates all the members included in that phoneme. But when the phoneme mark occurs in a particular phonemic environment, it indicates only the particular segment member which has been defined as occurring in that environment: in the sequence /#peyr/ pair the /p/ phoneme indicates only the [p''] member of that phoneme. On the other hand, the capital letters which mark classes of phonemes in 11.22 indicate, in each environment, any one whatsoever of the phonemes which they represent: e.g. in the /SV/ example. The segments indicated by a phoneme mark never contrast (occur) in any environment in which the phoneme occurs; the phonemes (and their respective membei's) indicated by a phoneme-class mark are precisely the ones which contrast in the environment in which the phoneme-class occurs. ^ Except perhaps interrupted utterances, which would in many languages be indicated by incomplete contours. ' This summarizes the analysis in Stanley Newman, Yokuts Language of California, Chap. 3 (1944). * We might have used a new phoneme-class mark, say (", to indicate the occurrence of either C or ", but since these two occur in the same
ferent
152
tions in paronthesis
( )
section in square brackets
sometimes occur and sometimes do not; the occurs any number of times from zero up.*
[ ]
E.g. ki 'this', biivi.nelsc.nit 'from one

this entire
who
is
made
to serve.' Repeating
rtiark
formula any number of times, and substituting for each

(or in the last analysis
any phoneme
represents,*'
any segment) which that mark

of
we would obtain any utterance

of times.
Yokuts. Conversely,
all
Vokuts utterances can be represented by

quired
11.3.
this
sequence repeated the re-
number
Result:
Representation of Speech
all
We now
have a summarized statement that
utterances in our cor-
pus consist of such and such combinations of classes of such and such
elements,^ the definitions of each element being given
operations,
by the preceding and the combinations which occur being indicated by the
formula, diagram, or verbal statement.
From
this definite
statement
about our corpus
of
data in the language
in question,
we
derive a state-
ment about
all
the utterances of the language by assuming that our corof the language.
pus can be taken as a sample

serving,
We
are thus able to
make
a compact and quite a general statement about what
we have been ob-
namely the descriptively relevant speech features which occur

is
when the language
spoken.
Appendix to
If
11.22:
Utterance Diagrams
an utterance by making greater use
of the
the facts are too complicated for a formula, we can obtain a more de-
tailed representation of
above-
below relation
of the
marks.* E.g. that part of an English utterance up to
position (enter into the same phoneme-class) only once, it seems simpler to represent their mutually contrastive, or mutually exclusive, relation by the above-below relation of the marks, which is not otherwise utilized
in this formula.
*
I.e. it
sometimes does not occur.
substitute segments directly in the place of the class marks, must add here: in that environment.
^
If
we
we
' These phonemically identifiable elements, whose definition and whose distinctiveness from each other or equivalence to one another is given by the preceding operations, may be phonemes, junctures, contours, phonemic components, or the intermittently present phonemic features of the Appendix to 4.3. (These last may be pauses, as in 8.21, or components, as in fn. 7 of the Appendix to 7-9, and so on.)
Cf. fn. 4 above.
and including the
follows:'
first
153
vowel can be diagrammatically represented as
ir)4
STRUCTURAL LINCIUISTICS
(lia}i;i:un
In this
to
the sequence of phonemes in any utterance (from

first
# up
and
includinjj;
left
the
vowel)
is
indicated
by a
line going
through the
diagrani from
to right
and never crossing a horizontal bar (except along

to the
left).
the broken line in the diagram); the line
never go backwards
(i.e.
may go up and down but may Thus /#hyu/ occurs {hue, heuristic)
and /'#pyu/ (pure), /#gli/ {glimmer), /#spli/ {split), /spru/ (spruce), '#skwa/ {squire), /#e/ {elm), /:^sne/( snail), /#tu/ {too), /#t5e/ {then), etc. Any sequences of phonomes which are transversed, from left
to right,
is
by a
line that does not cross the horizontal bars or
go leftward,
a sequence which occurs at the beginning of some English utterance.
And no
English utterance exists but that
its
beginning can be repre-
sented by one of the lines which
may
be drawn through this diagram.'"

first
The diagram
offered here
is
not entirely satisfactory. In the
place,
in
many phonemes
by the
broken
are indicated twice, once in the top section

is
and once
the bottom. In the second place, the sequence /(s)kw/

definition of the
line.
not permitted
diagram and must be indicated by a special

of
The improvement
it
it is
such diagrams
is
largely a matter of
ingenuity, although
sentially, of course,
in
is
can be reduced to procedural considerations. Esa correlation between the relation of phonemes
it
utterances and the relation of geometric boundaries. For this reason,

desirable that each
all
metric relations to
phoneme occur only once in the diagram, its geoothei' phonemes being equivalent to its sequential
phonemes. It is often impossible to do this comtwo dimensions, where the horizontal axis indicates timesuccession, and the vertical axis mutual exclusion. Diagrams of this type may be useful both because they permit graphically rapid inspection, and comparison with analogous diagrams, and because they enable us to see
relations to all other
pletely in
immediately whether or not a particular sequence occurs; we
test this
foreign words like Pueblo and names like Given do not occur, /s, c, 5/ represents vowels are taken here as unit phonemes. In the diagram, other than u, /sfi, sfe /{sphere, spherical) is omitted from the chart.
For a somewhat different type of diagram, of the monosyllabic word Benjamin Lee Whorf Linguistics as an exact science. The Technology Review 43.4 (1940). Whorf gives a chart which has some of the features of a formula and some of those of the diagram above. He does not try to have each phoneme occur only once, and obtains a neat representation by using commas as well as a vertical relation between sequences that are mutually exclusive, and plus signs as well as horizontal
"*
in English, see
relation for sequences that occur after each other.
by trying
to
155
draw a
line
through that sequence without breaking the
rules of the diagram."
The formulae and diagrams may be somewhat simpler when they describe the combinations of
components rather than
of
phonemes, because
a larger proportion of the components will be similar to each other in

sequential relations. However, graphic provision would have to be
for the fact that
made
components can be combined simultaneously as well as

the inclusion of the contour components will usually
successively.
And
involve an addition to the formula or diagram independent of the rest

of the representation.
" It must nevertheless be recognized that diagrams of this type do not lead to any new results or symbolic manipulation of data. They serve only as compact summary statements of our results.
12.
MORPHOLOGY MORPHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS

12-19.
:
12.0.
Introductory
it
This procedure divides each utterance into the morphemes which

contains.
12.1.
I.e.
Purpose:
Phoneme
Distribution over Longer Stretches
stating the limitations of occurrence of linguistic elements over
long stretches of speech.
The argument which

distribution of
follows will attempt to show:

is
first,
that
when the
phonemes
considered over long stretches of speech they
are found to be highly restricted; second, that
we have
established no
method for stating simply what are the limitations of occurrence of a phoneme when taken over long stretches; third, that we can best state these limitations by setting up new (morphemic) elements in which the phonemes will have stated positions, the elements being so selected that we can easily state their distribution within long stretches of speech. The phonemes or components which have been obtained in chapters
3-11 are elements in terms of which every utterance can be identified.
They have been
so selected that as
many
as possible of their combina-
tions should occur in one utterance or another.
However, even
that there
bors.
still
if
occurrence in respect to their immediate neighbors,

are
we have obtained elements having no restrictions of we will always find

restrictions, in respect to their farther neigh/sirjiT]/
heavy
will
We
find /tip/ tip,
/pit/ pit,
singing, etc.
We may
/i/,
say that
almost any element
occur sometime before or after an
both im-
mediately and at any particular distance: /I/ occurs right after /i/ in /pil/ pill, and fifth after /i/ in /'irjkiWel/ ink-well. But we cannot say
that every sequence of /i/, /I/
etc.,
over long stretches, occurs.
We
have
the sequence /'irikwel/, and the same phonemes in

/'welii]/ in the
we can come close to another sequence of /"welir)/ welling. But while we can get the sequence
of the longer stretch /har-'ayz-
environment consisting
war
/ Her eyes were welling, we can hardly get the sequence /'ir^kAvel/,
environment, not to mention such a sequence as /welik/.^
in that
Similarly, we will hardly find in any English utterance the sequence /#kset'5aowv3r.#/ (presumably Cat the over.). The phoneme /i/, occurs between /w/ and /v/ in /sw vdl/ swivel; but we will not find it
'
156
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
157
Furthermore, the preceding operations have not even given us any

simple method of discovering and stating limitations of occurrence over
long stretches, such as that of /k/ after Her eyes were
What
If
type
of further analysis
can we perform that
will
enable us to
treat these long-stretch restrictions?
we examine
these restrictions,
we
find that in
most cases they do not
apply to particular phonemes singly, but to particular sequences of phonemes. Not only did
/'irjlciwel/
not occur after /har-'ayz-war
but
even various sub-sections of

/'kowld/
is
/'welii)/
such as /'we/,
/"eli/
did not occur;

well),
only particular sequences appear there: /'wel/ {Her eyes were

(cold), etc.
The
restriction
on distribution
of
phonemes which
evident in this long stretch can therefore best be described as a restric-
tion
on sequences
generally,
of
phonemes:
/'eli/
excluded, /'welit)/ and /'wel/
permitted.
More
we
are asking here
how
the occurrence of a
find that for a
phoneme
change
in
varies as its total environment^ varies.
And we
If
the environment,
we usually
get not a change of our one
phoneme but
a change of a whole sequence of phonemes.

of /e/ in /har-'ayz-war-'welir)./
we ask how the occurrence
changes when we add an /I/ to the

replaced by some other se-
environment at some particular point, we find that not merely the /e/
drops, but the whole sequence /'welit)/
is
quence,
e.g.
/'abviyas/ in /har-'layz-war-'abviyas/
We
12.2.
therefore seek a
way
to treat sequences of
Her lies were obviovs. phonemes as single
longer elements.
Procedure: Independent and Patterned Combinations

determine the independent phonemic sequences
in
We
as its
each utterance
morphemic segments.
necessary but not sufficient condition for

is if
considering an element to be independent in a particular utterance

that utterance can be
cal
matched by others which are phonemically

is
identi-
with the
first
except that the element in question
replaced by an-
other element or
by
zero.
between /w/ and /v/ in the following environment: /Sa kaet jompt ow var Sa muwn/ The cat jumped o ver the moon. Clearly, there-
sequences of our elements occur, except (in some languages) over very short stretches. If we want to be able to predict what long sequences of our elements may occur in the language, or if we want to say exactly what long stretches of elements occur in our corpus, the statement of chapter 11 is insufficient. ^ The term total environment will be used for environment over a long
fore,
all
we cannot say that
stretch of speech.
158
we
will recognize
In the following paragraphs
elements which occur
by themselves, and will then divide longer utterances into the elements of which they are composed. In determining this new segmentation of
utterances into longer elements,
it
will
be found necessary:
first,
to carry
the segmentation farther
(i.e.
down
to smaller subdivisions) than would

i.e.
be morphologically useful; and then, to narrow the operation down,

to reunite
some
of these smaller subdivisions into such divisions as
can
most conveniently have their distributional interrelations stated.

12.21.
Free
Morphemic Segments
at least
Every utterance contains
one morphemic segment (since the
whole utterance can be substituted for another).^ In many languages

there are relatively short utterances which contain only one segmental
morpheme,
i.e.
only one
morpheme composed
of successive
segmental
e.g.
Yês.
phonemes, not counting any simultaneous contour morpheme:
Now? Come!
Book. Connecticut. These are utterances which cannot be
divided into more than one

12.22.
morpheme by the procedures

of
below.
Upper Limit for Utterance
Number
Morphemic Segments
in
an
A phoneme
tain
sequence, say ''ruwm8r/ in That's our roomer,

if
may
con-
more than one morphemic segment
and only
if
one part of the
sequence occurs without another part, in the same total environment
/ruwm/
recorder.
also occurs in That's our room; /ar/ also occurs in That's our
Formulaically:
curs,
If,
in total
environment
X, the combination AB ocD

are each pho-
and
AD
occurs,
and
CD
occurs (where A, B, C,
nemically identifiable portions of speech), then whether

not,^
it
CB
occurs or
is
possible to recognize A, B, C,
and
as being each of
them
* Except for a few gestural utterances, like Tut tut, which may not be considered utterances of the language. There are, of course, cases of interrupted utterances which break off in the middle of a morpheme. If we cannot immediately recognize the special status of these utterances, we may include these broken morphemic segments among our elements. Later, we will find that statements true of other morphemes are not true of the.se, so that the interrupted morphemes will be treated as residues excluded from our regular description. In many cases, too, these residues will correlate with special contours (e.g. intonations of hesitation and
interruption).
Leonard Bloomfield, Language 161. As to the status of CB: if CB does not occur and if C does not X (i.e. we have occur otherwi.se in X, but EB and ED occur in
^
'
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
(tentatively, subject to 12.23) discrete
159
vironment
difference
A':
the difference between
between
given by matching
ABX and ADX; ADX and CDX.^
morphemic segments in the enand D is established from the the difference between A and C is
This
is
a necessary condition for
ances, because
we
clearly could not divide a
morphemic segmentation phoneme sequence
of utter-
into
two
morphemes
ever, this
is
if
in
a given environment neither part ever occurred without
the other; they could not then be considered independent parts. ^
How-
by no means a sufficient condition; if it were, it would permit us to take all phoneme sequences occurring in a given environment and containing a particular phoneme (e.g. hag, rug, hug in Where's the ?,) and say that their common phoneme (in this case, /g/) is an independent morphemic segment. The criterion is not sufficient because it gives only the upper limit to the number of morphemic segments which we may set up in each particular utterance. Each particular utterance cannot have more morphemic
segments than the criterion
of tentative
independence permits.
also
but
"
EBX, EDX), we call B (and E) independent, as A and D are too, C partially independent (since it is partially dependent on D). B may also be zero. We may say that A X is the environment or
frame
of
in
which
can substitute for

is
Some
validation
required
if
we
or for zero. are to speak of frames, or of a part
one utterance occurring in another. For how do we know that the frame remains unchanged while various would-be morphemes are substituted in it (cf. the Appendix 4.22), and how do we know that when we test the
/beriy/ of hoysenherry in the utterance hlueherry we have the 'same' /beriy/? It is necessary therefore to agree that a phonemic sequence will be considered unchanged as to its morphemic segmentation if part of its environment, in one utterance, is replaced by another stretch, making another utterance; that is, given the utterance A'}' (where A', }', Z are each phonemic sequences), if we substitute Z for A' and obtain the utterance ZV, we will consider that in these two utterances the two )''s and Z are morphemically identical. We may call )' the frame in which are mutually substitutable. This statement says nothing about the morphemic content of the phonemic sequence )' in any utterance other than A)' and XZ. For a discussion of what constitutes the 'same' morpheme, see Y. H. Chao, The logical structure of Chinese words, Lang. 22.4-13 (1946).
' This consideration is similar to the criterion of phonemic independence of segments (chapter 4), except that in the case of phonemic segments the environment in question was usually the immediately neighboring segments: e.g. we might consider if [p) and ['] are mutually dependent in the environment V. Here, on the other hand, the environment is usually the whole utterance.
ItU)
Limit for yttrnber of Morphemic Segments
it
12.23. Loiver
I
in
an
tterance
will
In
of
many languages
not prove convenient, from the point of view
eponomy of statement, to consider every independent sequence a morpheme, as in the case of the /g/ of 60^. For if we sought to state the relation? between such morphemes, we would find few, if any, broad generalizations.* It is therefore necessary to find some additional criterion, one which will say that under such
and such conditions
it
does not
pay to consider a particular phoneme sequence as a morphemic segment.
We
therefore restrict the application of 12.22
by saying that we
will
con-
sider particular tentatively independent
phonemic sequences as mor-
phemic segments only
if it
will
turn out that
many
of these
sequences
have identical relations to many other tentatively independent phonemic

sequences. Given several such sequences, A, B,
etc.,
we would accord
morphemic status to vl, B, C, if, for example. A, B, and C, all occur sometimes after morphemes D, E, or F, but never after G or H, where D, E, and F, are precisely the only morphemes which occur in environment X (i.e. a D, E, F constitute a distributional class as against
G, H).
Meeting
this criterion
may
thus prevent us from carrying out, in
any given utterance, some

mit, but for which
tions. It
of the
segmentations which 12.22 would per-
we cannot
find other
segments having similar distribu-
thus reduces the number of morphemes recognized in each par-
ticular utterance.
12.231.
For free forms

.
(i.e.
for
forms which sometimes constitute an
utterance by themselves) As an example, we consider many sequences ending in /s/

(e.g. books,
myths) in the environments
My are old,
Take the
-.
We match identical sequences without /s/ (book, myth) in the environments My is old, Take the Clearly, the is independent both of the preceding free form, e.g. book, and of anything else in the utterance. We now find
.
s,
that almost every sequence which ever occurs after The
The old
old
etc. also
occurs in the environment The

is
The good
s,
The good
The
not
s.
s, etc.,
whereas this
not true of sequences such as very which oc-
cur in The
good.
The
old, etc.
We
conclude that /s/ (or /z/)
is
merely a very
common phoneme
s
s is
(so
common
that countless sequences
which don't end with
can be matched by otherwise identical sequences
which do), but rather that the
an element added on to any one
of a
positionally particular group of sequences.
Hence both the bound
s/ (or
For examples
in the
and
of such generalizations and the lack of them, see below Appendices.
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
I if)
161
and the various free forms to which it is added are separate elements, morphemic segments. The morphemic status of this /s/, however, does not extend to the /s/ of hox, even if we find the sequence without /s/ as in Bock, and even though we can match Vll take the box with I'll take the
or
Bock, because box occurs in

12.232.
stitute
My is old, rather than in My are old.

(i.e.
.
For bound forms
for
forms which practically never con-
an utterance by themselves)
A more complicated case occurs in the
pairs of
words or utterances
conceive-receive, concur-recur, confer-refer, etc.
We never get ceive by itself, but every phoneme sequence with which ceive
occurs, appears also with other
or
bound forms' which

which
in turn occur with one
more
of the sequences with
ceive occurs: perceive, deceive; deduct,

is
conduct; perjure, conjure; persist, desist, consist, resist, assist. There
thus
bound forms (prefixes) and a family of non-initial bound forms (stems), between the members of which families this relation in general holds. Each one of these prefixes occurs with several of these stems, and vice versa. This gives us a preview of the exact relation which may obtain among these sequences if we break them up in the above manner. On the basis of such a preview we decide that it is worth considering con-, re-, -ceive, -cur, etc. as each a distinct morphemic segment."^
discovered a family of
initial
,
12.233.
Summary. The
criterion of 12.23
may
thus be satisfied by the
following procedure: Given a tentatively independent sequence of pho-
nemes
(from 12.22) in a particular total environment, we seek some
distributional feature which correlates with the distribution of this phoi.e. we ask what other utterance position, or the neighwhat other tentatively independent phoneme sequence, characterizes all the sequences B, C which substitute for our given se-
neme sequence;
borhood
of
quence A, or
all
the sequences
If
M,
N which
we
occur with (before, etc.) our
given sequence A.
we
find such,
define our given
phoneme
it,
se-
quence A, in the environments in which we have considered
as a
morphemic segment. The

a
fact that a
phoneme sequence
is
it
recognized as
morpheme
in
one environment therefore does not make
morpheme
' I.e. with other sequences which don't occur by themselves. See Bloomfield, Language 160.
'"The two sets con-, re-, per-, etc., and -ceive, -cur, -sist, etc. are dependent on each other as sets; but any one member of the first set is not dependent on any one member of the second. When we segment an utterance, we find only particular members of each set in the utterance,
not the 'class' as a whole. Therefore, we must regard the particular members of one set as being independent of each other and of the particular members of the other set (though not independent of the set as a whole). Hence, they are all .separate segments.
162
in in
(er is
another environment
a morphemic segment in governor but not

in
hammer; the
The
total
e.g.
environment
is
no good, but not The
ing stopped).
which
it is
a morphemic segment
is
This criterion of distributional patterning
may
be approached in a
somewhat different way. Given the phoneme sequence /'boyliT)/ boil/h^," we ask if it is to be analyzed as consisting of one morphemic segment or two; and if two, where is the dividing line. To test whether there are two morphemes present, we take boiling in some environments in
which
it
occurs (say,
It's
now. I'm
it
now.),
and see
if
boiling
is
can
be replaced there by some other phoneme sequence which

identical (e.g.
'stapirj
partially
stopping) .^'^
are tentatively independent
the environment I'm

/'//
ing
it.).
Since there are

in these
We can now say that boil and stop phoneme sequences, since we find them in it now as well as in other environments (e.g. many other phoneme sequences [take, etc.)
in precisely the other en-
which occur
regard
"
two environments and
vironments of
boil, stop,
boil, stop, take,
we consider the criterion of etc. as morphemic segments.^
12.23 satisfied
and
To
use the example discussed in B. Bloch and G. L. Trager, Outline
of Linguistic Analysis 53.

1^ If boiling can be replaced in that environment by any other phoneme sequence (including zero), then boiling as a whole is tentatively independent in that environment. If the phoneme sequences which substitute for boiling are partially identical with it (e.g. stopping) we can say that the identical portions in the various replacements are part of the environment, and that it is only the non-identical portions which replace each other. (In general, the environmental frame is that which is invariant under the various substitutions; the substituting stretches are those which differ for each substitution.) We can now go further and say not only that boiling is independent of its environment, but also that boil is independent of its environment, too (as is -ing).
'^ Alternative divisions of boiling into morpheme segments would not equally satisfy the criterion of 12.23. If we seek substitutes for boiling which have some partial identity with it other than -ing, we will not find any whose non-identical parts enter, together with the part of boiling for which they substitute, into clear distributional classes. For example, we cannot substitute princeling or boys for boiling, since these do not occur in I'm it now. The partial identity of these is of no use in analyzing boiling, since these two are not distributionally equivalent to boiling in the first place. If we substitute trailing, we might try to say that trey/ trui- replaces /boy boi-. We might further say that /trey/ and /boy/ also replace each other in other environments so as apparently to satisfy the criterion of 12.23: five trays, five boys. However, other substitutes of /trey/ and /boy/ in I'm ling it now will not substitute for them in s; /mey/ (from mailing) rarely (five Mays); /sey/ (from sailing), five /se/ (from selling), /ka/ (from culling) never. Hence we cannot divide
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
No
matter how we go about the dividing
this
of
163
an utterance into
its
morphemes,
much
will in
any case be involved: The morpheme
boundaries in an utterance are determined not on the basis of considerations interior to the utterance, but on the basis of comparison with
other utterances.
The comparisons
are controlled,
i.e.,
we do not merely
differ
scan various random utterances, but seek utterances which

our original one only in stated portions.
from
The
final test is in
utterances
which are only minimally different from ours.
Having established in what way our utterance differs minimally from we choose that manner of distinguishing our utterance from the others which has the greater generality; i.e., we define the elements that
others,
distinguish our utterance in such a
way
that general things can be said
about the distribution of those elements.
For example, note and
notice
have some environments
in
common and
it
some
ivalk
not: e.g. both occur in That's worthy of

of
but only note occurs
A man
and only
I always
notice in
The boss gave me a week's

in
Similarly,
and
tm/fced
in
have some environments
both occur
only walked in /
go-went.
yesterday. The same is true of such pairs as talk-talked, But the important consideration for our purposes is that the
slowly; but only walk in Fll with you; and
common and some
not: e.g.
environmental difference that applies to walk-walked also applies to

talk-talked
and to go-went; while the environmental

is
difference in note-
notice does not recur in other pairs. It
not merely that talk-talked, go-
went occur in the same environments as were given for walk-walked
above.
Even when the environments
of go-went differ
from those
of
ivalk-walked, the difference

ivent will
between the environment
of go
and that
of
of
be the same as the difference between the environment

of walked: I'll go crazy with you; I
walk
and that
went crazy yesterday (this
boiling (in environments of the type but only into boil and iiig.
mentioned) into hoi (boy) and
ling,
We do not always find such extreme cases as the adequacy of Iwil-ing compared with the inadequacy of boi-ling. It is therefore often convenient to make the division into morphemic segments first in he case of those utterances and parts of utterances in which the difference in adequacy among various alternative segmentations is extreme. The less
t
obvious choices of segmentation can then be decided with the help of he classes of morphemic segments which have already been set up. Even then, new data may lead us to rescind some of our previous segment aions in favor of alternative ones which pattern better with the new data. C!f. Charles F. Hockett, Problems of morphemic analysis, Lang. 2'.\.'.\2\343 (1947).
t t
164
tDtal
environment does not occur with walk; but the difference between
is
the
two environments
will vs. yesterday,
and
this
is
the very difference
we found
Hence,
for walk-walked).
if
we say that walked,
talked,
went each consist of walk,
talk,
go
respectively plus an additional
morpheme, we will be able to make broadly applicable statements about that morpheme. However, if we say that notice consists of Jiote plus some other morpheme, we will not be able
to
make such
general statements about the
new morpheme;
it
will
always
occur after note.
We may
therefore prefer to consider notice as one mor-
pheme.
12.3.
Phonemic
in
Identification of
Morphemic Segments
phonemes
in succession. It
is
Nothing
the operations of 12.2 requires that the morphemic seg-
ments
consist of
added phonemes,
or
only
required that the morphemic segments be identifiable in terms of the

phonological elements set up in 6-10, since the utterances which are here
segmented into their component morphemes are represented

these elements. ^^ In
of 12.2 leads to of phonemes.'^
in
terms of
many
languages, the carrying out of the operations
morphemic segmentations which are not mere sequences
'* It would be possible to add the requirement that each morphemic segment consist of a whole phoneme or an unbroken succession of whole phonemes, and to carry out the operations of 12.2 only in so far as they do not lead to segments which fall outside this restriction. However, such a restriction would in general yield small simplifications in the relation between morphemes and phonemes, at the cost of increased complexities
in the morphological statements.

'^ In many of the cases described below it would be possible to maintain a simpler .segmentation, into consecutive phoneme sequences, at the cost of more complicated morphological statements later. However, the phonemic constituency of each morpheme is in any case a matter of detailed listing, and is usually subject to few regularities and generalizations. Therefore it is in general convenient to include as many individual facts as possible about each morpheme in its phonemic constitution (since that has to be given individually for each morpheme), and to leave the general facts for the morphological statements (which will then be statements about groups of morphemes rather than about individual ones). Thus, in the case of the Hidatsa command (12.333), if we analyzed /cixic/ as /cix 'jump' plus /ic/ 'he did', we would have to discuss /cix/ individually on two occasions: once to state its phonemic constituency; and again, to state that when it occurs next to the 'he did' morpheme the vowel of that morpheme is /i/ rather than some other. There would be several forms for 'he did', and each would occur after particular stems. However, if we analyze /cixic/ as /cixi/ plus /c/, we mention /cixi/ individually only once, and /c/ 'he did' only once, in each case giving the
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
12.31.
165
Contiguous Phonemic Sequences

vast majority of morphemic segments, in most languages, consist
in
The
of
phonemes
immediate succession:
e.g.
/ruwm/
room, /ar/
-er.
12.32.
Non-contiguous Phonemic Sequences

of non-contiguous
In relatively few cases, the procedure of 12.2 leads us to set up mor-
phemic segments consisting

of
phonemes,
i.e.
consisting
phonemes not in unbroken succession but interrupted by the phonemes of other morphemic segments. 12.321. Staggered i'honemes. One type of such mediate sequences
may
be seen in the root-morphemes'* and vowel-pattern-morphemes of
Semitic. In Arabic, for example,

wrote', kadaba 'he lied', katabtu
we have such utterances

'I
as kataba 'he
wrote', kadabiii
'I
lied',
'I
ka'ddaba 'he
called (someone)
ed',
liar',
kataba 'he corresponded', katabtu
correspond-
from which we
ejftract
the following as independent morphemic

'lie',
segments:
k-t-b 'write', k-d-b
-a 'he', -tu
T,
-a-a- 'perfective', repeti-
tion of second consonant 'intensive', -after the first vowel) 'reciprocal'.
(i.e.
added mora''
of k-t-b
of length
k-'d-b,
The phonemes
and
and
those of -a-a-, are staggered with respect to each other.

12.322.
Broken sequences. Another type
of
non-contiguous se-
quence occurs in morphemic segments

dubitative (with the verb
like the
Yokuts na'as
al
morpheme coming between the two

occurs.'^
parts);
whenever one part occurs the other also

12.323.
Repetitive sequences. Non-contiguous sequences, repeated

is
over a stated portion of the utterance, express what
often called
grammatical agreement.
filia
we consider Latin filius bonus 'good son,' bona 'good daughter,' we are led to the morphemic segments fili
If
phonemic constitution. The second method does, however, involve a small cost: in the first method, we would say that /cix/ 'jump!' consists of the one morphemic segment /cix/; whereas in the second we would have to say that /cix/ 'jump!' consists of two segments, /cixi/ 'jump' and /drop moral 'command'.
'* The term morpheme will sometimes be used for either morphemic segment or the full morphemes defined in chapter 13 if the difference between them is irrelevant in the context, or if it is entirely clear from the context which of the two is meant. The morphemic segments of chapter 12 are the morphemes, or the alternants (variant members) of morphemes, of chapter 13.
'^ A mora is a unit-length of vowel (e.g. a short vowel, or the second part of a two-unit long vowel). "* Stanley Newman, Yokuts Language of California 120.
first
or
166
The remaining phonemes
in the first utin
'luinuui offspring,' ban 'good.'
terance,
us ... us, are not
two independent sequences
the sense
of 12.2; the
two parts are
clearly ilejiendent on each other
and together
constitute one broken

of 12.322. Similarly
.
morpheme, meaning male, essentially as in the case a ... a is a single morphemic segment, mean.
.
ing female.*^ In viclrix bona 'good victor

victor (m.)')
(f .)'
(as against victor
bonus 'good
we have
ix ... o as a
female; the two separated parts of

identical. '^^
morphemic segment^" meaning the morphemic segment need not be

room' and
Ibit
In Moroccan Arabic
'the large
we
find bit kbir '(a) large

in
Ikbir
room' occurring
is
zuia 'This
such total environments as had

;
dial
of
my
brother's'
Ibit
kbir 'The
room
is
large'
never ocbit Ikbir
curs in such environments, nor (for
many
environments) does
" In many other words, e.g. hortus parvus 'small garden', niensa parva 'small table', the meaning of these morphemes is, of course, zero, or in any case not male and female.
Disregarding, for the purposes of the present discussion, the segof the ix into ic and s, which would be based on comparison of other utterances (containing victricis, vidoris, etc.). 2^ The discontinuous repetitive segments differ morphologically from the type of 12.322, as is clear from the conditions in w^hich they were set up. Thus, filius occurs together with bonus and also without bonus. When filius occurs by itself in an utterance, it is segmented into fili and us, so that in such environments the single us is itself a morphemic segws us is a single segment (while in filius bonus the combined ment). In contrast: we may, in the manner of 12.322, consider German et (in gefangen 'captive', geeignet 'suitable') as each en and ge ge constituting a discontinuous morpheme (the relation of the part ge to the parts en, et being similar to the relation of s to he, she in 12.324). It us us would then appear that there is a difference between et: for a single us occurs as a morphemic segment on its own, and ge whereas ge never occurs as a morphemic segment by itself. However, when we recognize the single us as a morphemic segment, it is not by us 2is sequence and giving it independent taking off part of the status, but rather by segmenting us in environments where there is only one (where filius occurs without bonus). This situation never arises in et, since ge never occurs by itself in any comparable the case oi ge environment (i.e. we have Xus Yus, and in the same total environment we have Xus alone; but while we have geXet, we never find geX or geY in the same total environment). Therefore, there are some Latin utterws is a morphemic segment, and comparable ms ances in which ones in which us is; and there are some German utterances in which ge et is a morphemic segment, but no comparable ones in which us, see 13.422). It is clear ge is. (For the relation of us to ... us .. from this example that the environment (or domain) of each form of discontinuous morpheme has to be exactly stated.
^
mentation
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
'the big shot's room.'
'large;'
167
bit
We set
I
up the morphemic segments
'room,' kbir
and since the

all,
'the'
occurs in this environment either twice or

.
not at
12.324.
ing this
we recognize a morphemic segment I I 'the.' Partially dependent non-contiguous sequences. Followmethod, if we compare / think so with He thinks so, We want it
. .
with She wants

ring
it,
it is
clear that the -s
is
not an independently occurit,
morpheme. The
-s
occurs only
when
he, she,
Fred,
my
if
brother, or
he, etc., is
the
like,
occur with think, take, or the
like. It
does not occur
lacking (as in
which?), or
if
We
want
it)
or
if
think, etc., is lacking (as in
He
or she,
both occur, but
will,
might, etc., intervene (as in
He
will
want
it).
In the particular environment considered above,
we can say
either that the second

is
thinks, ivants, or elê that the first

etc., is he
morphemic segment, in the position after he, etc., morphemic segment, in the position
s,
before think,
tive gives us
...
she
s,
Fred
s,
etc."
The
first
alterna-
an unbroken morphemic segment, and the second alternative
a broken one.^^
In
all
these cases
we
see that grammatical features which are usually
called agreement can be described as discontinuous
morphemic segments whose various parts are attached to various other morphemic segments. ^^
12.33.
12.331.
shook,
Replacement of Phonemes Among individual phonemes. If we compare take, took, shake, we would be led to extract take and shake as morphemic segments,
of the
and also a morphemic segment consisting
change of /ey/ -^ /u/

/u/ yields
and meaning
took,
past.
The morpheme sequence
take plus /ey/ >
exactly as walk plus /t/ yields walked.^^
^^
ment
He
This does not conflict with the fact that the second morphemic segin I think, is just think, and that the first morphemic segment in will not is he, for the utterance environment is different in these cases.
Later considerations (13.4) will enable us to choose between these. Other dependences are too complicated to be expressed in this manner. In What did you say him? and What did you steal him? we know that to would occur in the first utterance, and from in the second. Nevertheless, we do not say that in this environment to is dependent upon say and constitutes one morpheme with it, because both say and to occur independently of each other in so many other environments, and because on rare occasions we might get other forms here, e.g. 7iear, instead of to. For other types of grammatical concord, also expressed by
^*
^'
long or discontinuous elements, see chapter

^^
17.
We use this analysis
here rather than that of 12.321 and the Appen-
dix to 12.233 whi('h would yield morphemes t-k, sh-k, and /ey/ present, /u/ past. The latter is not convenient for English because in the
168
12.332.
Among classes of phonemes. The
of
first:
interchange
may
be be-
tween any phoneme
one class and the corresponding phoneme of anhouse
other class matched with the

life
to
house, belief
to
believe,
to live, etc.
In these examples, replacing a final voiced consonant

/s, f/
/z,
v/ by the homo-organic voiceless one

12.333.
(sometimes with attend-
ant vowel change) constitutes a morphemic segment, meaning noun.^*
Replacement by zero. The interchange may be between

in a
any .phoneme
sist of
given position and zero in that position;

If
i.e. it
may
con-
we compare French ; fermyer/ fermiere 'farm-woman', /miizisyen/ musicienne 'woman musician', /sat/ chatie
omitting a phoneme."
'female cat', with
cian',
iermye' fermier 'farmer', /miizisye/ inusicien 'musi-
sa
chat 'tom-cat',
we would say that the
last three
have each a
in
single phonemic feature constituting the same morphemic segment
each of these environments: the replacement of the

zero,
final
consonant by
changing the meaning from female to male.^* Similarly Hidatsa has

jumped,' cix 'jump!', ikac 'he looked,' ika
-c 'he
cixic 'he
'look!'.
We
segment
these utterances into cixi 'jump,' ika 'look,'
did (or does)', and
/omission of final vowel mora/ indicating command.''^ It might be argued that we can avoid having to use the omission of a
phoneme
to identify the
morphemic segment
in question
if
we took
great majority of cases, the English morpheme for 'past' does not replace the vowel of the present-tense verb but is added on to the whole verb as it appears when used for present time walk, walked. For additional reasons, see the Appendi.x to 12.233.
:
variant
ter 13.
"Considering the /z/^/s/ interchange and the /v/ ^ /f members of one morpheme can more properly be done
as
in
two
chap-
^^ Instead of considering the omission of phonemes as a special case of phonemic interchange we can consider the interchange of phonemes to consist of omitting one phoneme and adding another. In this case the morphemes considered hitherto would all consist of the addition or subtraction of phonemes in respect to the rest of the utterance. " F. Beyer and P. Passy, Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Fran-
zosisch 96 (1905). This analysis ceases to be applicable if we take into consideration forms in which the 'mute e' is pronounced, as in poetry; if we consider forms in which the final consonant is pronounced, as in
liaison,
it is the masculine pre-consonantal form which is derived from the masculine pre-vocalic form, e.g. move/ mauvais 'bad' from /movez/ mauvais. Cf. R. A. Hall, Jr., French Review 19.44 (1945). " R. H. Lowie. Z. S. Harris, and C. F. Voegelin. Hidatsa Texts (Indiana Historical Society Prehistory Research Series 1) 192 fn. 38 (1939). Note also the mora-omitting morpheme 'jussive' in Z. S. Harris, Linguistic Structure of Hebrew, Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 61.161 No. 11 (1941).
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
/fermye/ as 'farmer', /miizisye/ as 'musician', /sa/ as
/n/
(or
'cat,'
169
and
/r/,
/"/
/n/),
and /t/
find
as various
morphemic segments
for 'female.'
However, we would
curring as a
almost every consonant phoneme
in
French oc-
morphemic segment for 'female,' and each occurring only after some few particular morphemes (/t/ after /sa/ and some others; etc.). Similarly, if we chose to take Hidatsa cix as 'jump, jump!', ika as 'look, look!,' and ic, c as 'he did,' we would find (in various utterances)
occurrences not only of these
including length, followed
did.'
ic
and
forms but of every vowel mora,
by
c,
constituting
morphemic segments
it
for 'he
In such cases,
when many phonemes
(/t/, /r/, etc.) in

is
one position
(fern.)
alternate with zero in another (masc),
simpler to consider
the various consonants or vowels as part of the various morphemic seg-
ments; the shorter (masc.) forms are then analyzed as consisting of two
morphemic segments: the longer phoneme morpheme.

12.34.
(fem.)
morpheme
plus a single omit-
Suprasegmen tal Elements

Components.
If
12.341.
we break phonemes up
devoicing
morpheme
in hoiise
to
house, belief
into components, the
to believe
(12.332)
would
consist not in the interchanges of one

single devoicing
component:
believe
phoneme for another, but in a morphemic segment consisting of
devoicing component
belief.
12.342. Contour change. If we compare a convict to convict, we must distinguish a morphemic segment convict /kan'vikt/ with verb meaning, and a distinct morphemic segment consisting of change of stress
sisting of stress
Then the verb /kan'vikt/ + the morpheme con= the noun /'kanvikt/. In a table to table we have only one morpheme /'teybal/, having verb or noun meaning accontour, meaning noun.
change
cording to
its
position in the utterance; here the stress contour

it is
is
only
phonemic and does not have morphemic status because

able, in such
not rephuie-
environments as a
by another
stress contour.'"
12.343.
Morpheme-length contours. A
is
clearer case of a contour
morpheme
the extra loud stress which

of
may
occur on almost any mor-
phemic segment
an utterance
(as in
No!
Tell
HIM to throw the red one
'" As in the case of contours, we may also find segmental phonemes which have morphemic status in one environment and not in another superficially similar environment. For example, the final /t/ in /kspt/ constitutes a morphemic segment meaning past (/ cnpped. I cup my hand.H.), whereas in /kat/ the final /t/ is not a morphemic segment l)y itself but part of the morphemic segment cut (/ cut my hand).
170
or
Tell
Xo!
him
to
THROW the red one,

The
etc.).
The two
utterances can be
recognized as distinct from each other, and must therefore differ pho-
nemically and morphemically.

the
first
difference
between the
is
'ffrow/ of
utterance and the /"^row/ of the second
the phonemic /"/
whose independent occurrence correlates consistently with the presence of a contrastive or emphatic meaning such as 'throw and not drop!', /"/
is
therefore a
12.344.
morphemic segment, with contrastively emphatic meaning.

can, of course, satisfy the
Utterance contours. Contours
conditions for being considered morphemic, not only
when they apply
over some one other
morpheme (as when they extend over any number

6,
in convict
of
and him above) but also morphemes. Many of the utteris
ance-long components of chapter
such as the rising pitch which
marked
/?/, are
independent of the rest of the phonemes of the utterance,
since the rest of the utterance (whether represented phonemically or
morphemically) occurs with other contours as well as with this one:

He's going? as compared with He's going.
^'^
This test of morphemic inde-
pendence
will
enable us to discover any other morphemic contours which

failed to obtain
we may have
12.35.
from the procedure
of 6.^^
In rare cases
of a
Combinations of the Above we may wish to set up morphemic segments

of
consisting
combination
some
of
-t-
the features mentioned above. E.g. in French
utterances having liaison
consisting of intonation contour
we may well recognize a morphemic segment and liaison -/- (and, if we wish, also the
" Replacing one contour by another in various sequences of morparallel change in meaning for all the sequences wherever ?/ occurs, it adds the meaning of 'question' to the utterance. ^^ The criterion of independence is involved also in breaking down such long contours as can be shown (6.4) to be successive repetitions of the same shorter contour (or of a few different short contours). We may find a short utterance with one short contour over it {I'm not coming.), a longer utterance with the same short contour given twice over it (I'lti not coming. It's too late.), a longer utterance yet with the same contour three times over it, and so on. The number of occurrences of the short contour depends on the length of the utterance and on the repetition of a particular sequence of morpheme classes (construction, see Chapter 18) under each of the short contours. We therefore say that the two-fold and three-fold repetitions of the short contour are not morphemically independent. For each, utterance length and utterance construction there is only one set of independent short contours (. and ? and so on), and repetitive successions of these are not new independent morphemic elements, but merely sequences of the original contour elements. This can be done by the operation of chapter 13.
phemes nets a
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
act of rearrangement in the order of the utterance).
171
From
0)i donne. 'they
and Donne-t-on? 'are they giving?' we would recognize the morphemes on and donne. The -t- does not have to be set up as an independent morphemic segment; but together with the change in contour (and morpheme order) it constitutes a morphemic segment meaning quesare giving'
tion."
12.4.
Result: Elements with Stated Distributions over Utterances have a

list of
We now
morphemic segments
in stated
into which
any utterance
can be segmented, each of these being uniquely identifiable in terms of
phonemic elements, and occurring

phemic segments
nition of each
/siylir)/
environments of other mor-
(or in stated utterances). '''

is
An
intrinsic part of the defiit is
morpheme
in
the environment for which
defined:
(ceiling)
by
itself is
undefined as to consisting of one

are going
morpheme
or
of
(sealing). But We is made of plaster, /siylir)/ is detwo morphemes, while in That fined as one morpheme. We can now consider the utterances of the lan-
two
/siylir)/ is defined as consisting
guage as consisting entirely (even including the liaison -t-) of these morphemic segments, i.e. of phonemic elements among which morphemic
boundaries are placed.
These morphemic segments serve the purpose
of 12.1.
The operation
of 12.22 assures that there will of a
be fewer limitations
morphemic segment within a long environment than upon the occurrence of a phoneme. For each time a new morphemic segment is recognized, with a certain stated phonemic constituency, it becomes unnecessary to state elsewhere that the particular phonemic
upon the occurrence
sequence represented by that morpheme occurs in the environment in question, while other phonemic sequences not represented by any mor-
pheme do not occur
there. ^^
" Equivatently, the

ment, with the
'"'
intonation could be set up as a morphemic segof

it,
-t-
as
an automatic part
or vice versa.
In a general presentation of linguistic method, morphemes aic defined as the result of the operations of 12.2. In effect, the morphemes are those phonemically identifiable elements in terms of which the interelement relations can be most simply stated. However, in any description of a particular language, the morphemes are defined by a list of individual morphemes. Relations among these stated morphemes can then be studied no matter how the morphemes had been determined: for some listings of morphemes the relations will appear more complicated than
for others.
'^
E.g.
if
Adjectives, etc.,
our morphemic elements will be later classed in Verbs, Nouns, we will be able to say that after /Sa/ in an utterance
172
of 12.23 assures thiit the
The operation
siu'h
morphemic segments
is
will
be
elements
in
terms
of
which convenient distributional statements

recognized there will
can be made. For each morphemic segment which

be others having partially similar distribution.
These new segments

tion
of utterances therefore include in their constitu-
some
of the limitations of occurrence of the phonological

(i.e.
segments;
and
their distribution
their privileges of occurrence) within long ut-
terances can be
more
easily stated
than that
of the phonological elements.
This does not
mean
that these segments are those elements
whose
dis-
tribution within utterances can be stated most simply.
The operations
morin utter-
carried out in chapters 13-17 will define, in terms of the present
phemic segments, more inclusive elements whose distribution

inclusive elements in terms of the present segments,
ances can be stated far more simply. In the course of defining such more
it
may
appear that
some
as a
of the
segmentations are not as convenient as the others for the
setting
up
of these
new elements. The work
of 12
may
then be considered
first
approximation, to be corrected whenever we wish to have a

different
somewhat
segmentation as a basis for defining the more
in-
clusive elements.'^
In considering the results of 12 as material for general statements,
it
must be remembered that each morphemic segment has been defined for a particular environment, even though this was done with an eye to phonemically identical segments in other environments. The operations of 12 tell us primarily how many morphemic segments there are in any given utterance, or what parts of each utterance are constituents of what morphemic segments within it. These operations do not as j-et give us a compact set of morphemic elements occurring in various environments.
I2.il.
Morphemic Segments
Situations
is
Correlate icith Features of Social

the culoccurs.
If
each utterance
correlated with the social situation,

in
i.e.
it
tural
environment and the interpersonal relations,
which
there is a certain positive probability of a member of Xoun or Adjective occurring in a given position, but zero probability for the occurrence of any element in the Verb class. Furthermore, if all these elements are defined as sequences of phonemes we could then state the probability for any phoneme occurring at various points within that position. '^ There is no conflict between the approximation of chapter 12 and any corrections made upon it later (chapters 13. 17, 18), since both the criterion of 12.23 and the basis for any later correction would be identical the setting up of morphemic segments in such a way that the simplest
:
distributional statements can be
made about them.
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
it
173
will
be possible to correlate the morphemic segments of the utterance

is
with features of the social situation. In some cases this

as in correlating the
rather simple,
segment
five
with a feature of the social situation in

now, I
got
such utterances as
other cases
it
It's five o'clock
some
three-by-fives for you. In
may be
quite complicated, as in correlating./??'? with a feaI'll be
ture of the social situation in such utterances as Mr. five-hy-five,
back in
five or ten
minutes.
When
and
the results of descriptive linguistics are used in other linguistic
social investigations,
one
of
the chief desiderata
is
the correlation of
utterances and their morphemic segments on the one hand with social
situations
and features
of
them on the other." This

it
is
comparable to the
this correlation
correlation of the phonological segments with features of sound. In the
case of the phonological segments,
was possible to use
we could substitute one segment for another (whether impressionistically or by sound track) and test for identity or difference in native response (e.g. by the method of
in the very establishment of the segments, since
4.23). It
was therefore possible to say that the phonological segments
represent particular features of sound.
In contrast, the correlation of morphemic segments with features of

social situations at present
cannot be used
of
in establishing
the segments.^** There
is
no way
determining meaning differences as exactly as one

(of
can measure sound differences, and there are no morphological tests

hearer's response to meaning)
comparable to the phonological
test of
4.23 (of hearer's response to sound).
Since meaning was not used as a criterion in setting up the
morphemic
segments, the segments resulting from 12.2
will
not always be identical
with those which might be desired from the point of view of meaning
analysis.
However, these segments
will
be the most convenient ones for
morphological description, and where considerations of meaning are at

variance with this segmentation special note can be made.
12.5.
Correlations between Morphemes and Phonemes in Each Language Since wê now have two independent sets of linguistic elements, phonemes and morphemes, it is convenient to ask what correlations may be
" In dictionaries, morphemic elements are defined as a correlation between morphemically segmented phonemic sequences and features of
social situations (meanings).
"It
in
is
for this reason that

in 12.2.
pheme segmentation
meaning was not used as a criterion of morFor justification of this disregard of meaning
the procedure, see the Appendix to 12.41.
174
disL'ovored
between the two sets
in
any particular
lan}i;uatfe
under con-
sideration.'^
Aie there any phonemic features peculiar to morpheme
boundaries or to whole classes of morphemes? Given the phonemes of a

stretch of speech, can
I2..1I.
we
predict anything about its
morphemes?
In
I'lionernic Combinations in Morphemes many languages it is possible to make general statements about
of particular sets of
the
morphemic segments/" The language may have many morphemes (stems) of four or more segmental phonemes plus a stress phoneme, as against other morphemes (affixes) all of which contain only one or two segmental phonemes and no stress
phonemic composition
phoneme.'*' Certain
phonemes
or
these short morphemes, or in other
phoneme sequences may occur only in morphemes which are marked by

feature.''^
some
special distributional or
phonemic
12.52.
Intermittently Present Pause

also find in
We may
some languages that
loose contact and division
between breath-groups of phonemes occur at morpheme boundaries, or that pauses occur sometimes (though not always) at morpheme boundary, but practically never within a morpheme. Such pauses could not
be included in the phonemic content of the morpheme, except as intermittently present features in the utterance.
They
are free variants,
and
do not occur every time morpheme boundary occurs. But in some occurrences of the morpheme sequences those pauses would constitute observable evidence of
morpheme
boundary.''^
In
many
cases,
however, these pauses come at points containing

in the utterance
phonemic junctures (12.53-4). At these points
we
find
segments which occur only at utterance boundary or at points of intermittently present pause, and which are phonemicized into junctures
or into sequences of
some phoneme plus
juncture.
We
can then say that
'^ Here we correlate the known phonemes of a language with its known morphemic segments, whereas in 2.62 we compared the general method of discovering phonemes with the general method of discovering mor-
phemes. " See for e.xample the Yawelmani case
in International Journal of
American Linguistics 13.55 (1947). " See, e.g. Marcel Cohen, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague
8.37 (1938). ^ E.g. in English learned (foreign) vocabulary: cf. Leonard Bloomfield, The structure of learned words, in A Commemorative Volume Issued by the Institute for Research in English Teaching (Tokyo, 1933). *' For an explicit use of intermittently present ('facultative') pause, cf. chapter 4, fn. 10 above.
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
the pause (when
it
175
occurs)
is
an occasionally-occurring free variant of
the phonemic juncture.

12.53.
Adjusting Junctures as
all
Morpheme Boundaries
In chapter 8 and in the Appendix to 9.21 we saw various segments
which contrasted with
the phonemes recognized in the language, and

set
which would therefore have to be

It
up
as constituting
was, however, possible to include these segments in
new phonemes. some of the pre-
viously recognized
phonemes
if
we
defined, wherever these segments oc-
curred, a zero phoneme'called juncture. This technique could be used in
many made
cases,
but was primarily useful
if
the juncture
phoneme could be
for
to occur precisely at the
boundary between morphemes;
then
phoneme sequence (in that its presence is taken into consideration when we wish to determine the segment members of the neighboring phonemes) but also as a mark of morpheme boundary. In the previous sections it was possible to use only indirect methods and tentative guesses in deciding whether in a particular case it wâs desirable to set up a juncture and thereupon assign a segment to some previously recognized phoneme. Now we can see if these junctures fall on morpheme boundaries or can be adjusted to do so.
the juncture could be used not only as part of the
junctures,
aries
Segments which had not been phonemically assigned with the aid of may now be so treated if the knowledge of morpheme boundwhich we now have makes
it.''''
this desirable in cases
where we had
neglected to do
In some languages
it
may be
possible to say that certain contours
change from morpheme to successive morpheme, or that certain contours, long
components such
as vowel
harmony, phonemes,
or
phoneme
sequences (clusters,
etc.) correlate
with the boundary of a morpheme.
Thus,
in English long
consonants do not occur within a morpheme; how-
ever, they occur across
morpheme boundary,
is
e.g.
the /nn
'
in pen-knife.
Any sound
cal
feature whose occurrence

(e.g.
limited in terms of a moii)hologi-
segment
one morpheme) can be indicated by a juncture phoneme
or an automatically placeable
boundary mark which
will indicate
both
the feature in question and the morphological boundary.''^
Note the relevance of morphemic boundaries to phoneme distribuLeonard Bloomfield, Language V.^'.^. The palatal [g] of standard German Zuge 'progress, pull' and the front [g] of zugestehen 'grant' can be included in one phoneme /g only if a phonemic juncture separates the /u/ from the /g/ at the morphemic boundary in the second form.
'''
tion, in
in
^'Several features that case they are
may
all
Ix^ limited in terms of a particular l)oundary; indicated by the boundary mark. ()ft(>n we will
17(1
STRrCTrUAL LixnrisTics
Junctures
the boundaries between morphemic segments
12. 5i. At'ir I'lioiiettiir
Establishment
in 12.2 of
enables us therefore to decide where
it is convenient to set up junctures. some changes in the junctures of chapter 8 and in the assignment of segments to phonemes in 7-9. These changes in phonemicization may be so designed as to make phonemically identical two mor-
This
may
lead to
phemic segments which were phonemically
different before the reassign-
ment
of segments.
this, replacing a
In contrast with
contour or other phonemic element
by juncture in the case of partial dependence (8.222) will not lead to a phonemic juncture. If loud stress occurs on the penult vowel of every word or morpheme, but if the distribution of consonants is such that we cannot state a phonemic basis for exact placing of the juncture, we cannot obtain a phonemic juncture. Knowledge of the morpheme boundaries will enable us to place these boundaries in each utterance, and we will then be able to dispense with the phonemic stress: if we write CVCVC:^VCCVCV^ with the morphological boundaries, we know that
the stress
is
on each penult
is
before
#. But
the representation with
instead of
not one-one, for when we hear

if
CYCVCVCCXCV
or
do not know
we should
write
CVCVC:\:\iVCCVCV
we CT'CT'#
cvccvcvnsome morphemes have juncture phonemes at their boundaries, while others do not: e.g. English morphemes ending in /ay/ are marked with juncture since /ay-/ represents the segments [a:y] whereas ay slay-nas, for is [a.y] or [ay] depending on the following consonant [sla:ynas] slytiess; maynas for [maynas] tnimis. In such cases we try to find other phonemic characteristics for the boundaries of other morphemes, so that if possible all morpheme boundaries are recognizable by juncture or by peculiar phoneme sequences. Even if we attain only partial success, we can say that the juncture (in this case morpheme juncture) has several effects, depending on the neighboring phonemes: various phonemes have different types of segment members near it (e.g. /ay/ is [a:y] before /-/; /tr/ is [tr] when /-/ occurs between them, as in night-rate, as against nitrate which lacks the juncture; cf. chapter 8, fn. 17). In some cases we find that a certain phonemic feature correlates with morpheme boundary, but has varying positions or values within various morphemes (e.g. free or partially bound word stress), so that from the sound feature alone we cannot tell exactly where among the phonemes the boundary must occur. And if the phonemic feature always occurs a fixed number of times (e.g. once, for main stress) within each morpheme or construction (e.g. word), we can tell from the number of occurrences of that feature in our utterance how many morphemes (or constructions) there are in the utterance. Cf. the discussion of Grenzsignale in N. S. Trubetzkoy, Grundziige der Phonologic 243 ff. (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7).
find that
:
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
Appendix to
12.22: Partial
177
and Seeming Independence
Special consideration has to be given to cases of partial and superficially
apparent independence.
Partial independence occurs
when one phonemic sequence

is
is
independ-
ent of another, while the other
not independent of the
first. If
we break
a sequence into
two
parts, e.g. boysenberry into (/boysan/
and /beriy/),
is
and
find that in given utterances only
one of these parts ever occurs

a mor-
without the other part, we can nevertheless say that each part
Thus given /boysanberiy/ in That's a rotten boysenberry, we find That's a rotten blueberry, and That's a rotten berry, but we do not find /boysan/ next to some sequence other than /beriy/ in this total environment. However, we do find /bluw/ blue next to some
phemic segment by
itself.
sequence other than /beriy/: That's a

blueberry
rotten bhtepoint.
In That's a rotten
we
therefore recognize bhie
and berry
as being
two independent
segments. Hence, in That's a rotten boysenberry, which differs from the

preceding utterance only in having /boysan/ instead of the independent
/bluw/, we must
ing done so,
since
still
consider /beriy/ as an independent element.
Havis
we now
also recognize /boysan/ as a separate element too,
we do not wish
to have
any sequence
of
phonemes
left
over that
want to be able to describe stretch of speech exhaustively as a sequence of morphemes. a Furthermore, our present operation is one of segmentation, and if we
not assigned to one element or another.
We
segment the utterance Give
Tom
a boysenberry in such a
way
off.
that give,
Tom,
a,
and
berry
(all of
which can be shown to be independent) are sepa-
rated, then
unavoidably boysen has also been segmented

rotten
Within the
frame That's a
berry /boysan/ substitutes for various
mor-
phemes and
for zero.
For a set of segments some of which have only partial independence,
we compare
there,
then,
thither,
this,
that,
where, when, whither, why,

th-
what, etc., in various environments.
We
can consider
and wh- to be
independent segments, and so also
-ere, -en, -ither;
a few phonemic se-
quences like
-y, -is,
are only partially independent, but get to be segextract the thth-,
mented
off
when we
difficult
and
wh-.
Some
of the
segments also
occur with h- in the place of
wh-, as in hither, hence.
A
is
more
problem
arises with
such sets as
slide, slither, slick,
sleek, slimy, etc., or glow,
gleam, glimmer, glimpse, glance, glare, etc. There

for separating the si- or gl-
no adequate distributional basis
from what
follows them. These initial sequences do not occur with a set of noninitial
sequences which have some other characteristic in
common
(such
ITS
;is tluit
of occurring with a particular set of initial morphemes).'"' In the
case of slide, glide, where the residue would be the same,

that the formulaic statement of 12.22 permits us to separate
we could say
si-
However, the great majority

sequences are not the same.
as in slide, glide
If
of non-initial residues of these
and gl- off. two initial
there were no such case of identical residue,

si-
we could
set
not set
and
gl-
up
as
When there are one or two such

cal residues,
cases out of a great
morphemic segments. number of non-identi-
we can
of
them up
reject
as tentative segments, but the criterion
of 12.23 will in
most cases
them.
phonemic sequences and changes which are found not to be independent may be seen in the dynamic vowel processes of Yokuts. These are changes which occur in root morphemes when these roots
An example
Each root may have one such vowel change w'hen and another vowel change when another suffix occurs after it. The changes are thus independent of the roots. Each vowel change occurs with several suffixes, there being fewer different voware foUowêd
by
suffixes.
one
suffix occurs after
it,
el
changes than
suffixes.
However, each
suffix occurs
It
with only one vowel

at first blush as
suffix is the
change, no matter what root precedes
it.
would seem
though the relation
of a given
vowel chang6 to a particular
same
as the relation of berry to boysen (berry occurs with boysen, blue, etc.,
is
but boysen occurs only with berry). But this
not the case, because the
sequences, such as blue, which could replace boysen before berry were in-
dependent on their own merit and could occur before environments other
than
berry.
In contrast, the suffixes which can replace each other after
none of them some other vowel change than the one in question. We therefore include each suffix and the vowel change with which it occurs in one morphemic segment. The fact that various suffixes begin with
a vowel change are not independent of the vowel change;
would occur
after
the same vowel change
is
comparable to the
fact that various roots begin
with /d/."'
*^
Gl-, si-,
fanailies
and -earn, -imy, etc. do not constitute two interdependent such as we find in conceive, receive, concur, etc. (12.232).
of California 23-4, 33 (1944). does not take these vowel changes to be independent morphemes, but considers them processes operating upon the root when particular suffi.xes are added. This is equivalent to considering them as parts of the phonemic definition of the suffix morphemes. For a discussion of these two ways of stating grammatical relations see Z. S. Harris, Yokuts structure and Newman's grammar, Int. Jour. Am. Ling. 10.196-211
"Stanley Newman, Yokuts Language
Newman
(1944).
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
Appendix to
12.23:
179
The
Criterion of Similar Distributions

in 12.23
The condition imposed

tional patterning.
amounts
to a requirement of distribu-
We set up as morphemic segments only those tentativesimilariis,
ly independent
ties
phonemic sequences which have distributional
with other tentatively independent morphemic segments. That
we
determine our elements in such a
way
that
it
will
be possible to make
simple and compact statements about their distribution.

present procedure
will yield
is
The
task of the
to offer techniques for finding which segmentations
such elements.
In this appendix there will be shown examples which satisfy 12.23,
and others which
fail
to satisfy
it.'*^
We consider the utterance

is
The announcer
is
no good. The sequence /er/
independent (or rather, every sequence
in the utterance is
er. Is
independent
of er),
because we can substitute ment for
there any generality of
distribution which justifies us in considering this er a
we
test,
by substitution, what sequences precede

if
er,
morpheme? If we find govern,

er.
assign, reinforce, etc.,
which also occur with ment replacing the
We
next ask
there
is
anything else that characterizes the group
of se-
quences announce, assign, reinforce, as compared with other sequences

(say,
is,
very)
which do not occur before
er.
We
find that all the pve-er
** Y. R. Chao points out the similarity between this criterion and the 'substitution by isotopes' proposed by C. W. Luh in his published preface to an unpublished vocabulary of Peiping monosyllabic words Kuo^-yii' tan'-yin'-tz'u^ tz'u^-hui^ (Peiping 1938), pp. 7-15. Chao writes: 'If for example, the question is whether shuo^ hua^ 'talk' 'speak speech' is one or two words, he seeks some isotopes keeping hua^ unchanged, then others keeping s/iwo' unchanged. If it is possible to do so, e.g.
shuo^ hua*
Ving'^ htia^
'speak speech'
'listen to speech'
chiang^ hiia*
'talk speech'
shuo^ hua^ shuo^ tneng* shuo^ shu^
'speak speech' 'speak about dream' 'speak (story) book'
then .s/iiio' and hua'* are two words and not one. Naturally the substituted forms chosen have to be isotopes, and not just any substitution. Thus, fei* hua^ 'wasted words' or .s/iwo' hsiao'^ 'talk (and) laugh' would not be isotopes of shuo^ hua*. Luh does not give the exact criteria for recognizing isotopes, but expresses the belief that most people would agree as to when parts of utterances are or are not isotopes.' It would appear that the determination of what is an 'isotope' depends upon the distributional similarity (in other utterances than the one in question) of the morphemes that are to be substituted in a frame. Thus t'ing^ has a distributional hua*) which fci'^ does similarity to shuo^ (in environments other than not have. The criterion is thus equivalent to that of 12.23.
180
in the
sequences oci-ur
environments / cannot
(e.g. very)
while those sequences
which occur
ments such
possible to
old do not occur in er is no good. It is now He is make a long list of different utterances, in which all the se-
as
The
Let's try to
etc./'
in various other environ-
quences which precede

is
er substitute for
each other; / cannot
-.
The
-er
no good,
etc.
We define the
and
morphemic segment
any one
er as occurring in
some
of these utterances
as following
of these
mutually substitut-
able sequences.
It follows
that
hammer does not contain
this
morphemic segment, bein / can't
cause
it
occurs not only in The
ing,
He
ed away, where the other pre-er sequences cannot substitute

/sow/
in
is
no good, but also
stand this
for /haem/.^"
It follows further that
He
is
so old
is
not a
member
is
of the
mutually substitutable group which precedes

with the
er,
and
not identical
morpheme /sow/
in
The sower
is
no good, I cannot sow; because
the other sequences which precede er cannot substitute in
He
is
is
old.
A contrast
also
with these morphemic divisions

utterances like His
is
afforded
tear, pair, share, in
arrived just
by the sequences in time. Since we

ten-
have
tea,
pay, (one-horse) shay in these utterances, the /r/
tatively independent
pheme
don't
status.
and we are in position to consider its possible morHowever, when we seek some other feature which characwhich occur before /r/ as against sequences which
terizes the sequences

(e.g. book, wife)
we
no
fail
to obtain results:
tea,
pay, etc. do not have
a regular difference in distribution as compared with book, wife, etc.
Furthermore, there
is
common
feature to
all
the sequences which ocof
cur before /r/ in His
r arrived just in time:
without the /r/

chair, occur
in
His
Some
them,
e.g. tea,
occur
arrived J2tst in time; others, e.g. /iey/

etc.
from
only before a few other phonemes, as in chain,

in
There are
few positions, aside from the very one
His
r arrived just in time,
where
tea,
pay, shay, chai can substitute for each other.

is
Similarly, the /g/ of bag, rug, bug
independent by the criterion of

is
12.22, but does not correlate with any other distributional feature as
required by the criterion of 12.23.
In the case of er, a great number of the sequences which occur in . also occur before er. If we had been considering inent we would have found that only a few of the sequences which occur in / catinot also occur before ment (e.g. teach occurs before er but not before mcnl: preach occurs before both). However, this difference in quantity is
*^
/ cannot
irrelevant here.
^^ I.e. the morpheme er was not defined as occurring before ing, ed, or before another er as in hammerer.

MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
Appendix to
The
12.233: Alternatives in Patterning
181
considerations of patterning are especially complicated in seg-
menting phonemic sequences which cannot be matched with other, partially identical, sequences.
for
For example, if we consider run in I'll over we can substitute walk, stay, etc., and may thus set up each of these phoneme sequences as a morphemic segment. If we consider walked in / over before you came, we can substitute stayed, ran, etc. We can separate the -ed morphemically by setting up the environment / ed over
it,
before
you came,
in
which walk,
stay, etc. replace
each other. This does not

basis of
enable us to segment ran. However,
we may analyze ran on the
walked, stayed: since ran substitutes for walked, etc.,

etc.,
and since walked has been segmented into ivalk ment ran into run and /a/ ^ /se/ (replacement of /a/ by /se/). Independently of this, we may compare run and ran in 7 slowly, and note that these are partially identical as to r n. Hence we may say that there are two morphemic segments, /a/ and /ae/, which replace each
and run for walk, and ed, we may seg-
other in the environment / r
slowly.
formulation of this type avoids

as well say that run
is
giving precedence to run over
rail (for
we could
segmented into ran plus
/ae/ -r^ /a/, as the other
way
around). However,
the precedence of run over ran
is given by the fact that run replaces the one-morpheme walk while ran replaces the two-morpheme walked.
Wc
run
zero
could eliminate this precedence by saying that (on the analogy of
ran) walk too contains two morphemes: walk plus zero; and that
and cd are two segments which replace each other
/ walk
zero,
ment
uHilk,
slowly. Even
ed, all
as
we did this, and listed r n, /a/, /ae/, and morphemic segments, we could morphemically
if
in the environ-
identify either one of /a/, /ae/ with r

ivalk
on the basis of the fact that

,
and either one ed with n never occurs without either /a/

n,
of zero,
or
a'
and walk never occurs without either zero or ed
(see chapter
18, fn. .35).
All these
criteria of
methods
of
segmenting are ecjuivalent. Beyond the general

3),
independence and patterning (12.22
the choice
among
these
methods depends upon how we choose

upon any absolute
to treat zero
segments and the
voiding of elements (Appendix to 18.2).

criterion of
The choice does not depend
denying ran precedence over run, because

all
the morphemic segmentation of

a form run contains one
forms (and so the question of whether

while
rati
morpheme
contains two) depends on
the total environments of the forms and on the other forms which substitute for them.
1S2
Complex Discontinuous Morphemes morphology of a language may
of
ApiM'iulix to 12.323-4:
V.xvn complicated parts of the
turn
out to involve completely dependent parts of utterances,
expressible
by repeated portions
of the
and so to be a discontinuous morpheme. Thus the
grammatical noun classes

a subdivision of the
Bantu languages are usually treated as noun vocabulary into classes, each of which 'agrees'
elsewhere in the utterance. In this
with particular
affixes, particles, etc.,
treatment, the class markers are prefixes which occur before particular
nouns and then

Instead of
'agree'
with other prefixes in the utterance.

are discontinuous
is
we can say that the class markers morphemes composed of various parts each of which
this,
prefixed to
any
(a
noun, adjective, verb, demonstrative,

section of the utterance.
etc.,
that occurs within a stated
That
of
is,
we
state a portion of
an utterance
domain) consisting
izer
of:
demonstrative
noun
adjective adjectivsequence
in
verb consisting any portion noun verb, which often occurs without the
(or
of this, e.g. just the
rest of the
domain
an
utterance).
We
then state that the class markers are discontinuous mor-
phemes, parts of which occur in each position indicated by

part of this class-marker
If
the only
domain which occurs in a particular utterance noun, then the class marker in that utterance is a is demonstrative discontinuous morpheme having two sections (separated by juncture).
Thus Swahili
hiki kiti 'this chair'
is
ti
segmented into
'chair'
hi 'this' (which oc-
curs with other class markers too),

ki class marker),
. .
(which occurs only with the
ki ki
class
marker
If
for 'things' (the dots indicate
the domain
in the particular utterance
in this case,
more
consisting of
two
morphemes, demonstrative and noun).

in
an utterance, the class marker
in
domain appears that utterance has a greater number

of this
is
of discontinuous parts: in hiki kiti kizuri ki?nevunîka 'this fine chair
broke
ki
.
. .
(lit.
.
it-got-broken)' the class marker^^
ki ki ...
ki
li
the noun
is
of a different class (not the 'thing' class),

will
then a
different
class
marker
appear
in all
the positions of the domain
which are available
in the particular
utterance in which the noun occurs.
All other portions of the utterance, except those included in the
com-
adjectivizcr adjective noun domain above (demonstrative verb), do not contain the class marker of the noun of that domain; and even the morphemes within the domain are not affected by the class marker (except that in some cases there are morphophonemic variations
plete
''
The
. .
relation
ki
etc.) is
among these various ki markers discussed in 13.
(i.e.
among
ki,
ki
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
portion of the class marker).
183
due to the contact between a particular morpheme in the domain and a

Since each noun
morpheme
occurs always with only one class marker,
in the domain occur now with one marker and now with another (depending on the marker of the noun in whose domain they are), it follows that each noun is dependent on some par-
whereas the other morphemes
ticular class marker. If

'chair')
we ask why
. .
it is
that the class marker ki (in kiti
or
ki ki
(in
hiki kiti), rather
marker, occurs in the given utterance,

the noun in the domain
is ti
rather
than some other class we could say that it is because than some other noun. Had the noun
:
been ke 'woman' we would have had the class marker for 'persons' m (in mke) or ... yu m .. (in hiyu mke 'this woman'). However, we can avoid
.
this partial restriction, of
noun to marker," by saying that the markers morphemes but portions of each noun morpheme. In hiki kiti, the morphemic segmentation (based on independence of ocki kiti 'chair'; and indeed we can recurrence) gives us hi 'this' and An' kiti ki kiti constant, or we can replace place hi while keeping
are not independent
. .
while keeping hi constant.
''
In hiki
kiti kizuri 'this fine chair'
the mor.
phemic segmentation yields

'chair'.
hi 'this,' zuri 'fine,'
and
ki kiti ki
When the segmentation
is
carried out in this way, without morpliemi-
cally independent class markers,
we no
longer have a domain containing

is
a noun into which a discontinuous class marker

lar
inserted (the particufirst
marker depending on the noun). Instead, we say that the
two
(or fewer)
phonemes
ing positions as
tive
*
noun are repeated^^ in as many of the followoccur around the noun in the utterance: demonstraof a
adjective adjectivizer verb
(where the asterisk indicates
=^ And of marker to a particular group of nouns: for while -ti occurs only with A:;'-, ki- occurs only with a limited number of nouns, and never with such nouns as -tu 'man', -kc 'woman' (which occur only with class
marker
tn-).
''Since the dependence here is only partial, we can replace -ti while keeping hiki ki- constant (and obtain, e.g., hiki cio 'this school', with a c variant of ki); although we would later have to separate hi off. But while keeping hi- -ti constant, since -ti ki ki we cannot replace does not occur except with ki-.
. . . .
.
^* The repetitions of these first phonemes have variant forms in various environments. This can be avoided by specifying the environment in sufficient detail, and saying that in some cases the discontinuous porions of t he noun morpheme are not repetitions of the first phonemes, but
t
consist of other stated
phonemes.
184
the position of the main body of the noun). In the environment hi
memm%ikn
ki
.
'this
'
the form of 'chair'

'this fine
is
ki kiti; in
zuri the environment hi

*
broke' the form
of 'chair'
is
ki kiti ki
yielding hiki kid kizuri kimevun%ika}^
Appendix
^^'e
to 12.3~i:
Order as a .Morphemic Element

phoneme
or
can
now
assign every
component
in
an utterance to
find
some morphemic segment

in
or other.
However, we
may
in
still
between
utterances which are identical in their morphemic segments, differences
form that correlate regularly with differences

killed
environment and
meaning: The man hat just

texts
a hill
is
not substitutable in longer con-
and
in social situations for
bull has just killed the
man. In the
same way You saw Fred? differs from Fred saw you? This difference in form-^* between the members of each pair has not been included among our morphemic segments because it does not consist in adding or subtracting phonemic sequences (as do
all
the cases in 12.3), but rather in

in the relative position in
the order of morphemic segments,
i.e.
which
the phonemic sequences are added."
In other cases, there
is
no contrast between two arrangements
of a
given set of morphemic segments, but only one of these arrangements occurs:
The man. occurs, but
Man
the.
does not, either in the same or in
other contextual environment or social situation. Nevertheless, in these

cases too order of
morphemic segments must be noted
in describing the
utterance, in order to exclude from the description the arrangements
which do not occur. =*

Finally, there are cases where the order of
morphemic segments
in
an
utterance
is
free;
i.e.
the morphemes occur in any order, with no attend-
ant difference in the larger contextual environment or in the social situation.*^
ers,
For a somewhat more detailed statement of these Bantu class markand for other examples of this analysis, see Z. S. Harris, Discontinuous Morphemes, L.\ng. 21.121-7 (1945). Such features of arrangement are called taxemes in Leonard Bloomfield, Language 166, 184. ^' Cases of this type, where there is a contrast between two arrangements of morphemic segments, will be referred to in this Appendix as
''*
'"'^
contrasting order.
^^
Cases of this type

of this
will will
" Cases
order.
type
be referred to here as restricted order. be referred to here as descriptively equivalent
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
The most obvious way
and uniquely
In the
in the
first
185
to indicate the arrangement of

is
morphemic seg-
ments within an utterance
to say that each utterance can be completely
identified not
simply as a
sum
of
is
segments, but as an ornot entirely satisfactory.
dered set of segments. However, this method
place, the three types of cases cited
above are not
all
ordered
in fact
same
sense; the third, descriptively equivalent, type

ordered.''"
may
be described as not being

of
In the second place, the differences
arrangement often have a relation to the neighboring morphemes and
to the social situation comparable to the relation which

ferences
may have
to the neighboring
In
some
cases differences in
morphemic difmorphemes and social situation. morphemes substitute for differences in arfind
it
rangement."
For these reasons we

to treat order
may
convenient, in particular languages,

i.e.
on a par with morphemic segments,
as just another ele-
ment
in the
morphemic constitution
of the utterance.^^
Then
instead of
The
differences
among
the types of ordering in these three types are
comparable to differences of occurrence among morphemes and phonemes, so that we can describe these types in the vocabulary established for segment occurrence. Contrasting order is comparable to contrasting morphemes: you' + saw^ + Fred' + order 1, 2, 3 contrasts with you' + saw^ + Fred' + order 3, 2, 1 in the same way that you + saw + Fred + come contrasts with you -\- saw + Fred -\- go. Restricted order is comparable to limitations of morpheme occurrence: the occurrence of The man. to the exclusion of Man the. can be treated like the occurrence of He did go
to the exclusion of He used go. (Just as do does not contrast with use in this environment, so the order / 2 does not contrast with the order 2, 1 in the environment of the^ -(- man'^ -f- /./). Descriptively equivalent order is comparable to free variants of one segment: books, papers is substitutahle for papers, hooks before and magazines in the same way that released [k] is for unreleased [k'] before juncture, or that /ekanamiks/ is for
,
/iykanamiks/ (13.2). It might be most convenient to define morphemes as phonemically identifiable elements in particular positions relative to particular other such elem(!nts. Elements in diffei-ent positions need not be identified as the same element, just as homonymous elements in different environments need not be. Thus, we have Bengali verb plus na for the negative of a verb, but na plus verb for the negative in a subordinate clause (even when there is no subordinate particle). We have here a correlation between change of order and the omission of a subordinate parti(-le, such as occurs in subordinate clauses. We may express this by saying that na in verb is 'negative', but that na in verb is 'negative plus subordinating particle' (thus taking the place of the particle which we e.xpect in a subordinate clause). I am indebted to Charles A. Ferguson for the forms. " This would yield morphemic elements differing in constitution from those recognized in 12.3, but the difference would not be as great as
*'
180
morphemic segments, we would identify it as a set (a combinamorphemic elements. If the segments in question have
to the utterance, but of adding arrangement
case,
identifying an utterance as an ordered set (a particular permutation) of
particular
tion) of particular
contrasting arrangements, one of these elements will consist not of adding
some phonemes
sets of
among
the
is
phonemes. In that
If
we may say
that the arrangement
morphemic."
the segments have restricted order, the utterance will
contain no morphemic element of order, but

these segments
is
when the
If
relation
among
stated (16-7) these particular segments will be defined
as having a particular automatic order
among them.
the segments in
question have various descriptively equivalent orders, no morphemic
element of order
is
required in identifying the utterance, nor
is
any
If
state-
ment
this,
about order involved in the definition of the segments.
we do
every formal diflference between utterances that correlates with
differences in contextual environment
and
in social situation
would have
been assigned to some morphemic element or other.
Appendix to
scribe
12.41:
The
Criterion of
Meaning
of
The procedure of 12.2 yields elements in terms
which we can de-
what utterances occur. But it leaves unstated many facts about these utterances, correlations between these utterances and phenomena
not described or identified by current descriptive linguistics, such as
might enable us to state more exactly what

bilities
is
said or what are the proba-
of occurrence for a given utterance or utterance-feature.
For
example, certain utterances
may be
characteristic of the speech of

If
young
chDdren
in a
given language community.
we wish
to
know what the
at first appear. Each of the morphemic segments of 12.3 consisted of the adding, omitting, or interchanging of an ordered set of phonemes,
might
in respect to the other morphemic segments The new morphemic elements of order would consist of the relative order of these morphemic segments (i.e. of these additions, omissions, and interchange of phonemes) relative to each other in the
components, or contours,
of the utterance.
utterance.
not automatic for the morphemic segments in the utterance. sense, we call any phonological segment or element phonemic if it is not automatic in respect to the other phonological segments and elements of the utterance. The morphemic element of order would be given a dictionary meaning, based on the social situations with which its occurrence correlates, just as is the case with all the other morphemic elements. The order in You saw Fred? and in Fred saw youf has the meaning roughly of 'actor' for the position before saw and 'object of action' for the position after it.
*^ I.e.
In the
same
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
probability
is
187
that
some utterance
type
is
will
be of this type, we need but dis-
cover the ratio of children's utterances to adults' utterances.^'' Discovery

of correlations of this
by
definition excluded
from the procedures
presented here. Such correlations could be treated in investigations of

social -dialect features,
or personal sub-phonemic characteristics,

in the relation of
and
would
in general
be included
language to culture and
personality.
One
of these types of correlation
is,
however, so universally included
in descriptive linguistics as to require special consideration here.
This
is
the meaning of utterances,
or, in
the last analysis, the correlation of ut-
terances with the social situation^^ in which they occur.

If
we
consider this correlation,

of
we
find that there are
major limitations
social
upon the occurrence

situation.
phonemic sequences, depending on the

of
phonemes are not random in respect to the social situation in which they occur. Our investigation of phoneme distribution may show that the sequences /"tuw-'Sriyz,'pliyz./ Two threes,
please.
The sequences
/'wats-Se'reyt-fgr-'Sis?/
What's the rate for this? /kan'sidar-Saall
'kltes-'strakcar-in-'rowm./ Consider the class structure in Rome,

cur.
oc-
But
it
will
not show that the
first
two
will
occur in particular so-
cial situations, in
which the third
will not.
More
later, in
generally, our previous investigation
may
tell
us that sooner or
it
some
situation or other, the sequence /'pliyz/ will occur, but

it
cannot
tell
us when, in what particular social situations,
has a higher
probability of occurring.
If
we try
to correlate each
it
situations in which
in rare cases. ^''
occurs,
phoneme or component with the social we will obtain no high correlation, e.xcept
occurs equally in an angry
The phoneme /k/
command
^^ I.e. the percentage of yovmg children in the community, and the average number of utterances spoken by a child and by an adult.
est sense,
This term, used as the equivalent of 'meaning', is taken in its broadbut will not be defined here because the whole discussion of this section is not at present given to exact statement. It should be noted that even when meaning is taken into consideration there is no need for a detailed and involved statement of the meaning of the element, much less i){ what it was that the speaker meant when he said it. All that is n^ciuired
"^
between two sets of situations (those occurs and those in which it does not). Of course, the more exact, subtle, and refined our statement of this difference is, the better.
is
that
we
find a regulai- difference
in
which
^^
Occasionally we may find a plioneme which occurs in so few moror types of social situation as to permit of such correlation: e.g. initial /S/ in English (which occurs in a few morphemes- </ic, there, then, etc.). In some cases morphological elements may be coterminous with
phemes
ISS
to hurry
{Make
it
snappy!), in a discourse on social change (communism),

in general correlate these phonological
and so
on.
We
cannot
elements
with the reaction of the hearer or with the whole social situation in which
the speaking takes place.
More
generally
we can
ask:
How
does the phonemic content of an
utterance vary as the social situation in which the utterance occurs

varies? If
we record
at quarter
hour intervals, from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m.,
the
greetings exchanged between formal business associates,
we
but
find as the
first
day passes no gradual phonemic change
in the greeting
many
after-
occurrences of the sequence /gud'mornir)./ Good morning., and later a
complete replacement by the sequence /gudaeftar'nuwn./ Good

noon.
The change
in social situation correlates
with the change of a
whole sequence of phonemes at once, together.

if we wish elements which will correlate we must seek them in general not among single phonological elements but among combinations and sequences of these. The attempt to set up sequences of phonemes which correlate highly with
It
would appear, then, that
with meanings,
features of social situations meets, however, with great technical

culties.
diffi-
There are at present no methods of measuring
social situations of constituent
and
of uniquely identifying social situations as
composed
parts, in such a
way
that
we can
divide the utterance which occurs in
(or corresponds to) that social situation into
segments which
will corre-
phonological elements. Thus the morphemic contours of 12.344 may in cases be identical with the phonemic contours of chapter 6, if no reduction of the contours of 6 into constituent phonemic elements (Appendi.x to 6.6) proves possible. Similarly, if we include among the phonological elements those segments which represent so-called gestural and onomatopoetic sounds, and which combine only rudimentarily with other segments, we will find that these segments are in effect also morphological elements: e.g. if the tongue-tip click written tak in English is considered a phonological element of English, we will find that it is restricted to a relatively small number of social situations and meanings. In all these special cases a phonological element will be found to have high correlation with classes of social situations. More generally, we can say that every phoneme has some elementary meaning in that it differentiates one meaning-correlated morpheme from another: we can say that /t/ correlates with the meaning difference between short and shorn, shore, etc., and between take and lake, ache, etc., and so on. In linguistic systems in which phonemes are restricted as to their neighbors, it is also possible to say that the phonemes have certain expectation value: after the English phonemes /par/ adding the phoneme /{/ permits us to expect the phoneme d and the utterance parched, or the phoneme /m and the morpheme parchment, and so on, but not, say, the phoneme /z /
some
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
spond to the constituent parts
present rely on
of the of the situation. In general,
189
we cannot
at
some natural
or scientifically ascertainable subdivision
meaning range
of the local culture,
because techniques for such
complete cultural analysis into discrete elements do not exist today;
on the contrary, language
is
one of our chief sources of knowledge about
a people's culture (or 'world of meaning') and the distinctions or divisions
which are made

This
is
in
it.
not to say that meaning differences or apparent identity of

in
meaning cannot be used
the course of the search for larger-than-
phoneme segmentations
of utterances. Since
both the distributional seg-
mentation of 12.2 and the meaning-correlating divisions of the preceding
two paragraphs involve a segmentation

larger than one
of utterances into parts generally
phoneme
each,
it is
possible for the
two segmentations
to be frequently identical;
and
linguists often use apparent differences
or identities of meaning (or of translation) as hints in their search for morphemic segments. However, these hints must always be checked with
the operations of 12.2
if
the resulting segmentation
is
to satisfy the pur-
poses of our pi-ocedures, so that meaning never functions as a fullfledged criterion for
of 12.2.
By
the
morpheme segmentation, on a par with the criteria same token, the morphemes resulting from these pro-
cedures are not necessarily exact correspondences for such distinctions
made in the culture in question;^' and if in two situations the same morphemes or utterances occur, we cannot derive therefrom that the two situations are not culturally distinguishable.'*'* All that is possible, then, in terms of the methods used in these procedures, is to set up the morphemic segments purely on the basis of the
as are relative distributional criteria of 12.2. Entirely independent investigations, using techniques quite different
linguistics,
from those
of current descriptive
might then seek to correlate these segments with features
of
social situations.^*
For the purposes
of descriptive linguistics proper,
is in general a close correspondence between the division which we might establish on a meaning basis and that which results from our distributional criteria. This is so because in general morphemes which differ in meaning will also differ in their en-
"
Nevertheless, there
morphemic
vironments, them.
'*'*
if
we take
sufficiently long
environments and enough
of
If two types of basket are named with the same word, we cannot say without further investigation that the two types are equivalent or
indistinguishable in that culture.

'''
or
word
Dictionaries usually combine the listing of each distinct morpheme (short sequence of morphemes within the limits of some stated
100
it
whon
is
drsiniblc to connet't its uttorances

it
and elements with

differ in
social
situations,
suffices to define
'meaninfj;'
(more exactly 'difference
in
meaning') in such a way that utterances which

ence in meaning
in
morphemic con-
stituency will be considered as differing in meaning, and that this differis
assumed to indicate
differences in the social situations

of
which these utterances occur. Then the meaning
each morpheme in
of the
the utterance will be defined in such a

of the constituent
way
that the
sum
meanings
morphemes
is
is
the meaning of the utterance.^" In espartially different utterances
sence, the
method here
to
compare two
(e.g.
having partially different meanings
Take
my
is
book.
Take
my
books.)
and attribute the

content
it is
difference in
meaning to the
'plural').
difference in
morphemic
{s is
an element meaning
This
purely a convention;
based on no new information about the morphemes and gives no new
information about them, but merely enables us to speak of the meaning

of
morphemes."'
This convention concerning morphemic meaning in descriptive
lin-
guistics does not yield a simple single

of its occurrences.
meaning
for each
morpheme
in all
Show me
the table
may be
said in connection with both
morphological relation), plus some indication of its morphological classification, with a very rough approximation to the meaning or social situation correlation. Any serious investigations in this field will have to be much more subtle and detailed than dictionaries can be at best. It would be necessary to relate all differences among utterances with differences in culturally, including interpersonally, relevant features of the social situations; and in so doing it would be necessary to note not only in what situations utterances differ but also in what situations talk does not
occur.
^^
Or
is
the
sum
rather, that the difference in meaning between two utterances of the meaning of the moi-phemic elements (including order)
in the
which are included in the first utterance but not which are in the second but not in the first.
second and those
^' Our only data is the meaning (i.e. social context) of each utterance; the identification of morpheme meanings with features of social situations is merely a matter of further operations upon this data. Any investigations that are designed to go beyond this would have to reconsider the data in greater detail, and in terms of the morphemes (or small sequences of them, e.g. words). Such investigations might seek to discover the meaning of each morpheme imbedded within an utterance. For work in this direction, see Edward Sapir, Grading, a study in semantics. Philosophy of Science 11.93-116 (1944); Totality, Language Monographs 6 (1930); E. Sapir and M. Swadesh, Expression of the ending-point relation in English, French, and German, Language Monographs 11 (1932); note also the use of meaning in Otto Jespersen's Modern English Grammar.
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
a piece of furniture
191
and a chart exhibiting data, ^^'e therefore define a range of meaning for each morpheme, which includes its meaning in each occurrence. In some cases, different meanings within this range occur in
slightly different environments: book indicates a list of bets in book-
maker, but a volume in book-binder J'^ In other cases there

in
is
no difference
environment / bumped
:
into a pole,
can be said after a minor accident
or after a chance
meeting with an East European." In either case we
note roughly the ranges of meanings and the linguistic environmental

differences,
It is
if
any, of the single morpheme.'^
possible to seek a single factor of meaning
common
to
all
the oc-
currences of a morpheme, so that the range of meaning can be stated in
terms
of a
meaning element which always occurs with the morpheme,
plus added variations in various environments. However, this will not

necessarily yield a
more convenient
or
compact
set of
statements
in
every
It
case.'^
may
be more useful
of a
for descriptive linguistics to treat the
range of
meaning
morpheme
as consisting of several environmentally-re-
stricted meanings, the environmental ranges to
which each meaning
is
restricted being selected in the
manner
of chapter 15."
'-
neutralize
The meaning differences may not be obvious at first e.g. -ize in means 'to render (neutral)', in ininimize 'to claim or make
:
something seem (small)'. " We would not attempt to make a morphemic division to fit the meaning differences: e.g. to say that pole 'pillar' was two morphemes (say, po and /) and so different from Pole morphemically thcjugh not phonemically. To do so would have given us two new morphemes which always occur together, against the condition of 12.22; and if we had tried to say that one of the proposed morphemes, say po, also occuri'ed elsewhere, as in poster, we would have difficulties in satisfying the distributional similarity requirement of 12.23.
^''
Cases where the linguistic environment
is
very different
will
be
treated in 13.41.
'^ This attempt would have the merit (from the point of view of diachronic linguistics and of culture analysis) of stating what meaning is common both to the bulk of the occurrences of a moi'pheme and to new or idiomatic uses of it. But no such interest would attend any attempts to state a common meaning to homonymous morphemes (chapter 13,
fn. G).
In that case, one common meaning would be assigned to all the occurrences of a morpheme within a large set of environments where il is replaceable by a large set of other morphemes; then another meaning would be assigned to all the occurrences of the morpheme in some smaller set of environments in which it is replaceable by some small set of other
'"''
192
STRUCTURAL LINOUISTICS
morphemic element, we
which meanings
will
In assigning meanings to each
come upon
type
various special cases, for

are usually not stated.
some
of
of the dictionary
extra loud stress

?/
Morphemic contours, such as the rising intonation marked /?/, the marked /"/, can be assigned meanings ('question' for
and 'contrastive emphasis'
for /"/)
which indicate the social-situa-
tion correlation even
somewhat in type from the more simply 'referential' meanings of cat, hate, please. The usual meaning of some morphemes, e.g. please, approaches the type of meaning of
though they
differ
these contours.
Some morphemes,
frequently including the morphemic element of ore.g.
der (Appendix to 12.3-4) have so-called grammatical meanings,
the
Kota echo-word giX which means 'and other things

to in the preceding morpheme'. ^^
Difficulties of stating
like
what
is
referred
meaning also occur
in the case of
off
unique environment, which are segmented unique residue after

berry, berry
is
morphemes of when an utterance has a
certainly a
its
pheme, having as
other berries.
morphemes have been divided off. In boysenmorpheme. Therefore, boysen is also a mormeaning the differentia between boysenberries and
all
Similarly, in there, then, thither, this, that, etc.,
we obtain by the Appen-
dix to 12.22 a segment /3/ with demonstrative meaning, plus various
residue elements with unique meanings
(/is,
'near', /set/ 'yonder', etc.).

etc.,
In where, when, whither, which, what, why,
we obtain an element
/hw/^* with interrogative (and in some linguistic environments, relative
morphemes; and so
in the
to
on.
Thus we might
as
where it is replaceable by catch, stop, please, etc. And we might assign another meaning to see in the particular environments / the point, Do you why I want it? etc., where it is replaceable by far fewer morphemes {get, understand, etc.). And, of course, yet another meaning to siy/ in environments such as The is calm, where it is replaceable
it^
many environments such
He
can't
assign one meaning to/siy/see the fellow, Why do you want
by other morphemes: ocean, water, woman, etc. In this way so-called idiomatic and homonymous differences of meaning and the like can be separately stated on distributional grounds (cf. chapter 13 fn. 6, 13.41, and the Appendix to 15.32). " The X indicates all the phonemes of the preceding morpheme except for its initial consonant plus vowel. Cf. M. B. Emeneau, An echoword motif in Dravidian folk-tales, Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 58.553-70 (1938). '* In some dialects, /w/. This analysis is abetted by the rarity of
initial /S,
hw/.
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
meanings (/at/ 'object
reference',
193
or resumptive) meaning, plus various second elements with unique
/ay/
'reason', etc.).
of
more involved problem arises in the case pendent sequences of phonemes as the si-, gl- of
etc.
such seemingly indegleam,
slide, slimy, glide,
(Appendix to
12.22).
The
si-
chief reason for raising the question of the
morphemic status
of
si-, gl- is
the partial similarity in meaning

gl-
among
dis-
the words beginning with
and
respectively;'^
and no adequate
tributional basis can be found for supporting this segmentation.
But
for
even
if
we follow out the only

gl-
correlation, that of
common meaning,
no basis
Is glide in-
which brings together the

deciding what
gl-
words,
we
find that
it
gives us
words do not have
this
common
meaning.
cluded in the set? Is glimmer? Or

gladiator? Furthermore,
it
glass, glen, gloss, glory, gloom, glad, globe,
might be possible to form such sets of slightly
similar
meaning with
of
partially similar
form
for almost
any connected or
broken sequence
father?
phonemes.
What
for
of the /'Sar/ of brother, mother, in
One could even argue
some connection
meaning among
plant, plank, plow, (to) pluck, plot {of ground),
plum, perhaps including
plodder, plebeian.
Difficult as
gl-, it is
it
Note also the ump

to argue for
may be
of jump, bump, trump. morphemic status for sequences
like
also unsatisfactory to leave unstated the fact that so

gl-
many
se-
quences beginning with

tion
is
have partial similarity
in
meaning. The soluor the other, but to
not, of course, to cast a deciding vote one

it
way
relate this situation, precisely as
is,
to the other facts about the lan-
guage.
The sequence
it
gl- is
not a distributionally separable element;**"

in
therefore
is
not a
morpheme
the definition which applied to
-er,
-ceive, con-, yes.
But gl- exhibits, in many morphemes, a correlation between meaning and phonemic form, of the type which is also true for
''
train
**"
For example, we would not ask whether the tr of try, tree, trick, may not be segmented off as a morpheme. The exact distributional difference between sequences like gl- and
our procedurally recognized morphemes is as follows: All our morphemes occur usually or always (or at least sometimes) next to other sequences which are independent morphemes on their own merits (by 12.22): in boysenberry, berry occurs next to a unique element, which would not have been considered an independent morpheme were it not that berry was so considered; but elsewhere we have berry in blueberry, a fine berry, comparable to bluebell, a fine analysis, where the neighbors of berry are clearly independent. Sequences like gl-, si-, however, occur only next to other sequences which are themselves unique, and which do not in turn occur next to independent morphemes: .s7- next to ither, eek, etc. Occasional identical neighbors like -ide after si- and gl- hardly suffice to change the
picture.
194
inoi^t
of the tlijstributiomilly
in
separable
morphemes
the
as a whole/' At
e.g.
some
the
point
our organization of the linguistic data, therefore,
at
morphemes have assignable meaning, or at the beginnings of the gl-, si-, and other such entries in the dictionary, we would state that very many of the morphemes beginning
point where
we say
that most or
all
with
gl
(perhaps a majority of those having only one vowel, or one
stressed vowel plus shwa) have
some
reference to light, etc.; and so for
the other sets.*-
A more unusual
morpheme
its
is
case
is
that of the
Bantu
class markers.''-^ If each
noun
of
set
up so as to contain the repeated

e.g.
if
class
marker as part
phonemic constitution,
mtu, 7ntu
m
yu
and the
.
like,
morpheme for 'man' is not and the morpheme for 'woman' not
the
like,
tu but
ke but
mke,
tnke a
and the
then
it
follows that each

of
noun
about
morpheme
includes in
its
phonemic constitution some one out
six discontinuous
phonemic sequences. Thus, both mtu and mke have
the m- sequence.
Many
of the
morphemes which include the same
dis-
continuous sequence are also partially similar in meaning: mtu and mke
both indicate persons.
It is therefore possible to
is
say that each of these
discontinuous sequences
associated, in
many
of its occurrences,^'' with
^' A result of this meaning correlation, which might be included in our descriptive statement if we broaden the base of our description to include many speakers or a short duration in time, is the fact that sequences like gl-, si- are productive. Occasional new forms are composed with them, the other part of the form being arbitrary (onomatopoetic, etc.), or extracted from some other morpheme. However, occasional new forms are also formed with sequences that do not occur in sets; e.g. conflations of parts of two morphemes. We must therefore grant that almost any part of any morpheme may become productive (note also Jespersen's "metanalysis" in his Language 385, and Bloomfield, Language 414), although sequences like gl- which occur in meaning-sets, are more frequently productive, and our formal morphemes more frequently yet. In view of all this, we must say that while our formal procedures yield only the morphemes of 12.2, the correlation with meaning, which is true of al-
morphemes, is also true of certain identical parts of several mor(e.g. gl-); and that the potentiality for productivity, which is true of certain morphemes, is also true of these same identical parts of several morphemes, and in rare cases also of other parts of individual morphemes.
most
all
phemes
^^ R. S. Wells points out that sequences like gl- can, alternatively, be included in the grammar and dictionary as a special sub-class of morphemes, in which case the linguist would have to decide what sequences
to recognize as satisfying the conditions for this sub-class. *^ Cf. the Appendix to 12.323-4, and fn. 55 above. ** The diagnostic environment, which determines whether a given occurrence of the discontinuous sequence is associated with this meaning,
MORPHEMIC SEGMENTS
a stated general meaning (such as 'person'). Here ing distinction which does not correlate with
195
is an important meanmorphemic segmentation.**
Appendix to 12.5: Relation between Morphologic and Phonologic Segmentation Although we can make statements about the language with the aid of morphemes such as we could not by the use of phonemes, there is an important parallel between the two types of element. Since the morphemes
are sequences of phonemes, they represent features or portions of the
flow of speech.
that.
What then
logical
But the phonemes and components were also precisely are the differences or similarities between the phonoand the morphological methods of segmenting utterances?
Phonological elements are independent.
We
have seen
in 1-10 that
the phonological elements of a language can be determined by segmentation
and operations upon the segments,

of the language.
all of this
entirely unrelated to
the morphological analysis, and involving no knowledge of the mor-
phemes
Morphological elements are independent.
It is also possible
to deter-
mine the morphological elements

do
this
of a
language without relation to the

of
phonemic contrasts and with no prior knowledge
them. In order to
we would take the unique, unanalyzed, complete speech events and apply to them procedures analogous to those of 3-5. The only difference
is
that in determining the limits for the original segment lengths,

criteria of 12.2, in reference to total utterance environcriteria of 5, in reference to
we would use the
ment, instead of the
immediate environment.
From morphological
to phonological elements.
these phoneme-less unanalyzed

phological identification.
As was noted in 2.61, morphemes would be adequate for moran empirical
No
morphological information would be added

it is
by breaking them down

fact that various such
of their length. If
into phonemes.**^ Nevertheless,
morphemes would be
similar in sound over part
convenient
way
of wiiting the
we wanted to e.xpress these similarities and to find a morphemes, we could break them down
into
into segments
ly
and group these segments
phonemes.
We
would mei'Cdiffer-
have to cut each morpheme into smaller segments by matching
is the remaining phonemes of the morpheme in which the discontinuous sequence occurs. *^ C'f. chapter 15, fn. 21, for the common meaning of whole classes of
morphemes. Except for the ability to note complementary morpheme variants

***
partial phonetic similarities

(i.e.
among
except for morphophonemics).
196
ent
morphemes and noting the segments
in
which one morpheme
differs
from another."
From
tively
phonological to morphological elements. Instead of the prohibiof the preceding
cumbersome method
paragraph, the usual method

first (in
in linguistics is to
determine the phonemic distinctions
order of
rigorous analysis, not of time), and then to determine the

in in
morphemes new
cri-
terms
of the
phonemes. This requires placing morpheme boundaries
among
the phonemes, which can be done only by applying a
terion (that of 12.2).
Morphemes cannot
therefore be derived from pho-
nemes merely by application

7-10.
of logical operations
such as were used in such
We
can determine the morphemes (or the points of morpheme

utilizing additional information,
boundary) in a language only by

as that indicated in 12.
the same length,

(in
morphemes are of so that every so many phonemes constitute a morpheme
Even
in languages
where
all
Annamese: every sequence
of
consonant plus vowel plus tone), the

:
morpheme is not entirely derivable from the phonemes for whence we know in the first place that all morphemes in this language are of same length, and that that length is so and so many phonemes?
*'
did
the
to present the
This would yield segments which are differentiated in such a way as minimum difference among morphemes, whereas the method of 1-10 has been to obtain segments whose differences present the regular differences between utterances. The two methods are not identical or even necessarily equivalent. However, the minimum differences among morphemes usually correlate closely with the regular differences among utterances. Therefore, these two methods can in general be made equivalent to one another in their results.
13-19.
RELATIONS AMONG MORPHOLOGIC ELEMENTS

13.
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
13.0.
Introductory
following chapters present a series of operations designed chiefly
The
to reduce the
number
of elements for linguistic description.'
The
first
procedure groups sets of complementary morphemic segments into morphemes.^

It
thus covers regular and irregular phonological alternation,
sandhi, morpholexical variation,' suppletion, reduplication, and other
types of
13.1.
morpheme
variants.
Purpose: Reducing the
Number
of Elements
We
rence.
*
seek to obtain fewer elements having fewer restrictions on occur-
There have been fewer investigations into morphology than into phonology, in recent years. Attention may be drawn in particular to the morphological sections in Edward Sapir, Language, and Leonard Bloomfield, Language. Cf. also Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique generate; B. Bloch and G. L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis; Vladimir Skalifika, Zur ungarischen Grammatik, Facultas philosophica Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 39 (1935); B. Trnka, Some thoughts on structural morphology, in Charisteria Guilielmo Mathesio 57 (1932); Bernard Bloch, English verb inflection, Lang. 23.399^18 (1947); and the discussion Quelles sont les m^thodes les mieux appropriês k un expose complet et pratique de la grammaire d'une langue quelconque, with reports by R. Jakobson, S. Karcevsky, N. Trubetzkoy, Ch. Bally, A. Sechehaye, F. Hestermann, V. Mathesius, in Actes du premier congres international de linguistes 1928.33-63 (1930). Several treatments of morphological theory and methods have been written, some fairly parallel to the methods presented here and others less so. Cf. Otto Jespersen, The System of Grammar (1933); Otto Jespersen, Analytic Syntax (1937); Viggo Br0ndal, Morfologi og Syntax (1932); Louis Hjelmslev, Principes de grammaire g^n^rale, Kgl. danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 16.1-363 (1928); Louis Hjelmslev and H. J. Uldall, An outline of glossematics, Humanistisk Samfunds Skrifter 1 (Aarhus 1939). Many relevant articles have appeared in Lingua, in Studia Linguistica, in the Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague, in Acta Linguistica, in the Acts of the International Congresses of Linguists, in L.vnguagk, an 1 in other lin-
and volumes of essays. Leonard Bloomfield, Language 164, on the alternant forms of a morpheme, ('f. also C. F. Voegelin, A problem in morpheme alternants and their distribution, Lang. 23.245-254 (1947). ^ For the term, see Leonard Bloomfield, Menomini morphophonemics, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8.105-15 (1939).
guistic periodicals
^
Cf.
197
19S
into
Tlie operations of chapter 12 leave every utterance in our corpus seg-
morphemic elements (including non-segmental ones such If we are to develop a compact representation of our utterances, we cannot keep each of these segments as a distinct element, but must find ways of identifying segments of one utterance with segments of another (or with other segments of the same utterance).
mented
as contours and order).
In doing so,
it is
easiest to identify
it
segments which occur
in identical
environments, but
will
be found possible also to identify segments

It is also
which occur
in different
environments.
easy to identify seg-
ments which have

possible to identify
identical
phonemic constitutions, but it will be found segments having different phonemic constitutions.
The problem of obtaining elements which have the fewest limitations upon freedom of occurrence relative to each other can be met in the manner of chapters 4 and 7.
13.2.
Preliminary Operation Free Variants in Identical Environ:
ments
Before dealing with segments having complementary environments,
we may
consider those which occur in identical environments.'* If
we
find
that, say, /leka'namiks/ economics and /iiyka'namiks/ economics occur

in completely identical
all
environments
in all cases,
i.e.
that a speaker, or
all linguistic
the speakers in our corpus, substitute one for the other in

if
environments (even
not phonemically
not in
all social situations),
we
call
these two free
variants of each other.

so.
They
are then morphemically equivalent, though
Cases of this type are relatively

example,
inaew
rare,
but the same treatment
may
be
accorded to such phonemically different sequences as /sez/ as

as
in, for
,
and /z/
ay wez
manner
'sejdi]
'
Now
as I was saying. These

stylistic, personal, or
if
are, of course, cases of
slow and fast speech, or of

of talking.
social dialect differences in
But
we choose
to disif
regard such differences for the purposes of our investigation, and
the
phonemic sequences
environments,^
it
in question occur
throughout
in identical
morphemic
wiU do no violence to the remaining procedures to con-
* may begin with the trivial step of considering all phonemically identical morphemic segments in identical environments to be repetitions of each other, i.e. to constitute various occurrences of the 'same' morthen proceed to morphemic segments pheme (cf. chapter 12, fn. 6). which are partially distinct phonemically but have identical distribu-
We
We
tion throughout.
^
We
ments
in
can thus carry out this identification for several morphemic segone utterance and several morphemic segments in another. We
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
sider these different
199
phonemic sequences as morphemically equivalent,

possible to provide a unified morphological
in
each being a free variant of the other in terms of these procedures. This operation makes
it
treatment for dialects which vary
the phonemic constitution of other-
wise equivalent morphemic segments.

13.3.
Procedure: Equating Unique Morphemic Segments

group mutually complementary morphemic elements into morfirst list
We
phemes. This requires that we
the morphemic elements of our

is
corpus, and note the environments to which each

13,31.
limited.
Phonemically Identical Segments

all
We can agree to group

ly identical into one
morphemic segments which

all
are phonemical-
morpheme. Then
the segments
It's
yuw you
'
in
/ see you, Are you coming?, Were you coming?.
members
group
all
of the
same morpheme. However,

e.g. in
too.
this
would be operation would also

yours, etc.,
the segments /tuw/ into one morpheme, in no matter what entwo for a nickel, two phis two, you two,
to.
vironment they occurred,
Then
too he's pretty old,
you
But I want
it
be found that in some cases method elements which are different in distribution from any other morphemes of the language. We may therefore decide to sacrifice some of the freedom of distribution of this morpheme, say /tuw/, by assigning some of its occurrences to one /tuw/ morpheme (two) and some to a second /tuw/ morpheme (too), in order to obtain morphemes having distributions similar to others.^ This is desirable beon this basis, but
will
We could proceed
this
we obtain by
can consider
/,\\'e\,
Well, be seeing you, to be
between the two
bi'siyn-ya/ Well, b'seein'ya and /iwel, biy "siyiijiyuw/ morphemically identical, calling the diffei'ence utterances free variations from the point of view of our
procedures. In equating such a sequence of morphemic segments in one utterance with a sequence in another, we may have to note that the whole sequence varies together: /siyn-ys/ substitutes for /siyir)yuw/, but /ya/ does not substitute for /yuw/ after /siyiv)/, since /siyii] ya/ does not usually occur.
" When this is done we obtain what is called homonyms, i.e. phonemically identical distinct morphemes. If all segments /tuw/ are grouped into one morpheme there would be no homonyms, since no other mor-
pheme would have any member phonemically identical with /tuw/. If we select the method that yields homonyms here, we will obtain them
only in different environments (13.41). This is equivalent to partial overlapping in the case of phonemic elements (chapter 7, fn. 14). The reliance here on distributional similarity to other morphemes, stated more formally in 13.4, parallels the considerations of distributional patterning
200
cause our
final
objective in these procedures
is
not a race to see which

is
element comes out with the widest distribution and which
next, but a
compact description
utterances.
It is
in
which a few statements can be made about
many
morphemes of the language have identical distributions. If all the occurrences of /tuw/ are grouped into one morpheme, we will have a morpheme of very wide, but unique, distribution. If some of these occurrences are assigned to one morpheme (two) and some to another (too), and so on, we will have two or more morphemes each of which will have a more restricted distributherefore convenient to let the various
tion,
but one similar to the distribution of other morphemes.
It will
be
simpler to state the restriction on each of the more limited morphemes,
than to state the lesser but unique restriction on the one original mor-
pheme.
The
will
criteria for deciding

13.4.
which groupings are distributionally simpler
be discussed in
13.32.
Phonemically Different Segments

and
is
Since the morphemic segments have been set up on the basis of distributional criteria,
their
is
a matter
now
if
of
arbitrary definition in each case, there
no
loss to our operations
we
group together not only phonemically identical but also phonemically different segments into one morpheme." If we see that one morphemic
segment
(say, knive-) occurs only in
one environment (before
-s),
while
another morphemic segment (say, knife) occurs only in some other en-
vironment (never before
morpheme
knive
three
-s), we may group the two segments into one The morpheme [knife] then has two members: occurring before -s, hiife elsewhere. In this way, we can group or more complementary segments into one morpheme: he, am, are.
[knife]
.^
For the problem of what is the 'same' morpheme, see Y. H. Chao, The logical structure of Chinese words, Lang. 22.4-13 (1940).
in 12.23.
^ In the latter case, the different phonemic sequences which are included as members of the same morpheme must occur in different environments; or if they occur in the same environment they must be free variants of each other (13.31). Otherwise, if different sequences occurring in one environment were included in one morpheme, we would not know, when that morpheme occurred in that environment, which sequence it represented (compare phonemic overlapping chapter 7, fn. 14). *
Braces
will
be used to indicate morphemes containing one or
more members (morphemic segments).
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
I'll
201
of
i&,
/az/ and /ar/ of wa&, were^ are
all
complementary to each other
and can be put into one morpheme

Here again
it is
\he\.
necessary to select criteria which will determine what
complementary segments should be grouped into one morpheme.

13.4. Criteria for
Grouping Elements
As follows from the nature of these procedures as a whole, the fundamental criterion in grouping morphemic elements is to set up such mor-
phemes
in
terms of which compact general statements concerning the

It is therefore
composition of the utterances of our corpus can be made.

desirable that the
morphemes should be made

is
as distributionally similar
to each other as possible, or that there should be groups of
morphemes
having identical distributions. This

because we
will find in a great
not a difficult criterion to satisfy,
many
cases (as a result of 12.23) that there

of
are whole groups of
morphemic segments each

is
whose
total distribu-
tion (as recognized in 13.31)
almost identical with that of every other
segment
13.41.
in the group.
Matching Environments of Phoneniically Identical ments

range
of
Ele-
We consider the full

tion) of one
it
environments
as
it is
(i.e.
the complete distribuin 13.31,
morphemic segment,
full
determined
and match
If
with the
range of environments of other morphemic segments.
we
find one other
segment
(or
any number
of other
segments we wish to
first
require) having a distribution completely identical with that of the
segment, we consider
all
the occurrences of each of these segments to be

If hotel
morphemically identical.
My
etc.
occurs in Are you looking for a

s
?,
is right over here,
Several
were destroyed, etc., and
if
rug, tavern,
occur in virtually the same environments,'^
currences of the segment hotel are included in one
we say that all the morpheme hotel, all

and so
on.
oc-
the
occurrences of rug are put into one
morpheme
rug,
' The /w/ of was, were would by the same token be grouped in one morpheme with the -t 'past': -t never occurs next to the was, were se-
any segment of the {be\ unit), while w- occurs only determining complementariness, the total environments have to be carefully stated: e.g. are occurs after you {You are late), but not if / let (or the like) precedes (/ let you he the hero).
([ucnces (or next to
there. In
'"
In
many
languages almost no two morphemes occur
in a
completely
identical range of environments. E.g. hotel and tavern I'm staying at the -, but rug would hardly occur there. ferences are treated in the Appendix to 15.2.
would occur in Such minor dif-
202
If
we
fail
to
tiiid
any
(or tlie requisite
number
of)
environmentally
matching segments, we try to match the environmental range of our original segment with the sum of the environment ranges of two or more
groups of morpliemes. Thus we
may
tuw
\
find
no segment with a range

find that
full
of enof the
vironments matching that
of
But we may
some
environments
vironments
of
/tuw/ are virtually identical with the

Other environments
also.
range of en-
of three, six, etc.
of
/tuw/ may be
remain-
matched by the range

ing) environments of
of
environments of
Other
(or all the
ments
in
oi from, for,
/tuw/ may be matched by the range of environetc. If these partial matchings cover the total distribu-
tion of /tuw/, or
if the residue of environments of /tuw/ can be described the manner of 13.422,'i we set up several morphemes with the pho-
nemic composition tuw/. The occurrences

able for three, four, are assigned to one
of
/tuw/ where
it is
substitut-
morpheme /tuw/
two.
The
oc-
currences of the segment /tuw/ which are substitutable for also are as-
The occurrences of /tuw/ where morpheme /tuw/ to. If we cannot (at this stage of our analysis) find other morphemes whose range of environments is virtually identical with that of the segment we are considering, or if we cannot find morphemes the sum of whose distributions is virtually identical with the distribution of our segment, we set our segment up as constituting the same morpheme in every posisigned to a second
it
morpheme /tuw/
too.
is
replaceable by from are assigned to a third
tion.
That
is,
all
occurrences of our segment are tentatively included in
the same morpheme. Later comparison of morphemic distributions, in
chapter
15,
may
lead to some adjustments in this assignment.'^ Thus
describe the unique residual occurrences as being environments recognized elsewhere in our morphological analysis. (The residual occurrences of /tuw/ are limited to the environment of certain morpheme classes, e.g. between two verbs, as in
''
That
is, if
we can
i-estricted to certain
I forgot
'^
to
may lead to changes even in the assignment of mat ched groups of segments. Thus we may here set up many morphemes like hotel, rug (indicated by X), and many other morphemes ing. Don't etc.), and will be like think, weep (which occur in She was indicated by V and many more like book, slip, cut, which occur in a larger range of environments and will be indicated by G. In 15-6 it may be shown that the range of environments of the G morphemes is virtually and of the V morphemes; equal to the sum of the environments of the and it may be convenient to treat segments of the G type as being included in one morpheme book, slip, cut when they are in the .V environments (Several s), and in other though phonemically identical (homonymous) morphemes hook, slip, cut when they are in the T' environThe
come.) Cf. fn. 16 below. considerations of chapters 15-6
ments
(77/
it).
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
we may
at this stage consider not,
203
in a
which occurs
unique range of
in all its occur-
positions, as
an environmentally unmatched morpheme
rences. If the
segment which was considered
in
the previous paragraph,
several other
whose environments were matched by the sum of the environments of morphemes, has a residue of environments matched by no
of this paragraph.
other morpheme, that residue could also be set up tentatively as a mor-
pheme on the grounds

13.42.
Phonemically Different Elements
13.421. Matching environments. We now consider two or more complementary morphemic elements and match the sum of their distri-
butions (as determined for each in 13.31) with the distribution of some
morpheme morpheme
vironments
set
up
in 13.41.
We
group knife and knive (13.32) into one
[knife] because the single

of
morpheme
ri',g
occurs in the endestroyed, Several
both of these segments:
knife
was
\be\
knives were destroyed;
rug ivas destroyed. Several rugs were destroyed}^
Similarly, all the segments included
above
in
fill
a range of enas
vironments which
fail, slay.
is
also filled
by such
single
morphemic segments
it is
In carrying out this operation of matching,

start with
often convenient to
in cei'tain en-
morphemic segments vironments and some of which

occur in
of the
all
of
which have occurred
are lacking in other environments.

in
idea, job, life, wife,

all
have some occurrences and restrictions

is involved,
Thus common:
My
and none
in /
want
to
here.
However,
which the
some
morphemes
in this set
have additional
restrictions
others of the set do not have: idea, nation, etc. occur also in such similar
utterances as Our
are involved., but
life,
wife do
not.'*"
In ordei' to
eliminate this difference in freedom of occurrence between idea, job, and
'^However, we would not group into one morpheme the segments from which occurs in such utterances as / came from there, and. four which occurs in such utterances as / have four more. These two segments ai'e complementary, but there ai'c no two or more segments which occur there and / have both in / came more., and in the other environments of these segments. Iwen if a single segment did occur in all these environments, e.g. the segment /tuw/ {to, two), we would not accept it as sufficient precedent, but would recjuire (on the basis of 13.41) several cases of single segments having this total distribution.
'''
Of course,
ferent
live-, wive- do occur in this utterance, but they are difmorphemic segments from life, wife, since they have diffei-ent
plionemic composition.
204
///(',
wife,
we seek other segments

of idea, job in
{live,
life,
wive),
which occur only
in
those
environments
which
wife did not.""
In some cases there may be no one morpheme wliose environments match the sum of those of two or more complementary segments under consideration. But there might be several other sets of complementary
segments, the
sum
of
environments of each set equalling that of the

cases, too,
set
under consideration. In such

of each set into one
we would group the segments
morpheme.
criteria,
13.422. Simplifying environmp:nt.\l differenti.vtions. In the ab-
sence of the above
morphemic elements
elements
in the
is
into
differentiated
of the
we may nevertheless group complementary morphemes if the environment of each of the by features which are not otherwise dealt with
in question,
is
morphology
language
and
if
the
sum
is
of the en-
vironments
features.'"
of all the elements together
not differentiated by these
For example,
in
Fm coming,
or There isnt. there

of the pitch
a contour
morpheme meaning
In Marge
of 1020;
is
assertion
is
and consisting
sequence 120.
coming, there
one having the same meaning but consisting

is
and
in All of us are corning, there
100020. Other sets of con-
tours can be found which similarly consist of slightly different forms for
utterances of different lengths (chiefly, containing different numbers of

vowels): There isn't? with 123, She
is
coming.^ 1123, etc.
* More generally: Given a segment o, (say, knife), we note its range of , etc.), then seek other segments b, c, etc., environment X (Get my which also occur in X {bag, hotel, etc.; in Get my ). We find the full distribution of b, c, etc., and discover that b, c, occur not only in A' but also in the environment 1' (Get my s, etc.). We then look for some segment 2 which should occur in Y but not in X (knive in Get my s, but not in Get my ); and we group a and z into one morpheme [a] whose full range of environment is + Y, a range identical with that of b, c, etc. '"This is essentially analogous to the consideration used in forming phonemes, in 7.43. Like the alternative criterion of 13.421, this helps us organize our morphemic segments in terms of environments which we have to recognize for other reasons, i.e. it tries to avoid setting up new classes of elements and environments. In this sense. 13.421 is just a special case of 13.422, since each morpheme we set up defines a differentiating environment (the total environments in which that unit occurs, and which we would have to state), so that the more morphemes we can form (out of various members) which have the same total environment as other morphemes have (whether these are formed out of one or several members), the fewer environments need we differentiate. For this reason, the considerations of 13.422 would be used also to separate the occurrences of a morpheme in certain environments A' from the occurrence of the same morpheme in environments }', if there are many morphemes which occur in X and many others which occur in Y but relatively few (or no others) which occur both in A' and in Y (cf. fn. 6, 12 above).
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
The environment
for the
205
is
morphemic segments 120 and 123

'V'VV
or jV'VV).
utter:
ances of three vowels the last of which has zero stress (to be exact utterances whose vowels are successively
The environ-
ment for 1020 and 1123 numbered ones stressed
is
utterances of four vowels with only the odd
('WW or /WW). Nowhere else do we have

i.e.
to differentiate such utterances;
utterances with various numbers of
stressed vowels do not correlate with
any other
of our distinctions. If
we
group the complementary elements, we find that the environment

{.
)
of the
morpheme whose members
are 120, 1020, etc.,
is all
utterances of any
length which end in 20; similarly for the environment of the {?| mor-
pheme whose members
are 123, 1123, etc. This permits us to speak about
utterances without specifying the
number
is
of
vowels and stresses.
morpheme of number of their separated parts (12.323). In Latin filius 'son' we have a morphemic segment us 'male'. In bomis 'good (m.)' we have the same us. In filius bo7ius 'good son' we have a morphemic segment us us 'male'. The two morphemic segments us and us lis are complementary: which of them occurs depends on the number of morphemes of the type fill, bon that occur in the domain. If we keep them in separate morphemes we will have morphemes whose total environment will be one morpheme but not two, or two morphemes but not one, of the type fili, bon. It is therespecial case of this criterion
the grouping into one
various segments which are complementary in the
fore preferable to group us

.
and
us
?s
(and so also
us
us
us, etc.) into
one morpheme which occurs with sequences of morbon as
phemes
like
fili,
many
of
them
as are present (within a stated
domain).'^
" A corollary of this criterion prevents us from keeping apart the various morphemic segments which have identical phonemes. The matching operation of 13.41 might have led us, say, to group into one morpheme berry all the occurrences of /beriy/ except those after /boysan/ (in boysenberry). We could say that this new berry (without the boysenberry occurrences) has as wide a distribution as any comparable morpheme, since no other morpheme occurs after /boysan/. However, we will not by so doing satisfy the demands of 13.422 as regards the /beriy/ which appears after /boysan/. This latter /beriy/ occurs only after /boysan/, a highly restricted environment. We can make its distribution similar to that of other segments by grouping it with some other unit (preferably the other /beriy/, by 13.43), and by saying that all sequences /, beriy/ which occur after a segment with the /"/ stress (e.g. /'boysan, 'bluw/) are included (together with /'beriy/) in the morpheme [berry just as all sequences /,wind/ which occur after a segment with /'/
\
206
is
Till' iTiterion of 13.422
in
the last analysis identical with
llic
prc-
ceding; criteria wliich involved
matching the distribution
of
one element
or set of elements with that of another. All the criteria serve to group
the elements in such a
way
that environmental differentiations which
are unusual for the morphology of the language in question are replaced
by environmental differentiations which are common And where the type of environmental differentiation
teristic for
for that language.

is
equally charac-
the language, the effect of these criteria
is
to replace elements
having
less
freedom
of
occurrence by elements haying greater freedom.

first
In particular, the effect of the
operation of 13.421
is
to raise the
more
restricted
segments
(like wife
and
wive) to the status of the less

it
restricted ones (like rug), so that after chapter 13
will
be possible to
greater
deal with
all
limitations
new morphemes as though none of them had than single-member morphemes such as rug}^
the
are included together with /'wind in the morpheme [wind] east-wind, the wind. If we do not wish first to set up some morphemes (those whose occurrences are all phonemically identical) as models, and then to match the others to these, we can set up simultaneously all the morphemes which have similar environments by applying the considerations of 13.422 and 13.43 to all the segments we have and assembling them into the most compact set of morphemes we can. '** It may be argued that some violence has been done to the meaning correlation of elements in thus grouping them into one morpheme. One could say that knive carries an implication of plural meaning, such as knife does not, and that this is lost when both are identified as a single morpheme \knife] which means 'knife (singular)'. However, since the morpheme s 'plural' appears whenever knive occurs (except in explicitly linguistic discussions where knive is the name of the segment nayv ), it is possible to corxelate all the plural meaning with the s, leaving knive free to be grouped with knife. It is as between whole utterances, e.g. Did you get my knife? and Did you get my knives f, that we get the meaning difference of singular and plural. There is no reason to correlate this difference with more than one morphemic difference, and that morphemic difference would be most simply the presence of the s which correlates with 'plural' in other utterances, and which could be assigned no other meaning correlation in this utterance. All this is not to say that when knive occurs it does not carry, for a person acquainted with the language structure, the implication of 'plural'. The occurrence of every restricted element may be said in this sense to imply the occurrence of any of the elements (in this case, the only element) with which it occurs. Cf. chapter 12, fn. 66, end. The methods of descriptive linguistics do not reveal or express everything which a speaker can communicate to a hearer in less than a whole utterance, since the universe of discourse is an utterance (2.32). Even these facts, however, appear indirectly in descriptive linguistics: for example, in the statement that the member knive of [knife] occurs only with the plural |-.s|.
:
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
13.43.
207
Choosing among Complementary Elements

will
In cases where only a unique group of mutually complementary seg-
ments
together equal the total distribution of the comparable oneis
segment morphemes, there

only the
no problem
as to
which segments should be
grouped into one unit: given any segment
of the [be] group, e.g. /sz/,

in [be]
sum
of all the other
segments which have been included

its
can
fill
out the difference between
environment and that
of [fail,
slay] etc.
Even when our search

13.421 to those which
for
complementary segments
is
limited
by
would
fill
out the range of environments of other
morphemes,
it
may
often be possible to find
more than one complemenlive,
tary morphemic segment. E.g. not only knive, but also
wive,
which
occur only before

shall
-s,
are
complementary
to knife.
Which
is
of these three
we choose
to group with knife into one unit? It

all
almost always
possible to decide this on the basis of
the total environments in which
each of these occur. Thus knive,

paralleling knife in
live,
wive, all occur in
Our
Our
^ aie dull,
is dull.
But
of the three, only knive occurs (ex-
cept, perhaps, jocularly) in ril sharpen
ing
I'll
sharpen
my
on the whetstone.
my
on
the ivhetstone, parallel-
^^
The problem
than
this.
z', z^, z^
of selecting a
complementary segment
is
usually simpler
Usually, in a situation in which there are several segments
{knive, live, tvive) all
complementary to our a
(knife; see the
sym-
bols in fn. 15),
we
will find that there are not
one but several segments
o', a^, a^, (life, xvife)
to which these various z segments are

o^, o^,
tary.
We thus
is
have a\
each occurring
z'^,
in
environment
in
complementary to each
problem
of
z',
z^
which occur
complemenA"" and each environment Y Our

.
now no
a',
longer to decide which z

is
may
be best grouped with
our original
but what
the best
way
of pairing each a
segment with
'^ If we wish to obtain new utterances and test the elements complementary to knife, we can try to work this out with an informant. We would then group with kmfe the segment which replaces knife when we alter the utterance only enough so that it includes the complementary environment (the environment in which knife does not occur). If we have broke, we alter the environment to My knife in My s broke, and see what we get as a repetition of the utterance under the changed circumstances. There are various ways in which we can obtain this minimally
a native speaker says knife broke, we may ask say it if there were several of them?" (if that is a successful way of asking him questions); or we may turn the conversation into a situation where "several of them" are involved. In effect, this means that we try to hold everything constant in the social situation, except whatever change in it correlates with the addition of the moraltered repetition.
If
My
him
"How would you
phemic segment
-s.
208
z
some one
segment. The differences
in distribution
which had to be
ways.'"'
judged rehitively in only one direction, can now be judged both

13.5.
Relations
among
the
Members
of a
Morpheme
consider all the morphemes of our corpus, and the relations members within each of them, we may find that some of the relations among the segments included in a particular morpheme are similar to the corresponding relations among the segments of another morpheme, and that other relations differ from their corresponding ones in the other morpheme. The most interesting relations for current linguistics, in terms of the
When we
the
among
operations of chapter 13 are: the relation between the environment to
which one member is restricted and the environment to which other members are restricted; the difference in phonemic composition among members the phonemic similarity between one member and the environment to which it is restricted, as compared with the phonemic similarity between the other members and the environments to which they are
;
restricted.
13.51.
The Environments of Each Member

Phonemically differenti.\ble. The environment in which of a unit rather than another occurs may in some cases be
phonemes.
13.511.
one
member
differentiable in terms of
In Attic Greek reduplication prefixes meaning 'perfect aspect' we have
/me/ occurring only before morphemes beginning with /m/, /le/ only before morphemes beginning with /I/, etc. (/me'mene.ka/ 'I have remained,' /'leluka/ 'I have loosed'). We group them all into one morpheme {C'e}^' and can tell from the consonant following it which member
occurs,
i.e.
which consonant replaces the C^

/sel/ al are
In English, /al/ and
members
of
one morpheme, /al/ oc-
^ In general, we would try to group the segments in such a way as to require the fewest and simplest statements concerning the interrelations within each resultant morpheme. Although the only criterion relevant to our procedures will be the distributional one, we may find that the grouping based on distributional grounds will in most cases also involve least difference in phonemic composition and social situation correlation among the members of each morpheme. For an example of an Algonquian language (Delaware) in which a large part of the grammar can be expressed in terms of morpheme alternants, see Z. S. Harris, Structural Restatements II, Int. Jour, of Am. Ling. 13.175-86 (1947). Cf. also Bernard Bloch, English verb inflection, Lang. 23.399-418 (1947). ^' being defined as the first consonant of the next morpheme, i.e.
the consonant following the /e/.
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
curring
/tela/
full
209
when the morpheme
is
zero-stressed national, nationality; so are

:
and
/tale/ in telegraph, telegraphy. In all such alternations, the

is
vowel occurs where there

{al\
no zero
stress, so that
given the morin the ut-
pheme,
or {tele],
we can
of the
tell
from the
stress
phonemes
terance which
member
morpheme
occurs in the utterance.
special case of
is
environments which can be phonemically differen-
tiated
that of the /v/

live,
curs after believe,
^ /f/ morphemic segment 'noun' which ocand which is complementary to the /z/ /s/
>
'noun' after
to
house, to the /?>/
>
/d/ after breathe, etc. (12.332).
We
can group
all
these complementaries into one
morpheme
{unvoicing}.
Similarly the
morphemic segment
'male' which consists of dropping /r/
occurs aher fermiere (12.333), while that which consists of dropping /t/
occurs after chatte, povlette. All these are complementary as to the mor-
phemes
form
'male'
after
which they occur; and we can recognize from the phonemic

preceding morphemic environment which
if
member of the morpheme ends in /t/, the in dropping /t/, and so on. In the morpheme {drop final phoneme} 'male,' we can tell which member segment occurs ^^ in each environment from the phoneme which precedes that morpheme. 13.512. MoRPHEMiCALLY DiFFERENTiABLE. In Other morphemes, however, we cannot tell from the phonemic composition of the environment which member of the morpheme occurs in that environment. In {wife] we cannot say that the member, wive occurs regularly before the phoneme /s/, for we also find the other member, wife, before /s/ in His wife's job. The environments of wive can therefore not be easily disof the
morpheme occurs: morpheme 'male' consists
the preceding
tinguished phonemically from the environments of wife.
We
all
can only
say that wive occurs before the morpheme

all
-s 'plural,'
and wife before

In
other morphemes, including

to state
's
'possessive'
in the
and
's 'is.'
such cases
we have
what morphemes
environment distinguish the

that of the other
distribution of one
member
of a
morpheme from
mem-
bers of that
^^
morpheme. ^^
in grouping the various pitch se1020, etc. (13.422) into one contour morpheme on the basis of the number of vowels. Given the contour morpheme {.), (including all contours ending in 20) we know, from the number of vowels, (and final voiced consonants) that the pitch sequence (member of this may say that the contour morpheme) in Marge is coming, is 1020. contour morpheme covers a particular domain (the interval between successive {.) s), and that the pitch of each vowel may be determined from its stress and position within the interval. " The identity of morphemes in the environment is also a determining factor in grouping with the {.) contours all the contours like 2031 in
Comparable methods can be used

e.g. 120,
quences,
We
210
special case of environments
A
of
which can only be recognized
in
terms
morphemes is the environment of the morphemic segments whose phonemes are repeated in the utterance (agreement morphemes). In 12.323 it was seen that in utterances like Moroccan Arabic lint Ikbir 'the large room.' liild Ikbir 'the big child,' we have a morphemic segment I I 'the.' In Ibit Ikbir lundl 'the first large room' we similarly have a morphemic segment I ... I ... I .. 'the,' and in lint 'the room' we have / 'the.' These three are complementary: the number of occurrences of / depends on the number of morphemes. But the I does not occur before every morpheme: we have Ibit ikbir dial buia 'the large room of my
.
father.'
We
therefore group
{/} 'the,'
all
the complementary
sequences into one
and say that this morpheme occurs over a particular exactly-stated domain (namely, sequences of stated morphemes including kbir,
if
morpheme
bit,
but not including dial) portions of the

:
[l]
morpheme
occur,
at
all,
before every
{1}
morpheme
morpheme occurs, we have
of this particular
1/
domain.
When
the
is
before every
morpheme which
included in the domain.-^

13.52.
Phonemic
the
Differences
among
In
the
Members
the difference
(or interchange of
13.521.
Slight differe.nxe.
many morphemes
component
among
members
is slight, e.g.
a single
closely related
phonemes)
in wife-wive, or various distributions of

(
.
and
pitch before the final 20 of the
contour. ^^
WherCs he cottiingf, 20031 in Where will you take it?. These latter contours are complementary to each other on the basis of utterance length. In addition, however, they are all complementary to the j.) contours since they occur only on utterances beginning with the \wh-] 'interrogation' morpheme. We can therefore include these contours (often marked by /l/) in one unit with the j. group, since the other contours included in {. never occur on utterances containing the \wh-\ morpheme. It is impossible to group the ^ contours with the ? contours (e.g. 123 in There isn't?), because the two are not complementary. The ? contour occurs in utterances containing {wh-} as in When's he coming j?j with pitch sequence 1234, meaning 'Are you asking when he will be coming?'
} (
^'
^=
Cf. 13.442.
Sometimes the differences among members of a morpheme consist in some special relation such as the assimilation of two phonemes which had been separated in one member but became contiguous in another member. E.g. one of the members of the Yokuts morpheme for 'girl' is goyo.lum; before the plural morpheme, which consists of i plus certain vowel changes (dropping the second vowel of the preceding morpheme, and changing the third vowel to /a ), another member of 'girl' occurs: goyyam (after the vowel changes associated with the following ?'). We
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
13.522.
211
bers
all of
which have certain
Partial identity. In some morphemes there are many memsimilarities and differences in common. In
the Attic Greek reduplication
morpheme, the members
consist of
some
one consonant (whichever follows the morpheme) plus /e/. In the French
suffix
morpheme
for 'male' the
members
consist of dropping
some one
re-
consonant (whichever precedes the morpheme).

13.523.
No
IDENTITY. In some morphemes there
is
no phonemic
semblance among the members. Thus /gud/ and /bet/ are members
the same
before
of
morpheme [good], the morpheme {er}.^^
the second form (in
better)
occurring only
In Yokuts certain bases are reduplicated. Comparing *giyi 'touch/

*giyigiyi 'tough repeatedly/ *me.ki 'swallow/ *me.kime.ki 'swallow reetc., we say that the repeated giyi, me.ki, etc. all mean 'reThe repeated parts are also all mutually complementary: giyi occurs only after *giyi, etc. Hence we group them all into one morpheme whose members have no phonemic identity with each other, although there is a similarity among them in that they can all be described as \x\,
peatedly/
peatedly.'
where x indicates the ordered phonemes

-da. 'repetitive'
of the preceding
morpheme. ^^
suffix
Other Yokuts bases, which are never reduplicated, occur with a
which
is
thus complementary to the reduplications and
may
be included in their morpheme. The
new member
-da.
is
com-
pletely different, both in
phonemes and
in relation to the preceding
phonemes, from the reduplication members.^*
say that the second member differs from the first by having /y/ instead of /I/, in a position where the /I/ would have been contiguous with the preceding /y/; the other change, the dropping of the second vowel, which brought the two /y/s together in the second member, is described as being part of the i 'plural' morpheme, and is thus part of the environ ment in which the second member occurs.
^^
Members having such complete phonemic
differences
among them
morpheme
are called suppletives.

^'
Up
is
of the
^^
to this point the similarity type described in 13.522.
among
if
the
members
of the
An
extreme example
of the
may
be seen
we consider the position-mor-
Appendix to 12.34, which adds the 'object' meaning to you in / aaw you. In )'ou saw him as compared with He saw you, the object position for he appears together with a phonemic change (from he to him). We may express this by saying that the member of the 'object' morpheme which occurs after the morpheme he is the position plus the change /y/ * /m/ /hiy/ + /y/^/m/ = /him/. When we want to add the 'object' morpheme to he we add both the position and the /y/ -> /m/.
:
pheme (tagmeme)
212
13.53. Similarity
13.531.
between
Member and
many
of a
ctises
Its
Environment
no phonemic similarity
the environments in
er,
No
siMiL.vKiTY. In
there
is
between the various members

which each member occurs:
is
morpheme and
in good-better /bet/,
is
which occurs before
no more similar to /ar/ than

in
/gud/.
Sometimes, however, we find similarities between a member and the
environments
of the
which
it
occurs:
we may say that the phonemic form
member depends upon
the phonemic form of some part of the en-
vironment. This
are identifiable
13.532.
in
is more frequent when the environments of a member by a common phonemic characteristic (13.511). Identity in phonemic feature. The similarity may consist
some components. Of the morphein \s} 'plural,' and of the segments /t/ and /d/ which are included in {ed] 'past,' we find the voiceless member occurring after morphemes ending in voiceless phonemes, and the voiced member after voiced phonemes: /buks/ books, /waynz/ wines, /bukt/ booked, /waynd/ wined. Even the members /az/ and /ad/ which are included in these two morphemes have a relation, though a
some features
of a
phoneme,
i.e.
in
mic segments /s/ and /z/ which are included
dissimilational one, with their environments.
Thase occur only after
voiced or voiceless consonants homo-organic with their own:^^ /'gaezaz/

gases, /'glaesaz/ glasses, /'aedad/ added,
/'malktad/ mulcted.^"
13.533.
Identity in phonemes. The similarity

of each
may
is
also consist in
identity of a whole phoneme, as in the cases cited in 13.523. In the Attic
Greek reduplication, the consonant

initial
member
identical with the

fol-
consonant of the environment-constituting morpheme which

In the Yokuts reduplication,
all
lows
it.
identical (in the
same
order)
phonemes of each member are with the phonemes of the preceding morthe
pheme which
constitutes the environment determining the occurrence
of the particular
member.
13.6.
Result: Classes of
Complementary Morphemic Segments

number
being a class of one or more complemen-
We now
of
have, instead of our morphemic segments, a smaller

of these
morphemes, each
^^ The similarity between each member and its environment would be even clearer in terms of components, because /s/ and /z/ would have all but one component in common, in English. ^^ Much of the assimilation or dissimilation which can be spotted in a synchronic description of a language will appear as relations of this type between a member and its environment. For another situation in which the historical event of assimilation can transpire descriptively, see fn. 25 above.
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
tary
213
morphemic
elements.^' In
all
our further morphological statements

for the
we
will deal
with these
new elements;
remaining analysis
the
it
will
not be necessary to deal with the differences
among
members within
each morpheme. ^^ This procedure brings out the morphemic status of various formal
features.
Thus
wê
might note that both had as compared with
have,
and
French fermier 'farmer' as compared with fermiere 'farm-woman', contain phoneme omission. However, in /fermye/ the replacement of the
phoneme by
/hse/ of had
zero constitutes a
it is
morpheme
'male' (12.333), while in the
merely the difference between two members of a mor-s,
pheme
(/hse
before -d and
/haev/ elsewhere). ^^
Appendix to 13.42: Zero Members of Morphemes In some cases the carrying out of this procedure may lead us to set up zero members of particular morphemes. For example, we can group together various segments, /an/ (after particular morphemes: taken), /t/
(after voiceless
phonemes: walked), /d/
(after voiced: bagged),
/dd/
(after /d, t/: added, slated), into
one morpheme [en]
'participle',
all
on
the distributional model (13.421) of -ing which occurs after
these
morphemes
{walking, bagging, etc.). This does not, however, equate the
distributions of {en\
and
\ing\, because
we have
If
ing after cut, but no
member
it,
of {e7i} is defined for that

it,
environment.
I'll
we compare
I'll
take
I'm taking
I've taken
it,
with
cut class,
it
I'm
cutting class, I've cut
class,
we
find that cut has
nothing following
are followed
cut,
in the position
where take
and
a
all
the other
morphemes
member which would
occur after
by {en}. We can add to {en} and whose phonemic content
would, as we have just seen, be zero. This
may
be desirable in view of
^' Not all of these new element groups need be called morphemes. It only required that they be treated as single elements for purposes of the following procedui-es, and that they bo defined as classes of complementaiy olomonts. The term morpheme is often used particularly for groups of complementary segments (not contours or order) which satisfy 13.3 4 and which are quite similar to each other in phonemic composition
is
(13.521).
" These differences will, of course, be important for speaking the language. The speaker must know which member of a morpheme occurs in a particular environment just as he must know which member of a phoneme occurs in each environment. ^'^ Similarly, in knife-knives the /f/-/v/ difference marks members of a morpheme, whereas in belief-believe it indicates the addition of a morpheme 'noun'. Note that belief -dnd believe are in fact not complementary in a few fscjmewhat forced) cases, e.g. in Belief.^ What for/ and Believe?
What
For.'
214
morpheme
of the zero
:
13.422. since the environment of \cn\ hitherto has been 'any
which occurs before
-ing,
except for
cut'.
With the addition
class of
member, it becomes 'any morpheme which occurs before -ing' this is a morphemes previously recognized because of iJig and because of
various other distributional features.
The use
of
of a zero
member
here docs not destroy the one-one character

[will],
our representation. Given the morphemes {en}, [take], [cut],
[have],
we know when
to use the zero
member
of the
above selection:
only in {cut\
ril cut
it,
{en\.
it,
And
given actual utterances,

the zero
e.g.
I'm
cutting
it,
I've cut
we know where
7/ cut,
member
of [en] occurs: not
after cvtling, nor
even after
but only after
've cvt.
This ability to
of course,
place the occurrence of a zero
morphemic segment comes,

[en]
from
the presence of [have]
[cut]
which are environmentally correlated

,
with
ber,
it.
However, that does not mean that

merely part
of the [hauel
including
its
zero
mem-
is
morpheme,
for the {en\, including its
zero
member,
also occur without [have] but with [be] or in other recog:^''
nizable positions (e.g. without preceding noun)
Jt is taken, It is cut.
.
When
etc.)
taken into the
light,
Whe7i cut open,
The saving grace
is
always the presence of some formal feature (morpheme, arrangement,

of the zero member. when the morpheme which has a zero member substitutes for absence of morpheme (among other things), i.e. occurs in an environment in which there may also be no morpheme at all. For example, the morpheme [ed] has various members (/ad/ in added, /t/ in walked, /ey/ -^ /u/ in took, etc.), and occurs after all morphemes which occur before -ing, except cut. At first blush we might try to treat it as we did the {en\ morpheme, and to include in it a zero member which
which correlates with the occurrence

difficult situation arises
A more
occurs after
cut.
This would satisfy the
criteria of 13.3, 13.422, but

if
would
run afoul of our commitment to a one-one representation. For

pare / missed
it
we compresent
it
yesterday, I cut
it
yesterday, with I miss
it
these days, I ciU

is
these days, the
only indication that the zero
member
\ed]
of {ed\
after the first cut
and not
tell
after the
second
is
the occurrence of yesterday.

is
In / cvt
it.
we cannot
whether the morpheme

it,
present or not,
we can recognize the presence or absence of the morpheme {erf) This means that we have here a many-one correspondence between our elements and the utterance, i.e. in one direction:
although in 1 missed it,
1
miss
In chapter 16 it will be seen that all these positions or environments which \en\, including its zero member, occur are syntactically identical; but that is irrelevant to the present discussion.
^*
in
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
given our elements,
215
we can reconstruct the utterance; given |/! + [cut] we construct 1 cut., since the member of {ed} after \cul\ is zero. But given / cut, we cannot say uniquely what elements it contains, i.e. whether or not it contains the morpheme {ed}.^^ If we wish to retain a one-one representation at this stage of our analysis, we must abjure any recourse to zero members of morphemes under this condition. The distribution of the morpheme {ed\ would then remain 'after any morpheme which occurs before -ing, except cut,' and the distribution of
[ed]
{.]
[cut]
would be identical with that

{ed}.^^
of {walk, take} etc., except that [cut]
would never occur before
Appendix to 13.43: Alternative Groupings The conditions of 13.42-3 are sufficiently elastic
cases
as to permit in some more than one arrangement of particular segments into morphemes. Two linguists, working on the same material and seeking to satisfy the same criteria, may not come out with the same morphemes."
There are other cases

groupings, depending on
in
which the procedure
of 13.3 permits various
how many environments we take
into account.
Thus
in
Bengali we find the following segments (with their meanings in
each of four environments):^**

after-t-condiafter stem
am
is
i
after-l-past
1st
iional
1st
after-b-fut.
2nd
1st
inferior
person
person
inferior
2nd
person
2nd
inferior
2nd
inferior
^=
And whether
If
or not
it
means
'past time', unless the
environment
tells us.
^^
above,
in
we decide against a zero member of we would need, in addition to the two
ed
for the reasons stated
special distributional state-
special statement (which would belong chapter 16): cut = V -|- {ed\, i.e. cut can be substituted for verb plus \ed\ (as well as being substitutable for a verb by itself). " In such cases, each linguist might indicate the existence of other possible groupings than the ones he has chosen. In any event, all such alternative groupings could be easily translated one into the other, for if the morphemes in the two arrangements are different, so are, correlatively, the segments which define each unit. Any difference between such alternative groupings will usually not constitute any general difference in the morphology. The opportunity to reconsider our groupings of members, if one grouping turns out to be more consonant with our generalizations or more convenient for our description, is offered in 14.6. ^n am indebted to Charles A. Ferguson for the Bengali forms used
ments here indicated, also a third
here.
216
MORPHEME ALTERNANTS
-o 'he' as different
217 say
-o
morphemes. But
this still does not enable us to
that
-e 'he'
and
-e 'you'
are different
morphemes, or that
-e 'he'
and
'he' are
the same morpheme.

basis for a rearrangement of these
as
'I
The
morphemes appears when we
compare utterances such
ami thaktum
tui thaktis
stayed'
(inf.)
'you
stayed'
Here we have an environment

(inf.)'
in respect to
which -urn
'I'
and
-is
'you
en-
are automatically restricted -and complementary.

in:
'I
The same
vironment appears
ami korbo
tui korbi
will
make
it'
'you
(inf.) will
make
it'
This environment
tionally with the
is
then the formal feature which correlates uncondi'you', etc.^';

it
meaning T,
does not correlate uncon-
ditionally with our previous units {-o\,

tion of the
etc.''^
but rather with a combina-
-0-, -t-, -h- morphemes and the -um, -is, etc. Without dependmeaning we can now say (following 13.43): all complementary segments which occur with ami shall be included in one morpheme 'I'.''^
ing on
Finally,
if
we
fail
to consider the import of the last utterances pre-
sented above, and keep the morphemes as they appear in our original
list,
the whole issue will be thrown open again when
we consider the
-e
rela-
tions
among morphemes
(chapter 15).
'he'
We
will
then find that
occurs in
the
same utterance with

'he'
occurs in one utterance with
one utterance with

in the
when -6- 'future' precedes it; and that -o ami when -b- 'future' precedes it, but in when -I- 'past' or -t- 'conditional' precede it, and
same utterance with

it.
'you' (ord.) w^hen
none
of these three pre-
cedes
We thus
have a complicated
set of restrictions, all involving the

-is, etc.,
same
few forms in different combinations:" -um,
and
-1-, -t-, -b-.
"
ever
'''
I.e.
it
arni
means
T not only after

-o
-I-
or
when there
is
no
-1-,
but when-
occurs.
Since sometimes
occurs with
it,
and sometimes -um
or
-i.
be seen that this is ground for setting up a single component including both ami and the various suffixes which occur with it.
*^
In chapter 17
it
will
"^
Whenever there
are a
number
of restrictions involving the
same
ele-
ments it is a good heuristic principle to reconsider what the elements are composed of, in order to see if a rearrangement of their component parts
may
not give us elements not subject to these special restrictions.
218
At this point
we
reconsider our
if
strictions can be eliminated

-/ 1st
morphemes and find that all these we regroup the segments as follows:
-uin after
-/-, -/-,
re-
person; with variant
members
and
-o after -b-.
-is
-o
2nd person inferior; with variant member -{ after -/-, -h-. 2nd person ordinary; with variant member -e after -/-, -/-,
3rd person ordinary; with variant
-h-.
-e
member
-o after -/-,
-/-.
-en
2nd and 3rd persons
honorific.
Any meaning
they
will
considerations which have formal correlation^^ will there-
fore be necessarily brought into play. If they
do not appear
will
at this stage
appear
later,
whenever the second formal feature which correwhich time we

go back and correct
lates with the first turns up, at
our previous work to satisfy our later considerations.'**
I.e. any meaning difference which coincides with the correlation between two formal features: in this case the ending -o and the restriction to ami T. We cannot go by coincidence of meaning with a single formal feature: since we don't rely on meaning, the formal feature could not be tabulated into a meaning pattern. The different iat ion of -o segments into several morphemes was distributionally possible only because the
*''
occurrence of -b-, -t-, etc. before ami, etc., respectively.
-o correlated
with the occurrence of
^* This is analogous to the situation in phonemics, when we grouped segments into phonemes without benefit of morphemic knowledge, and provided for changes in the grouping on the basis of our later grouping
of
morphemic segments.
14.
MORPHOPHONEMES
common
irregular phonological alternations
14.0.
Introductory
In this section the more

in a
language are marked by means of morphophonemic symbols.
14.1.
Purpose: Identical Constitution for All Alternants of a

]Vlorphenie
seek to define elements, as constituents of morphemic segments,
all
We
in
terms of which
the segment
members
of a given
morpheme would
be identical.
This purpose was served by the phonemic elements until we began to
group phonemically different segments into the same morpheme (13.32).
Now
that some
morphemes have phonemically
different
members,
it is
of interest to
members
in
of a
know whether we can recapture the state of having all morpheme identical. By definition, this could not be done
of setting
lem becomes one
of the members, so that the probup new elements, replacing the phonemes, which will satisfy this requirement. These new elements would represent the features common to the various members of the morpheme for which
terms of the phonemic composition
they are defined.
new morphophonemic elements will among the members of a moi'pheme. And over the whole corpus, if more of the morphemes have, in identical environments, identical alternations among their members, fewer morphophonemic elements will be set up; for then the morphophonemes set up for one morpheme will also serve for many other
In general, the setting up of such
be easier, the greater the phonemic similarity
morphemes.
cur in
14.2.
It is therefore
important to discover which alternations oc-
many morphemes.
Preliminaries to the Procedure: Morphemes Having IdenAlternations among Their Members
the fact that each
freely varying
tical
mentary or
morpheme is a class of one or more complemorphemic segments, it follows that only two facts are essential for each morphcune: what its segment members are (each being identified by its phonemic composition) and in what environments each member occurs. It was seen in 13.53 that morphemes also differ in the phonemic similarity between each member and its environment. Some of those alternations, both in plionomic coniixfsit ion and in
From
219
220
in
environmental differentiation, among members of a morpheme occur

only one morpheme; others occur identically in
14.21.
many morphemes.
Unique Alternations Some alternations of segments are unique to a particular morpheme. E.g. the morpheme {s\ 'plural' has a member en after {ox}. No other morpheme has, in a special position comparable to that of occurring after {ox}, a special member having the same relation to the other members of that morpheme which en has to the other members of {s}. E.g. the unit {'s} 'possessive' has no special member after {ox} or after any other single morpheme of that class. In cases of this type little generalization or simplification
is
possible.
We
simply state that
js}
has such and
such members in such and such environments.'

14.22. Alternations Generalizable
within Morphemically Defined

al-
Limits
In some cases a number of morphemes have analogous phonemic
ternations
members in corresponding environments, with such limitations that either the morphemes or the differentiating environments have to be identified morphemically: i.e. either the morphemes in which the alternation occurs cannot be distinguished by a common phonemic feature that is absent from all the morphemes in which the altertheir
among
nation does not occur (1-4.222) or else the environments of one alternant
;
do not have a
common phonemic
is
feature that
;
is
absent from
all
the envi-
ronments of the other alternant (14.223 or 14.221 w^here the environment

of the alternant -ren
not differentiable phonemically from the environ-
ments
of the alternants /s/, /z/
which contain among them the family

the children.
name
Childe:
We
had dinner with
We
had dinner with
the
Childes.)
14.221.
Identity of p.\rt of the .alternation. Some alternations oc-
cur analogously in several units. E.g. the occurrence of a
member
/s/
Another example is the morpheme {be} (13.32). The differentiating environments of its various members are individual morphemes, such as
'
member am; you, we, they, [s] 'plural,' or any other plural indication (cf. B. L. Whorf, Grammatical Categories, L.\ng. 21.1 (1945)) plus {-ed} 'past' (here represented by its member w-) for the member /ar/; etc. (13.512). The differences among the members, /sem/, /i/, /ar/, etc., cannot be generalized short of actually listing each member (13.523). No regular phonemic similarity can be shown between each member and the environment in which it occurs, as between / and ain (13.531). And no other morphemes have an analogous alternation of
/ for the
members
in
corresponding environments.
MORPHOPHONEMES
generally after
221
morphemes ending
is
in voiceless consonants,
and a memIf
ber /z/ after voiced,

sive,'
{'}
'is',
true of the
morphemes
{s} 'plural,' {'s] 'posses-
though these units
differ in their other
members.
we
generalize the alternation to one of voiceless-voiced

/s-z/),
members
(not just
tions of
we find it members
also in {ed\ 'past.'

in
However, there are other alternafrom

{'s} 'possessive': e.g.
which
\s\ 'plural' differs
children, child's.
14.222. Identical .\ltern.\tion in phonemically undifferentiABLE MORPHEMES. We ofteu find sets of morphemes all of whose members
vary analogously in corresponding environments:

[wife], all
e.g.
[knife],
[wolf],
have only two members, the second

\s\ 'plural.'
differing only in
having
but
in
/v/ before
In this case there are, however, other
morphemes
having the same phonemic form
in the relevant respect (final /f/),

\fife\
not having this alternation of members;

all
has only one
member
environments
It is
{fife, fifes).
impossible to differentiate the
this al-
ternation from those which do not by any phonemic feature
common
to
the former and lacking in the latter.

14.223. Alternations in phonemically differentiable morphemes in phonemically undifferentiable environments. In some cases all the morphemes which have some particular phonemic form in common have also an analogous alternation of members in the neighborhood of a particular morpheme. E.g. all morphemes which have members
ending
in
/k/ when not before

ity:
ity,
have members ending
in /s/ instead
when before
opaque-opacity;
it is
{ic\ in electric-electricity.^
all
In such cases,
possible to say that
fore ity will in that position
have members
from the other members

other
of the respective
morphemes which occur bephonemes morpheme: in particular, if the

differing in certain
member
in /s/;
if
(the one not before ity) ends in /k/, the
member
before ity
ends
the other
member
contains /eyC/ or /ayC/, the

;
member
on.
before ity contains /seC/ or /iC/ respectively (sane-sanity)
and so
This statement has

electric,
now become
a statement about
ity
rather than about
sane, etc., since the alternation does not occur before other
mor-
Note that
in this
example the alternation
of the
two morphemes
is
similar only in respect to the /k/-/s/ interchange: the member of opa(fie before ity also has // instead of the /ey/ of the other member of the unit. This vowel difference appears in all other units having /eyC/ when they occur before ity they are represented by a member having /se/ instead of /ey/, as in sane-sanity. I am indebted for this point to Stanley S. Newman's analysis of English.
222
STRUCTURAL LINCiUISTICS
to ity (e.g.
phemes which can be considered phonemically similar

no alternation before
al,
we have
er
We may
pears,
of
i.e.
consider /k/
\ity\
>
which also begin with /a/: electrical, saner. /s/, /ey/ > /ae/ to be parts of the phonemic
their
content of the
morpheme, operating whenever
domain apIn terms
whenever there appears a preceding /k/, /ey/,
etc.
morphemes and their members, we may say not that [ic] has two members (is, before {ity} and /ik/ otherwise), but that \ity\ has several members: /A;/ > /s/ + /atiy/ after all morphemes ending in /k/; /ey/ -^ /ae/ + /atiy/ after all morphemes ending in /eyC/; etc.
We then do not
ber before
ity:
need to say that {opaque},
{ic}, etc.
have a special mem-
they have their one member, and the changes are part of
the following morpheme.^

all these cases some generalization of the almore than one morpheme is possible, but it must be couched at least in part in terms of morphemes rather than phonemes. We say that the morpheme {-s} 'plural' has various members after certain particular morphemes (/an/ after ox, /s/ after die, /aew/ > /ay/ after mouse, louse, etc.); and that otherwise all the morphemes which have a member /s/ (this includes the plural, possessive, and is) have the
14.22-1.
SuMM.\RY. In
ternation over
member
end
in
/az/ after
/s, z/, /z,
after voiced
phonemes, /s/ after voiceless
consonants.^ Similarly,
in /f/
we say that
a few one-vowel
morphemes, which
when the {s} 'plural' does not follow, have members ending /v/ when it does; and we list the morphemes {knife} etc.
Alternations
li.23.
uithin
Phoneruically
Differentiable
Mor-
phemes and Environments

Finally, in
some
cases all the
morphemes which had some
particular
phonemic feature have analogous phonemic alternation among members

This is in effect a correction of the morphemic segmentation of chapConsiderations of this type apply whenever all morphemes whose members outside of the neighborhood of morpheme A'j show phonemic features A, have members with phonemic feature B instead of A when they are in the neighborhood of {X}. The phonemic form of {X} now includes the change of .4 to B whenever A appears in its neighborhood. We have to make this change of .4 to B (e.g. /ey/ to /se,) part of the {X} (e.g. of ity) rather than part of the morphemes which contain .4 and B (e.g. of sane), because from the point of view of morphemes like sane the change of /ey/ to /ae/ in them cannot be defined in terms of their phonemic environment the ey/ remains before er {saner), etc. However, from the point of view of ity we can state the alternation in terms of the phonemic environment of ity: it happens in any /eyC/. The analogous alternation in {ed} could be included in this statement.
^
ter 12.
MORPHOPHONEMES
in
223
morphemes which have some particular morphemes which, when they do not occur before a morpheme beginning with /k/, have members ending in /ley/, have otherwise identical members without the /ky/ when they occur before a morpheme beginning with /k/: /aky/ 'husked grain,' /kayl/ 'female stealer,' /aki.l/ 'female stealer of husked grain. '^ The same alternation occurs for /t/ and /n/: /katac/ 'knife and stick,' but /katy/ 'knife' and /tac/ 'stick'; /kuno tlk/ 'to look for bees/ but /kuny/ and
the neighborhood of
all
other
phonemic
feature. In Kota, all
/no.tlk/ separately.^
We
can then describe the alternation of members

terms of phonemes rather than
in
of the of
morphemes
morphemes,
in question in
terms
and thus obtain a simpler statement. For the Kota example we would
say:
sequence
/C"y#CV is always replaced by /C'/ (/C/ = /k, t, n/). I.e. the /C'y#CV never occurs, as our statement of phoneme distribumanner of chapter 1 1) should show, if it has been sufficiently and wherever there is such a succession of morphemes as would that sequence^ we have /C'/ instead.*
is
tion (in the

detailed;
result in
Since the whole point of such statements

give
to achieve generality,
we
them
in
the broadest form possible.
If
the same alternation of

(i.e.
mem-
bers occurs before /C'/
and before /#"/
irrespectively of whether
M.
B.
Emeneau, Kota Texts 1.17-8

of the {kayl|
(19-44).
between the two members

other general statement.
^
The diffei'ence in vowel morpheme is described by anwhen the determining mor-
We
is
often meet situations of this type

in
their alternant mema contour longer than one morpheme (e.g. word, phrase, utterance). Since these contours depend on sections of the utterance or constructions larger than one morpheme, they are necessarily independent of each morpheme and therefore constitute part of its environment. E.g. the position of zero stress in national-nationality, telegraph-telegraphy (see 13.511), depends upon English word contour and is independent of the morpheme. Therefore, certain vowels in any morpheme will be /a/ when that vowel occurs in the zero stress position of the word contour. (This applies only to particular dialects of American English.) In terms of morphemes and their members: Each time a morpheme occurs, it will be represented by a member whose vowels will be /a/ in the zero stre.ss positions of the particular word contour within whose length the morpheme falls. The morpheme \lele\ will have a member /tela/ when the concurrent woid contour has zero stress over the second vowel of the unit, and the member /tale when the (;ontour ha zero stress over the first.
pheme,
whose environment our morphemes have
bers,
If
we consider the morphemes without members adjusted

.
to this en-
vironment
'Statements of this type are often called regular matic morphophonemics.
jjlioiiology or
auto-
224
the
morpheme beginning with /C'/ has close or open juncture before it, whether it is in the same or the next word), we implicitly or explicitly
note the irrelevance of the juncture in our statement and say
/C'y#CV'
'knife,'
is
replaced
by
C'/. This
is
the case here, where

cut.''"
we have /katy/
/tayr
'to cut,'
but /katir/ 'knife to
The
simplicity of such statements varies according to the
phonemic
question
relation
(13.52),
between the members
in
and out
of the
environment
in
and between each member and
its
environment (13.53), and ac(13.511). In all these

in
cording to the complexity of the differentiating phonemic characteristic

for the
morpheme
(14.23)
and the environment

is
cases, the essential condition for a statement
terms of phonemes
in
rather than of
morphemes
that the set of
morphemes
which the
al-
ternation takes place, and the set of determining environments," be each

identifiable phonemically,
and that the phonemic
difference
it
between the
be the same
members
in
the environment in question and those outside
for all the
morphemes. '-
14.3.
Procedure: Interchanging Phonemes
among
Alternants of
re-
One Morpheme
We
group together into one morphaphoneme the phonemes which
place each other in corresponding parts of the various
members
of a
morpheme. If we want each morpheme
to
have only one form or member (thus
morpheme and its segment member) we can, on the basis of the Appendix to 12.5, divide each member of a morpheme into a given number of successive (or simultaneous) parts, and assign one mark to the first part of all the members, another mark to the second, and so on.'^ E.g. the two members knife and knive would be
eliminating the distinction between
^ Where indicates close juncture, i.e. the lack of any phonemic juncture before the second morpheme. Regular phonology across word or phrase juncture is often called external sandhi.
'"
Emeneau,
ibid. 18.
" Including what kind of juncture if any. There is always, of course, a morpheme boundary involved, since we are speaking of what member of one morpheme occurs in the neighborhood of another; but not always is there a phonemic juncture at the boundary.
'^ Additional differences between the members may exist in some of these morphemes (e.g. the /i,' for /ay/ in fn. 5), but these may be described by additional automatic or non-automatic alternations wiiich affect these particular morphemes.
'^ The difference between the division of morphological elements into phonological ones in the Appendix to 12.5, and that proposed here, is the
MORPHOPHONEMES
divided into four parts: the
first
225
part of both would be written /n//*
members are now The same marks would be used of course in all morphemes having comparable relative parts: the two members wife and wive would both be written /wayr/, while the one-member morpheme
the second /a/, the third /y/, the fourth /f/. Both
identical: /nayr/.
\fife\
would be written /fayf/ since

{-s\.
its last
part does not represent /v/

is still
before
The
it
translation from writing to speech

{-sj
unique:
when
we
see
/nayr/ before
lost
'plural'
we pronounce
and
fife
it
/nayv/; otherwise
that the
we pronounce
to writing
is
/nayf/. But the one-one correspondence from speech

:
when we hear
later
knife
we cannot
tell
former
is
/nayr/ while the
is
/ta,yi/:
merely by hearing sounds we
guage) but
(if we know the phonemic system of the lanwe cannot tell how they will be replaced, if at all, in other members of the morpheme which we heard.
can assign them to phonemes
14.31.
Status of the Morphophonemic Symbols

take a
We
morpheme
written as a combination of symbols which do
not change no matter what the environment. In each environment, each
symbol represents the phonemic composition which the part of the morpheme occupied by the symbol has in that environment.'* Such a symbol
is
called a
morphophoneme.'^ Thus
in /nayr/, the f represents the
fact that in the former we considered the division of each morphemic segment into such parts as would also appear in other morphemic seg-
ments (and hence obtained phonemes), while here we divide each mor-
pheme
of its
members, and
into such parts as will represent the corresponding sections of each will as far as possible also appear in other morphemes
striction, to
(and hence obtain the phonemes and morphophonemes of 14.3). The recorresponding parts is made in order to avoid considerations of relative order in the definition of each morphophoneme.
'* For convenience of later analysis, the new parts set up here will be written between the diagonals used for phonemes. When these parts will turn out to be not identical with phonemes they will be written with small capitals or other distinguishing letters.
Each morphophonemic symbol thus represents a class of phonemes is defined by a list of member phonemes each of which occurs in a particular environment (in particular morphemes, e.g. /nayF/, when next to particular other morphemes, e.g. s 'plural'). This is analogous to the phonemic symbol of chapter 7, which represented a class of segments, and was defined by a list of member segments each of which occurred in
^*
and
a particular environment.
"^
This
is
of
morphophonemes by most
equivalent although not identical with the definition or use linguists: lOdward Sapir and Morris Swa-
226
of the hist
phonemic eomposition
pheme,
in
unit -length
segment
is;
of that
mor-
whatever environment the morpheme

[knife]
is
hence f represents
/v/ when the morpheme

/f/ otherwise.
before
{s\ 'plural',
and
it
represents
Our whole work of establishing a single representation for each commorpheme means merely that we refer the differences between the member segments back to the phonological parts of the morpheme: instead of having a morpheme with several morphemic segment members in various environments, we have a morpheme with only one member; but the phonological elements of which that member is composed are variously defined (to represent various phonemes) in those very environments. There might seem to be little advantage in this, but the gain becomes apparent when we realize, from the generalizations of 14.2, that there may be many morphemes whose members differ from each other identically.*' The morphophoneme 'f/ which serves in \kmfe\ can also
plete
serve in
wolf, wife] etc.
We can therefore use one symbol,

in the single spelling of
one statement
of the /f/ -
/v/ alternation,
each of these moralternation

'''^
phemes, instead
of each
of repeating the
of
statement in the
'
member
morpheme: instead
j^^L j, j^nSf
\wive\'
^^''
^^^^ ^
single statement of the
two representations
of /f/, plus
/wuIf/,
/'nayF,',
/wayF/
etc.'*
14.32. Severftl
Morphophonemes
in
One Alternation
the
certain
When
generalized statements are
which a particular alternation occurs, which are referred to

in
made for all we may have
more than one statement,
i.e.
morphemes in morphemes morphemes whose
desh.
gie,
Nootka Texts 236-9 (1939) X. S. Trubetzkoy, Sur la morphonoloTravaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 1.85-8 (1929); Henryk Utaszyn, Laut, phonema, morphonema, ibid. 4.35-61 (1931). '" Each new morphophonemic symbol is therefore a generalization of member alternation in several morphemic units. Even apart from this generalization, morphophonemes are linguistically useful in that they indicate a special relation among phonemes. For example, as indicated in 2.61, the sounds (in morphemes) which are usually indistinguishable
;
from each other for the speakers of the language are those which are members both of one phoneme and of one morphophoneme. For examples of native response to phonemically identical but morphophonemically different sounds, see Selected Writings of '''The
Edward Sapir
54-5.
one-spelling morphophonemic writing of the previously plurimembered unit is sometimes called the base form or theoretical form, from which the phonemically written members are derived.
new
MORPHOPHONEMES
alternant
eral
227
members can be described
as the result of
{owsj,'^
more than one gen-
phonemic alternation. Thus before
without the /am/ (odious), while [outrage] has a

stress (ouirageous)
.
member member with pre-suffixal

[odium] has a
In [decorum] we have yet a third alternation, in the
member
/da'kor/ which occurs in decorous (and in decor). But this alter-
nation can be described as merely the result of the, operation of both of

the two previous ones: dropping of
state this
/am/ and changing of stress. We can by including [decorum] both in the list which contains [odium]
which contains [outrage]. ^
and
in that
The whole method of 14.3 is to arrange the facts of member alternation within morphemes in terms of the alternation rather than in terms of the morphemes. Whereas in 14.2 we were able to group together only those morphemes which had identical alternations of whole members, here we
can notice identities
in parts
(segments) of the alternation. In terms of
morphophonemes, we can notice if two alternations have some morphophoneme in common (i.e. are identical during part of their length), even
if
the remainder of the alternation

differ
differs.
As a
result,
some
alternations
which
from any other one,
may
be found to be sums of other
known
alternations.
Types of Alternation Represented by Morphophonemes'^^ MORPHOPHONEMIC REDEFINITION OF PHONEMIC SYMBOLS. When it is possible to differentiate phonemically between the morphemes in which an alternation occurs and those in which it does not, and be14.33.
14.331.
tween the environments
of the
one
member
of the alternation as against
'^
Cf.
Leonard Bloomfield
in B.
Bloch and G.
L. Trager, Outline of
Linguistic Analysis 65 (1941).

^ Or by marking decorum both with the morphophonemic with odium and with the one used with outrage.
mark used
^' We compare statements about alternations with statements about morphophonemes. The alternations of 14.23 can be stated as follows: All the morphemes which have phonemic; feature ?/' (when they are in various environments), have members with phoneme i/, y'^ (instead of ?/') in the environment of phonemes z, iv, respectively. (We call these B morphemes.) But not every morpheme which has y^ when it is in the environment z will be found to have y^ in the other environments; some of them (C morphemes) have y'^ (or some other phoneme) even in non-2 environments (where the previous morphemes had their y^). In terms of morphophonemes, we merely write the foi'mer (B) morphemes with the
morphophoneme
w,
?/'
in all
environments, even
in
the neighborhood of
z or
and define this morphophonemic ?/' in such a way that the morphophonemic sequence y^z represents /yh/ and the morphophonemic se-
228
(1-4.23),
it is
the environments of the other
not necessary to introduce a
new morphophonemic symbol,
since both the
morphemes and the en-
vironments can be identified by means of their phonemes. In such cases
we merely
phonemes
vironment
ment.
define a
of the of
morphophoneme, symbolized by the characteristic morpheme, in such a way that it represents in each enthe morpheme the phonemes which occur in that environall
In cases where a given alternation occurs in

a particular phonemic feature and in
stateable environment (14.23),
sist of
all
occurrences of a phonemically
we can consider all the members to conmorphophonemes based on the phonemically most complicated
quence y^w represents phonemic /y^w/. The other (C) morphemes we may write with y'^, both in the environment of z and elsewhere. The alternations of 14.221-2 can be stated as follows: The morphemes D have members with phoneme y- instead of y^ in environments z, and with phoneme y^ instead of y^ in environment w. But other morphemes E have y' even in environment z; and morphemes F which have y^ in environment z, also have y^ (and not ;/') elsewhere. In terms of morphophonemes, we write D with morphophoneme y, and define y as representing phoneme y^ in the environment z, y^ in the environment ?/>, and the ?/' otherwise; y occurs in morphemes D.
MORPHOPHONEMES
or arbitrary
229
member.
^^
Instead of having a Kota morpheme with two
members, phonemically /katy/ and /ka/ 'knife,' we have a morpheme with one member, morphophonemically /katy/; the morphophonemes are identical with the phonemes of the first member, but the last two
when they occur before /t/; we do not have to go here beyond our usual phonemic symbols, we have nevertheless entered into a one-many correspondence in giving these values to our symbols. For given the morphemes which are morphophonemically written /katy-tayr/ we know they are to be pronounced phonemically /kati.r/. But hearing the phonemes /kati.r/ we have no way of telling whether the morphophonemes are /katyt ./ or /kat ./, i.e. whether the first morpheme would be /katy/ or /ka/ when /t/ does not follow, because the morphophonemes /ka -|- t/ and /katy + t/ both would give the phonemes /kat/.^^ It is also not necessary to introduce a new morphophonemic symbol when it is possible to differentiate phonemically between the morphemes in which an alternation occurs and those in which it does not, or when the environments in which the morphemes have their special member consist of a small number of morphemes (14.223). In such cases it may be sufficient to define a morphophoneme, symbolized by the interchange of phonemes which constitutes the alternation in question, and to say that that morphophoneme is part of the morphophonemic and phonemic
morphophonemes represent phonemic
zero
otherwise they represent phonemic /ty/. Although
composition of the stated environmental morphemes.^'' Thus, the morily of 14.223 has the phonemic form /k -^ s; ey se; atiy/, the /k -^ s/ being understood to apply only to any preceding /k/, and
pheme
/ey
>
ae/ to
any preceding /eyC/. For the sake
of abbreviation, a
new
ily,
symbol, say /"/,
may
be defined to represent these changes before
so that the composition of that suffix becomes /'atiy/.
Whether or not a new symbol is used for abbreviation, the alternation remains morphophonemic. For even though we include the change of /k/ to /s/ and of /ey/ to /ae/ as part of the phonemic composition of the morpheme ity, we will not know, when we hear a morpheme with /s/ or /se/ before ily whether that morpheme has /k/ and /ey/ elsewhere, or whether it al^'^
I.e.
the
member about which
fewest (or no) generalizations can be
made.
''
^^
Cf. 14.53 below. Not of the morphemes in
morphemes which constitute the environment in which phemes have their special member. Cf. fn. 3 above.
the
which the alternation takes place, but of these mor-
230
ways has s, and 'ip botli elsewhere and before ily. When we see the morphophonemic writing /seyn/ + /ey >ae; atiy we know that the phonemic representation is /ssenitiy/. But when we hear /saenatiy/ and laeksatiy/ laxity, we would not know that the morpheme in the first case is /seyn and in the other is /laeks/. 14.332. New symbols required. When it is impossible to diflferentiate phonemically between the morphemes in which an alternation occurs and those in which it does not, or between the environments of the one
,
,
member
of the alternation as against the
environments of the other
and when the environments in question are not some small class of morphemes which could be treated as in 14.223, then it is most convenient to define new morphophonemic symbols to indicate the occur(14.221-2),
rence of the alternation.
A common
'of slave'
type of regularity
is
that of Russian /rap/ 'slave', /raba/
compared with /pop/ 'priest', /papa/ 'of priest',^* or Ger/bunt/ 'group', /bunde/ '(in) the group' compared with /bunt/ man 'colored', bunte, 'colored ones.' In both cases, all morphemes whose members end in voiced stops when a voweP^ follows, have members ending in voiceless stops when silence or phonemic word juncture or certain morphemes (constituting what we may later call separate words)
follow. If the
environment were always recognizable by a constant pho-
(e.g. silence, or a phonemic juncture),^' we would be able morphemes a single phonemic form by saying that morphophonemic /b#, represents phonemic /p/, and /d#/ represents /t/. We would write /'bund/ 'group,' /bunt/ 'colored' and pronounce both the same way (when /bund occurred before /:^/)f^ the mor-
nemic feature
to give these
^= The Russian analysis here is from G. L. Trager, Russian, Lang. 10.334-344 (1934). ^* I.e. a morpheme beginning with a vowel.
The phonemes
of
^'' Or by an intermittently present feature such as pause, which we could observe by obtaining repetitions of the utterances. ^' For a method of writing these two forms identically by the use of components, see Lang. 20.195-6 (1944). Whether we use letters or components, one feature of the exactness of phonemic representation is lost, while a morphemic distinction is gained. For when we hear [bun] followed by a voiceless dental stop we would not know whether to write it bund or /bunt/; but the two writings would be equivalent, so that it would make no difference which we wrote. The only difference would be in identifying the morpheme; when we hear bunde/ we know which morpheme is involved: when we hear bund = bunt we do not. This is an inescapable difficulty in the phonemic representation of morphemes, and is a result of the imperfect correlation between phonemes and morphemes. Not in all cases (nor in all languages) is each member of each
'
MORPHOPHONEMES
231
pheme {Bimd] would then have only one member both in /bund#.' (= /bunt:^, ) and in 'bunde,'. However, if the voiced-stop morphemes have their voiceless-stop member even in some environments which can be differentiated not by a phonemic characteristic but only by knowing the particular morphemes, it would be impossible to tell, when we see the morphophonemic bund in a particular environment, whether to pronounce it phonemically bund/ or /bunt/. In such a case it becomes necessary to add some morphophonemic mark in these environments so as to indicate that the /d/ has here the value /t/. If we choose /-/ as this mark, this would mean that not only /d#/ but also /d-/
,
have the value
ft/.
slightly different
type of regularity
is
observed in Menomini,-'
where every morpheme ending
in a non-syllabic has a
added /e/ when
it
occurs before a consonant: morphophonemic
member with /poN/
'cease' plus /m/ *by speech' plus the suffix /ew/ 'to him' is phonemic /ponemew/ 'he stops talking to him'. Following the procedure of 14.331, we may write morphophonemically /poNmew/ and allow it to serve phonemically, i.e. to indicate exactly how the sequence is pronounced. This is possible as long as we deal with clusters such as /Nm/ which do not occur except across morpheme boundary. However when we find a cross-boundary cluster which also occurs within a morpheme (where no /e/ would be pronounced between the two consonants), we would have no way of knowing whether to pronounce the /e/ or not, unless we are told whether a morpheme boundary has been crossed. In such cases we would have to insert a morphophonemic mark, say a juncture /-/, which would here represent the /e/. Furthermore, when we hear /CeC/, only knowledge of the morphemes involved will tell us if the /e/ here merely represents a morpheme boundary or is part of the phonemic sequence within a morpheme: /ponemew/ is /poN/ 4- /m/ -f /ew/, but /ponenemew/ 'he stops thinking of him' is /poN/ + /tNem/ -f /ew/.
14.4.
Result:
Morphophonemes
set of
as Classes of Substitutable Phooneele-
nemes
We now
ments
have a
morphophonological elements, no longer
in
one correspondence with speech, which can replace our phonological

for the
purpose
of identifying
morphemes.
morpheme phonemically different from every other member of every other morpheme: /bund/ differs recognizably from /l)unt/ only in certain utterance positions.
liconard Bloomfield, Menomini morphophoiicinics, Ccrcle Linguistique de Prague S.IO!> (1939).

^''
Travaux du
232
on the
biuîs of
Although the morphemic segments had originally been

ter 12
limitations of occurrence of the
to utterance-long environments,
we
often find
set up in chapphonemes in respect after the complementary
grouping of chapter 13 that the phonemes no longer identify the resultant
morphemes
i.e.
in a
simple manner. In order to have a single composition,

all
a single spelling, for
occurrences of a single morpheme,
it is
often
necessary to resort to elements which represent the various phonemic
compositions of the
cases these elements
(redefined as a
morpheme
in its various environments.*" In
some
may
be merely redefinitions of phonemic symbols

in other cases
one-many correspondence);
is
new symbols
have to be
defined.*'
Each morphophonemic symbol

tions of the particular
defined only for the particular posi-
morphemes
(or
environments) in which
it
has been
set up.
symbol which has not been defined for certain positions can therefore be used for any other morphophonemic relation. That is, complementary morphophonemes can be marked by the same symbol.
Each morphophoneme
is itself
a class of complementary phonemic
segments. The segments represented by the morphophoneme are those which occur in a particular position in all the members of a particular morpheme. They are complementary, since for each environment of the unit, its morphophonemes indicate the segments in the corresponding parts of that member of the morpheme which occurs in that environment. A morphophoneme is thus a class of phoneme-length segments, the same segments that we had grouped into phonemes, except that into one morphophoneme we group segments which are complementary within one morpheme (holding the morpheme constant), while into phonemes we grouped segments which were complementary without regard to morpheme constancy.
*' There are two types of situation in which morphophonemes could be used even though the phonemes they represent, and the morphemic segments in which they occur, are not mutually complementary in environment. One is the free variation among phonemically distinct morphemic segments, as in the case of economics (13.2). We may define a morphophoneme /e/ freely representing /e/ sometimes and iy/ at other times, and then write /lEka'namiks/ but /,ele"ment9lA This is more useful if there are many morphemes in which the identical free variation occurs. The other is the intermittently present pause or other feature (Appendi.x to 4.3). If we do not wish to recognize these elements which can be observed in repetitions of an utterance rather than in a single pronunciation of it, we can define a morphophoneme which sometimes represents the feature and sometimes represents its absence. Each morpheme would then have the same morphophonemic constitution in all its occurrences, even though its phonemic constitution varies
freely.
MORPHOPHONEMES
14.5.
233
Reconsideration of the Grouping of Phonological Segments

of
The grouping
relation with the
morphemic segments
into
reconsider the efficiency of our previously defined
morphemes enables us to phonemes in their cor-
morphemes. ^^
Criterion for
of
11.51.
Morphophonemic
in the various
Grouping Segments
(e.g.
Wherever the alternation

ment)
corresponding segments
of a
the
first
seg-
morpheme satisfies the procedure of 7.3, we include these segments in one phoneme (not only in one morphophoneme). E.g. if [pâ'zes] possess and [p'a'zes] in dispossess are members
of
members
one unit {possess}, and
if [p*^]
and
[p']
are in general complementary
[p*'] and [p'] in one phoneme means in effect that, for the purposes of the morphology, the criteria of 7.4 become secondary to (or are superseded by) the criterion of membership in one morphophoneme, i.e. by the criterion that the complementary segments to be grouped into one phoneme be ones which replace each other in various members of one morpheme. It will often happen that this new criterion has the same effect as those of 7.4, the more so since linguists usually make guessed approximations to 14.51 (see Appendix to 7.4). The morphophonemic criterion applied here thuf
in their
phonemic environment, we group
/p/. This
leads to a reconsideration of the phonological segment groupings de-
termined in 7-9."
When
so reconsidered, our
:
phonemes become the expression
of
two
independent relations primarily the phonemic relation of complementary

^^ In these procedures we have gone from segments to phonemes to morphemic segments to morphemes to morphophonemes. We could also, though with much more difficulty, have gone from segments to phonemes to morphophonemes to morphemes. In either case knowledge of morpheme identity would have to be added after the phonemes are set up, in
order to enable us to proceed.

'^ As a special case of 14.51 we find segment sequences which may be assigned here to a phonemic sequence different from the one to which they had been assigned in 7.9. E.g. we may have previously phonemicizcd [Clijit^] as /Cal^^/: simple /simpal/. The considerations of the Appendix to 14.331, however, show that we could have avoided an extra morphophoneme /a/ if we had phonemicized it as /simpl/. This is a possible phonemic analysis, since /I/ does not otherwise occur in /C ^#/; i.e. there is no other segment in that position which had already been assigned to /I/. The new phonemicization may complicate or simplify our statement of clusterings, i.e. of the relative distribution of consonants, but in any case it simplifies our morphophonemic statements. If we choose to give this criterion precedence over those of 7.4 we will now as-
sign [C!#] to
/Cl#/.
'2M
members
of a
distribution (plus free variation); secondarily the

tion of substitulability in various
morphophonemic relamorpheme. A system of

most convenient
of the
writing based
upon these two
relations will usually be
for morphological description'''

language.'-''
and
for use
by native speakers
14.52.
Phonetnicization of Cross-Boundary Alternations

a slight extension of
One other type

phonemics by
alternations of
morphophonemic alternation can be included within phonemic u.sage: these are some of the 14.23. If a certain alternation occurs in all morphemes
of
'*
A
[f]
bility relation
system of elements based only upon the morphemic substitutawould be that of morphophonemes. If we considered only
at a time, or
one morpheme
the
only morphemes with identical alternations,
and [v] segments of knife, knive would be included as alternants (members) in one element, the [p''] and [p'] above as alternants in one other, and so on. Within these morphemes these segments are both complementary and substitutable mutually. To this arrangement, we add the phonemic requirement that the segments be complementary (or freely variable) in respect to the occurrences of all other phonemic elements. On the one hand, this means that no two non-freely-variable alternants of one phoneme should occur in the same phonemic environment if element v has two alternants, [f] and [v], with [v] occurring before environment [z], and [f] occurring in all other environments, we do not want [f] to occur before any environment [z] and we do not want [v] to occur in any non-[z] environment. That is, we want the environments of alternant [f] and the environments of alternant [v] to be completely distinguishable from each other when these environments are stated in terms of our phonemic elements (and when our two alternants are stated in terms of a single phonemic element v so that only the difference between their environments remains to distinguish them). On the other hand, the phonemic requirement means that if two segments are alternants of each other in a particular morpheme, they should also alternate similarly (under the same conditions) in every other morpheme which has the same phonemic constitution over such stretches as are considered in the phonemics. If this phonemic requirement is e.\tended to longer stretches, it would cease to differ from the morphophonemic requirement above, since almost every morpheme differs phonemically, in its constitution or its environment from every other morpheme. If we go far enough out, we can say that [f]-[v] alternate after nay and Hy (knives, leaves), but not after fay / ciy (fifes, chiefs). However, phonemic considerations are usually restricted to short',
'
,
er
and more manageable stretches: after ay or / iy there are cases [f] alternates with [v] and cases where it does not. Therefore, when we add this short-range phonemic requirement we can retain the [p'"]-[p']
where
''
grouping, but not the [f]-[v] one. For the latter, see Edward Sapir, La realite psychologique des phonemes. Journal de Psychologic 30.247 65 (1933), and 2.G1 above.
MORPHOPHONEMES
certain
235
having a given (original) phonemic feature, whenever these appear in a
morphemes new environment. As was seen in 14.331, we can continue to write the original symbol even in the new environment, and merely state that in the new environment it represents
there will be left no
new phonemic environment,
which preserve the original feature
in the
a different segment.
Thus we can continue

is
to write /katy/ even before /tayr/,

is
and say
that. the value of /ty/ before /t/

/t/).
zero
(i.e.
that the value of /tyt/
We
must check, however, to

it
see whether the sequence /tyt/,
with /ty/ not representing zero, ever occurs within a morpheme, ^^

granted that
never occurs across
morpheme boundary.
If
it
does occur,
then we cannot include this morphophonemic alternation (between /ty/
and
zero) in the segmental representation of /ty/, because the represen-
tation zero will contrast with the representation /ty/ before /t/." If the
sequence /tyt/ never occurs except for the cross-boundary case under
discussion (where also the segments [tyt] do not occur, but only
[t]),
we can
This
in
assign to
[t].
it
any
definition
we
please, in this case the
segments
zero plus
will
be a frequent situation, since when

instead of X,
all
X have
(i.e.
)',
when Z
follows (so that
morphemes ending we get YZ instead
of
XZ), we
will often find that
XZ
never occurs otherwise in the lan-
guage
never occurs within a morpheme), so that the substitution of
the symbols
YZ amounted
to
an avoidance
of the otherwise non-occur-
ring sequence of symbols XZ.^^
14.53.
Equivalent Phonemic Spellings
The morphophonemic alternations of 14.23 and 14.52 can be considered phonemic if we are willing to permit equivalent phonemic writings.
In the example of the Appendix to 14.331, /"simplliy/ can only be read
['simpliy]; the latter,
however, could also be written /"simpliy/. There

one-one property of phonemic representation
to
would be no
if
real loss in the
we admitted both forms

'" I.e. if
phonemic
status, for /I/
and
/ll/
would be
/tyt/ ever occurs with a value other than /t/. can do it only if there is a phonemic juncture involved, for then we can say that /ty/ before /-t/ has value zero, while /ty before /t/
"
We
(i.e.
within a morpheme) has some other value. Cf. the
last
case in
14.332.
the 'protective mechanisms', e.g. in Stanley S. Newman, Yokuts of (-alifornia chapter 1 13, 2:15 (1944). Much the same function as that filled by the protective mechanisms can be filled by selection of base forms or basic alternants, as in Leonard Bloomfield, Language 211-2.
^* C'f.
Language
230
STIUCTURAL LIN(;UISTICS
it
equivalent in this enviionincnt and
would
inak(>
no phonemic
differ-
ence which we wrote.

Simihirly, in the
example
of 14.331
and
14.52,
if
we define the phonemic

(since the
sequence /tyt/ as representing the segment
[t]
segment
se-
quence
[tyt]
occurs neither across
morpheme boundary nor
otherwise),
we must remember
that /t/ alone (aside from the /tyt/ sequence) also

[t].
represents the segment
This means that given phonemic

nemically as either /kat
.
kat
./
. .
we can represent
./,
it
pho/t/.
./
or /katyi
because /tyt/
Since the two writings are equivalent, and each would be pronounced
only as
/'kat
./,
we can say
that
we have not
really lost the
phonemic
in-
one-one correspondence by admitting the two representations. As an

dication of morphemes, however,
many
the
correspondence, for
we have moved from a one-one to a onew-hen we hear /kati-r/ we cannot tell whether
is
first
morpheme
is
/katy/ or /ka/.
not a
This equivalence of two phonemic writings
new
extension of
the phonemic definition. The expression of limitations of phonemic distribution
by the
less restricted
components was
in part
accomplished by
''^ admitting such equivalent writings.
14.6.
Reconsideration of the Grouping of Morphological Seg-
ments
The
decision as to what
morphemic segments would be grouped

in
to-
gether into one
morpheme was made
carrying out the operations of
chapter
13.
However, the comparison

(13.5),
of the alternations in the resulting
morphemes
and especially the generalizations of these alternations (14.2), may show that the relations among the members (i.e. the alternations) within certain morphemes are very different from the general types, whereas a different grouping of the same members into different morphemes (yielding morphemes with different alternations) would fit in
with our generalizations, or at least remove some of the exceptions which
marked the
the original
original morphemes.'"' In such cases
we may go back and
re-
group the morphemic segments into different morphemes, and then replace
morphemes by the new ones
in the following procedures."
^^ See fn. 28, above. More regular statements can sometimes be obtained by employing the technique of descriptive order used in Leonard Bloomfield, Language 213.
*"
Cf. for
example the Appendix to
13.43.
reconsiderations of 14.5-6 are designed to yield the maximum regularity between morphological elements (selected for their having
"
The
MORPHOPHONEMES
237
Appendix to 14.32: INIorphophoneniic Equivalent for Descriptive Order of Alternation When the difference between two members of a unit is described as
i.e. as the operation of two independent morphophonemes in that morpheme, it is necessary to check whether the two alternations can be summed in any order, or whether one must be applied first. Thus in Menomini''^ morpheme-final /n/ is replaced by /s/
the Slim of two alternations,
before /e, y/: /esyat/
'if
he goes thither,' /enohnet/
'if
he walks thither.'
it
Furthermore, when the vowel of some morpheme occurs at word-final,

drops: /asetehsemcw/ 'he lays
return.'
them so that they
overlap,' /aset/ 'in
When we now meet

done only
/os/ 'canoe,' /onan/ 'canoes', we recognize
that this alternation' can be stated as the

ever, this can be
if
sum
of the previous two.
How-
we
set
up a morphophonemic /on-e/ and

in
then apply our two alternations in the order
which they are stated

the condition for then
above;
if
we
first
drop the /e/, we
will
have
lost
replacing the /n/
by
/s/.
The
effect of this descriptive order of the
statements about alternation
can be obtained alternatively by an exact statement of the representation of the
morphophonemes.
(including /e/) has phonemic
phonemic /n/ has

than phonemic)
/on-e-fc/
We may say that morphophonemic /V/ member zero before #- and that morphophonemic member /s/ before morphophonemic (rather
/e, y/ (even if would be phonemic /os/.
follows).
Then morphophonemic
Similarly, in Kota,*' the value of
morphophonemic /ay/ under non-
simple patterned distributional relations among themselves) and the phonologic elements of which they are composed. The ideal is that eveiy morpheme have only one phonological constitution (spelling), different from that of every other morpheme. This ideal was in part made unattainable by the operation of 13.31, which assign?; a phonemic sequence in some environments to one morpheme and in other distributions to another morpheme. It was made farther removed by the operations of 13.32 (and 13.2), which included phonemically distinct morphemic segments in one morpheme. The operation of 14.3 recaptures some of the lost ground (on a different level) by enabling us to say that morphemes are morphophonemically, if not phonemically, identical in all their occurrences. In 14.5-6, we then check back to see if a redefinition of some of our phonemes or morphemes would enable us to make this morphopho-
nemic identity into a phonemic one. Cf. Leonard Bloomfield, Menomini morphophonemics, Travaux du Cerde Linguist i(}ue de Prague 8.105 15 (1939). liloomfield calls the necessary order of the statements below "descrii)tive order." See also his Language 213. ' M. R. lOmcneau, Kota Texts I 18.
*'^
23S
is
i
.
primary stress
these
and the value
of
/.,
before vowel that

,
values are
involved
when we deduce
is
/mekay/
this in
+ /a/
'he does not get up'
phonemic
is zero. Both of morphophonemic mekia/ Jf we state

.
terms of alternations, they must be applied
in the descriptive
order given above.
Appendix to phoncnies
11.33: Alternation.s
Not Represented by Morpho-
In some cases there is in general no advantage to identifying morphemes as composed of morphophonemes instead of phonemes. One such case is that of morphemes all of whose members arc pho-
nemically identical (13.31; we
may
say that such a morpheme has only

If
one phonemically distinct member).
we apply the operation
of 14.3 to
its
such a morpheme, we would find that the elements representing
orits
dered phonological segments in every environment are identical with

:
phonemes book would be composed of the elements /buk/. We may, if we wish, say that this phonemic composition of the morpheme Ls also its morphophonemic composition. Another such case is that of morphemes which have more than one phonemically distinct member, but the alternation among which members is identical with no other alternation (14.21) e.g. the morpheme containing be, am, are, etc. Here it does not pay to set up morphophonemes in terms of which all the members would be identical, because the alternation of phonemes per environment within each morphophoneme would be as unique as the alternation of members per environment.''^ Xo economy
:
would be gained in replacing the alternation of members in the morpheme by an alternation of Segments in the morphophoneme, since we do not have here the case of 14.31, where one alternation of phonemes within a morphophoneme replaces many alternations of members within morphemes.
Therefore, linguists would generally write the various
{be\
members
it
of
phonemically; /'aem/ next to
I, /if
before {s},
etc.,
and leave
for
all
a special statement or dictionary listing to indicate that these are
members
of
one morpheme.
is
For a purely morphological analysis, where reading convenience

'''
not
the
If we wanted one morphophonemic writing for all the members of morpheme {be\, we would probably set up two morphophonemes: the when the morpheme occurs before 3rd person first would represent ;'i ae when it occurs next to 1, etc.; the second would represent {s\ in is, zero when the morpheme occurs before 3rd person {s\, /m/ when it oc-
curs next to
/, etc.
MORPHOPHONEMES
involved,
all
239
spelling in
we might choose
to write the
morpheme with one
environments:
{/ be] for
/ am, [gud
er\ for better, etc.,
and
let
special statement or dictionary listing indicate that these
morphemes
have the members /sem/,
bet
respectively in these positions.

is
The
not in
setting
up
of
new morphophonemic symbols
thus
in general re-
served for those alternations which occur in more than one

all
morpheme but
the
morphemes having some phonemic

in
characteristic in a pho-
nemically identifiable environment (14.23).
When
an alternation appears
very few morphemes,
it
depends upon
convenience and upon our purposes whether we indicate it by a morphophoneme or by a list of members alternating in a morpheme. E.g. we
could say that [have]
before {ed\,
tively,
\s]
is
morphophonemically /haev/, where /v/
is
zero
'3rd person',
and /v/ otherwise: /

is
have, I had. Alterna-
we can say
that there
morpheme
{have} with
members
/hse/
before {ed\, {&}, and /hgev/ otherw-ise.
Appendix to
If
14.331:
Maximum
Generality for
Morphophonemes
way
possible for the
alternations are stated in the most general
case at hand, advantages in
morphophonemes
ternation.
so as to
economy may be achieved by selecting the represent the most general form of the alable-ably, etc., as
Thus we consider simple-simply,

,
compared with
moral-morally cold-coldly and extract the
morpheme
ly.
We may
then
say that simple
is
morphophonemically /simpL,/,
ly,
able /eybL/,
where /l/
vowels
represents phonemic zero before

(simpler),
and represents
/I/ before
and
/al/ otherwise (simple, simpleton). In contrast, the al of
moral would appear to be morphophonemically /seL/, w^here /L/ represents phonemic zero before
All this analysis
ly,
but /I/ otherwise {moralizing,
tnorality).
was based on the phonemic identity
of ly in all these
occurrences
cial
if we use these morphophonemic spellings, we need no spemorphophonemic writing for ly. We can, however, choose the other alternative, and consider {ly\ as having two members, /liy/ and /iy/. We would then write [ly} morphophonemically as /Liy/, where /L/
:
represents phonemic zero after /I/, but /I/ otherwise. In that case al
would have just one relevant form, /sel/, and simple would be /simpal/, where /a/ represents zero when vowel phonemes follow the /I/ (this
applies also to the
this case),
morphophonemic /Liy/ whose phonemes are /iy/
in
and represents /a/ otherwise. The representation would be simpler if we could say that morphophonemic /ll/ always represents phonemic /I/, so that morphophonemic
240
/'mariellij'
STHlf'Tl'UAL LINGUISTICS
would represent phonemic
,11/
/
'maraeliy/.**
However, there are

/ll/:
occurrences of morphophonemic
'gayllas
guileless.
which represent phonemic

or
Since
all
cases of
morphophonemic
phonemic
/ll/
are across
can set
morpheme boundary (no one morpheme contains /ll/), we up a juncture to mark not all morpheme boundaries, but only
those across which phonemic /ll/ occurs. This would morphophonemically
and phonemically differentiate the two segment sequences [1] and [11], by saying that [1] is represented by morphophonemic /I/ or /ll/, while [11] is represented only by morphophonemic /l-l/. We thus have obtained
a general statement of the type of 14.331, which can be put without ref-
erence to
morphemes except
/-/ juncture,
for the
placement of the morphophonemic
and phonemic
which occurs before some morphemes and
not before others.''
We
wTite simply /'simplliy/
and
guileless /'gayl-bs/,
thus permitting each of the morphemes involved to retain in these combinations the form which
it
has elsewhere^' and also including in the
since
it
of
{-/^ss)
(which must
it
now be taken
as /-las,',
was so used here) the
fact that
is
preceded by internal open

English consonants:
juncture.**
It will
be found that this statement holds for
all
[nn]
(or [n]) in
fineness;
morphophonemic /'pen-inayf/ pen-knife, /'fayn-nas/ and that the /-/ phoneme can be used to represent many other
segmental features.
Appendix to 14.332: Choice of Marking Morpheme, Environment, or Juncture Since each morphophoneme marks the phoneme alternation which
takes place in particular
*'"
morphemes
in particular environments,
it
is
Morphophonemically, simple would then be simpal/ ly /liy/ and would both have the phonemic value i ,11 and * We can put this phonemically: given the segments [1.] (or [11]) we write the phonemes (and morphophonemes) /l-l/, which can only indicate these segments; given the segment [1] we may write it phonemically /!/ or /ll either of which can only indicate this one segment. The two symbols /I and /ll would be phonemically but not morphophonemically equivalent: when we hear ['eybliy] we could deduce the phonemes but we could not deduce the morphemes; we would not know if there are one or two /I morphophonemically unless we know on other grounds what
, ,
morphophonemic
',
'
morphemes
*"
are involved.
,
fn. 32, we may phonemicize simpleton as 'simpLtan/, the /!/ in this position representing the segments [al]. For the ambiguity as to /I/ and /ll, both representing [1], see 14.53. * In the terms of G. L. Trager and B. Bloch, in Lang. 17.225-226 (1941). In the original phonemic analysis it was not necessary to mark open juncture between like consonants as a phoneme, for the occurrence of a double consonant occurred only at open juncture.
Following
phoneme
MORPHOPHONEMES
clear that
241
what we have
is
a relation between certain
morphemes and
certain environments, which can be indicated
the
morphemes and environments,

grammatical features,
or
by a statement listing by a mark on each morpheme or

are involved in deciding whether
each environment involved. Various considerations of simplicity, similarity to other

etc.,
morpheme or its environment or the juncture between them should be marked, and in what way. Thus in the case of [knife] instead of saying that the morpheme is /nayr/, with /f/ representing /v/ before [s] 'plural', we may prefer to say that the morpheme is simply and always /nayf/, but that one of the members of the [s] 'plural' morpheme is /voicing + z/, occurring after /nayf/, /wayf/, etc.^^ When to /nayf/ we add [s] 'plural', necessarily in its /voicing + z/ member, we obtain
the
,
/nayvz/
knives. Shifting the
burden
of this alternation
onto the
{-s(
may
be preferable here, because
{s} 'plural'
has quite a number of other
restricted
members, so that
less violence to the simplicity of the
mor-
phology
may
be done thereby than in creating the /f/ morphophoneme.

it
On
the
the other hand, the /f/ was useful in that
marked
for easy notice
morphemes
in
which the alternation took place. ^
When the alternation indicated by a morphophoneme occurs at the boundary between the morpheme under discussion and the differentiating environment, it may be simplest to set up a morphophonemic juncture between these two, just as
tures.
^*
velars
we have previously set up phonemic juncmorphemes ending in labialized gutturals and Thus have forms without labialization before certain morphemes (words,
in Nootka,^^
suffixes), e.g.
and incremental
/qahak/
'dead',
/qahakaX/ 'dead now',
" See Leonard Bloomfield, Language 214. Even if we prefer the e.vtra jsj member, it would probably be desirable to put a mark in the dictionary after each word which sei-ves as
^
z/ member, as a rethe differentiating environment for the /voicing minder to those who use the morpheme list. For a major example of complicated morphophonemic analysis (in Tiibatulabal), involving various choices of what to mark, see Morris Swadesh and C. F. Voegelin, A problem in phonological alternation, Lang. 15.7 (1939); contrast the
slight
rearrangement of morphophonemic markers Lang. 18.173(1942).
in this
example
in
^' The difference being that phonemic junctures are used for segments which occur only at morpheme (or other) boundary, while morphophonemic junctures are used for features which occur at the boundaries of I)articular morphemes (and which may also occur elsewhere, even in identical phonemic environment, without the presence of a morpheme
l)Oundary.)
'-
Kdward Sapir and Morris Swadesh, Nootka Texts

7.
(1939), especially
p.
230
242
suffixes), e.g.
but with labialization before other morphemes (formative
repre.>?ented bj^
would be phonemic juncture, because they occur even when no morpheme boundary is present kiskiko- 'robin', /k*isk*astin / boy's
qahak*as
'dead on the ground'.
of these features
'
None
name. Since the alternation occurs

the particular suffixes.
in all
morphemes ending
it is
in labialized
mark phonemes have members showing other alternations before these same suffixes: pisatoi*-/ 'play place', /pisatowas/'^ 'playing place on the ground'. It is therefore not desirable to add to these suffixes a morphophoneme consisting of a particular letter, since not one but several phonemic alternations are to be indicated by that morphophoneme. The simplest mark is a special morphophonemic juncture /-/ which would be the initial part of the morphophonemic spelling of each of these suffixes, and w-hich represents various phonemic values when it is next to various phonemes. After some phonemes, there is no alternation before these suffi.xes, so that there the
gutturals and velars, and only before certain suffixes,
useful to
Morphemes ending
in other
juncture represents zero.^'

It
may
be noted that only in a rather extended sense can we say that
this juncture
morphophoneme
is
a class of the
of
phonemes which replace

(fn. 15, 30).
each other in the various members
a morpheme
The
is
re-
placement of phonemes occurs in the preceding morpheme. However,

this
morphophoneme falls within

is
the general definition of 14.31, and

fn. 30.
an
extension of the narrower definition quoted here from

sion
This extendifferen-
involved whenever we
mark morphophonemically the
tiating
environment rather than the morpheme under discussion.
^ Note that in some cases a non-automatic (hence phonemic) feature can as well be marked by a juncture as by a particular phoneme: the choice between the special juncture / = /' or pre-final-consonant a/ to indicate the only non-automatic position of [a] in Moroccan Arabic (chapy
ter 8, fn. 11).
15.
MORPHEME CLASSES
number
of elements, in preparation for a
15.1.
Purpose: Fewer Morphologically Distinct Elements

seek to reduce the
We
comfur-
pact statement of the composition of utterances (chapter 19).
We
thermore seek to avoid repeating alrnost identical distributional statefor many morphemes individually. we consider all the utterances of our corpus in which each particular morpheme occurs, we will frequently see that many of our morphemes occur in much the same environments.' In some cases it is possible to find a set of morphemes such that each of them occurs in precisely the total environments in which every other one does.^ If we keep the morphemes as elements of our morphological analysis, we will have a great many
ments
If
identical or almost identical statements of distribution, each dealing
with a different morpheme. Considerable economy would be achieved

if
we could replace these by a single statement, applying

morphemes.^
to the whole set
of distributionally similar
we frequently find morphemes whose distributions are some environments all of these morphemes occur, but in other environments only particular ones of these morphemes are to be found. It would make for economy and for simplicity of system if we could state the occurrences of these morphemes with least repetition.
More
generally,
partially identical: in
little
fact that led to the criteria of 13.4. There would have been point in grouping complementary segments only in such a way that their sums had equivalent distributions if nowhere else in the language were there cases of morphemes having equivalent distributions. The particular distribution of each morpheme, i.e. the choice of morphemes which occur with it in an utterance, is termed the .selection of that niorpliemc in Leonard Bloomfieid, Language 164-9.
'
It is this
This arises partly from the fact that in grouping morphemic segments morphemes we had followed the model (jf previously r(;cognized morphemes (13.41), or had assigned the segments to various morphemes in such a way as to come out with morphemes having eciuivalent ranges of
into
distribution (1.3.42).
The new elements, sets of distributionally similar mor{)hemes, would be fewer in number than the morphemes, and have more regular distribution. In a different way, the proceflures of chapters 13 and Ifi 7 yield elements fewer in number than what they start out with, and having fewer restrictions upon occ'urrence.
''
243
244
15.2.
If
STRUCTURAL LIXOUISTICS
Preliminaries to the Proeedure: Approximation
we seek to form
little
chussos of
morphemes such
that
all
the
morphemes in
a particular chuss will have identical distributions, we will frequently
achieve
success. It will often be
found that few morphemes occur

frequently be the
in
in preciselj' all the
environments
in
which some other morphemes occur,

it
and
in
no other environments.* Furthermore,
will
case that the
sum
in
of total
environments of a morpheme taken

of total
one
corpus will
differ
from the sum
environments of that very morare treating only the material
pheme taken
another corpus of the same language.* This does not di-
rectly affect our procedures, since
we
within a particular corpus. However, the interest in our analysis of the
corpus derives primarily from the fact that
it
can serve as a predictive

of variation be-
sample
of the
language (2.33); and the high probability
tween one corpus and another means that the corpus which up to
serve thus in the matter of the exact environments of morphemes.
It is therefore impossible, in
this
point had served as a satisfactory sample of the language can no longer
the
number
of elements
have precisely
most cases, to effect a great reduction in by grouping together those morphemes which the same total environments. We will have to be satisfied
with some approximation to such a grouping.* The desired approxima-
* Such distributional identity may be true of certain types of personal names in Engli.'^h: given a sufficiently large corpus, there may be no utterance in which Tom occurs which cannot be matched by an equivalent utterance with Dick (but not Jack which cannot be matched in Jack of all trades, or John as in John the Baptist pronounced without intervening comma).
Our corpus may contain, for the morpheme root, the environments s look withered to me. The eleventh Watch it grub for s. Those of 2048 is two, That's the of the trouble, etc. Another corpus of material taken from the same language may contain the first two, but not the last two, and may contain a new environment The square of 5939
'"
is 77.
* This approximation will not introduce an appreciable element of vagueness into our further work, since the only purpose of chapter 15 is the reduction of the number of elements, and the approximation merely permits a greater reduction than would otherwise be possible. The number of morpheme classes would vary according as we use no approximation, or little, or much. But the treatment of 16-7 would vary correspondingly. If less approximation is used here, more equations would be required in chapter 16, to state the particular and slightly different range of environments of each of the larger number of resulting classes. In any case, the summary statement of chapter 19 for the utterances of the language would be the same.
MORPHEME CLASSES
tion
245
would have to disregard some
of the differences in distribution
among morphemes, i.e. if it groups together two particular morphemes into one morpheme class, that would not mean that every one of the total
environments of the
first of
these
is
completely identical with an environtotal distribution of the first

is
ment
of the other; this
means that the
not necessarily identical with the total distribution of the second.
Some
of the differences to
be disregarded for purposes of classification
would be such as would not occur in some other corpus of the same language: in our corpus Dick might occur in 's twelve minutes late, and
Tom might
as a
not; but in another corpus

is
Tom might appear in that

necessary
if
environto serve
ment. Disregard of such differences
our corpus
is
sample
of the language.
Other differences to be disregarded, however,

in
might be such as would occur
almost any corpus of the language;
in
He
left
at
two
-ty
sharp, four might appear
and
seven
might not
in
any
corpus of the language; nevertheless
we would put four and
seven into
one morpheme class on the basis of their other occurrences.

Various procedures can be followed in obtaining such an approximation to classes of distributionally identical
morphemes.
Two
of these are
discussed below.
15.3.
Procedure:
Rough
Similarity of Environments
The most direct approximation to classes of identically distributed morphemes would seem to be the grouping together of morphemes which are identical in respect to some stated large fraction of all their environments. To perform this approximation, we take each morpheme and state
all
of its
environments within the corpus, where the environment

whole utterance
its
is
taken
to be the
in
which
it
occurs.^
We
then select one mor-
pheme, and match
range of environments with that of each other

expect to find
morpheme.
conditions,
We do not
it
many
if
cases of identical ranges, but
decide in.stead upon certain conditions;

will
morpheme
satisfies these
be assigned to the class of our originally selected
morpheme.
The
poses.
conditions
may
vary with the language system and with our pur-
They may be as crude as requiring that 80 per cent of the environments of the one morpheme should be ones in which the other also occurs.
^ In practice, we may begin by using a rather small corpus, containing relatively short utterances. may state in detail the environments of only some selected morpheme, and then rapidly scan the other morphemes to see if the range of their environments seems roughly similar
We
to that of our selected
morpheme.
246
STRUCTIHAL
I'onditions
LINCil'ISTICS
Or the
may
require that particular types of difference apply
among
tute: e.g. that the
morphemes do not substimorphemes in which the two environments differ be themselves members of one class by the present method. Thus if hear and
the environments in which the two
tear occur,
without being substitutable for each other, in Vll
the bell
the paper, respectively, our conditions might require that bell and 77/ and paper be assignable to one class in terms of this same method of ap-
proximation.
\'arious simplifications
can be utilized
be used
in this
work. For example, the

classifications.
results of each classification can

If bell
in all
subsequent
and paper had been previously assigned to one class A', we would henceforth replace them by that class mark each time they occur. Then
the environments of hear and
tear,
which were different in the para-
graph above, become identical in the form III

to grouping hear with tear in one class V.^
the
N, and are no bar
In
effect,
we
define the occurrence of each class in respect to the oc-
currence of every other class, rather than defining each

respect to the occurrence of every other
morpheme
in
morpheme. Instead
of proceeding
step-wise from
morpheme
to class,
we can say
that having considered
1 see the fellow. I hear the fellow. I see the moon. 1 hear the voice. I like the
we set up simultaneously two classes A' and V members of V dind fellow, moon, voice as members of A^. Then saying that / V the X occurs does not mean that every member of V occurs with every member of .V, but that every member of V occurs in this construction with some or other members of N, and every member of X occurs with some members of T'.
moon. 1
with
like the voice.,
see, hear, like as
,
Order of Setting Lp Classes In many languages, it will be found that some classes of morphemes are more easily set up first, the others being set up with their aid. Thus in considering a Semitic language (e.g. Modern Hebrew), we may soon see that there are a few very frequently occurring morphemes which are
15.31. Descriptive
interrupted sequences of vowels
(e.g. /-a-a-,
'verb past'),
many
less fre-
* With this simplification, the statement that hear and tear substitute for each other in the environment the means that these two occur in the same morpheme-class environment, but not necessarily in the same morphemic environment. It means that hear occurs in this en-
VU
vironment for some members of A", and that tear does for some members of A', the members being not necessarily identical in the two cases. The various utterances represented by 77/ hear the are morphologically
equivalent after the A'
is
defined.
MORPHEME CLASSES
quent vowel sequences
sonant .sequences
(e.g. /-e-e-/
247
'noun'), very
many
interrupted con-
morphemes
of
(e.g. /k-t-v/ 'write'), and several short non-interrupted most frequent occurrence (e.g. /'ti 'I did', /im/ 'plural').
We
begin with these most frequently occurring
morphemes whose num-
ber seems to be small.

taining
/
We
find that for practically every utterance con'I
ti/, e.g. /xa.savti
kax./
thought
so',
the corpus contains utteris
ances which are identical e.vcept that the /ti/

did' (/xasavta kax./
replaced by /ta/ 'you

did', /tern/ 'ye did',
'You thought
'she, it did', or
so.'),
/nu/ 'we
it
/u/ 'they
thought
class .4.'"
did',
/a/
zero 'he,
did' (/.xasav kax./
'Ho
in
so.').^
We
include
all
these substitutable
morphemes
We now
use utterances containing

/-a-a-/.'^
.4
as frames for
morphemes which
can substitute for
We
therefore take the utterance /xasavti
kax./ and find that /-a-a-/ can be replaced by /-i-a-/ in /xisavti kax./
'I
figured
it
so'
and by
/hi
a-/
in /hixsavti oto./
'I
considered him
important. '^^ These three vowel morphemes thus constitute tentatively'^
a class B.
We now form a substitution class for /x-s-v/, using any members of A and of B in the frame. In the utterance /xasavti kax./ we can substitute /k-t-v/ 'write', /g-d-1/ 'grow',
and many other such consonantal
morphemes.
We
include
all
these in a class
^ This zero means at present merely that the frame occurs at times with no member of the class. The desirability of considering it a zero morpheme member of the class is considered in the Appendix to 18.2.
'"
We may We
it
of the search,
not have all these utterances in our corpus at the beginning but can obtain them in the course of it, by checking; sec
2.33.
use A, rather than each member /ti/, /ta/, etc., in the frame, appears that almost every morpheme which occurs next to one member of A will also occur next to any other member. Some few morphemes may appear next to one member of A and not ne.xt to another: e.g. /m-t/ 'die' may occur before /u/ 'they did' but not before /ti/ 'I did'. A different type of utterance in which members of A do not substitute for each other may be seen in /katav laacmi/ wrote to myself where only /ti/ occurs ('I wrote to myself). For the expression
since
"
'
of this restriction, see the

'-
Appendix to
17.33.
not a perfect substitution, since the frame was somewhat different in that case. For the sub-classes resulting from such limitations (when they are more systemic than in the present case), see 15.32.
last
is
The
"Tentatively not only because of the uncertainty of the change frame for /hi -a-/, but also because we have not yet tested them other frames and in longer utterances.
of
in
248
Since
we have exhausted the morphemes
ask in what other utterances our
of our original utterance,
first
we
may now
will
three classes occur.
We
find
never find
except next to B, and never
except next to C.
How-
ever,
we
find
in utterances
which do not contain
or B. E.g.
we
hu xosev.
'He thinks,' /hem xosvim./ 'They think,'

is
haxisuv mahir./
'The calculation
the
quick,'
/haxisuvim mhirim./ 'The calculations are
quick,' /eyze xaivut ye laze?/

first
'What importance does this have?' In two utterances almost every member of C can replace /x--v/: hu kotev./ 'He writes', etc. In the other utterances only some of C occur: hagidul mahir./ 'The growth is fast.' We may however form a class
of all these
morphemes such
as /-o-e-/ indicating present action,

all or some C in these morphemes which replace
/-i-u-;'
indicating operation, which occur with
frames.
We
further form the small class

like
it,
of
/im/ 'plural/ and which,

this point
occur after the sequence
D.
From
what other morphemes E occurs. We find /otomobilim/ 'automobiles,' and form a class F of single morphemes w'hich substitute for /otomobil/: /integral/ 'integral,' /ax/ 'brother,' etc. The members of F do not substitute for C (but they do
we proceed
to ask with
for
D) they do not occur with

;
T) or
ox A, whereas
never occurs
except with some

15.32.
member
of Z) or B.
General Classes for Partial Distributional Identity Once we have found a class of morphemes which substitute for each other in one or several frames, e.g. the class B (/-a-a-/, etc.), we must
check to see
if
these
morphemes
substitute for each other in almost
all
other environments as well. E.g. in the class

three
B we
would
find that all
members occur with certain consonant morphemes C, that only them occur with other C (only /-a-a-/ and /-i-a-/ with /y-s-n/ 'sleep'), and only some one of them occurs with the remaining C (only
two
of
/-a-a-/ with /n-t-n/ 'give').
we cannot consider B a single class, since the differences its members are different or greater than what would be admitted by the conditions of 15.3. However, we are unwilling to set each member up as a separate class and so lose sight of their substitutability in many environments. Such a situation can be expressed by setting up each of the three morphemes as a separate sub-class Bi, Bi, Bz, of a general class B}* Each sub-class occurs in the environment
In view of
this,
of distribution
among
relation
Indicating the three vowel morphemes as Bi, Bi, B3 expresses the among them in a way that would not be apparent if we wTote them out phonemically as /-a-a-/, etc. (The vocalic character by itself
'
MORPHEME CLASSES
of particular
249
C plus any suffix A. The general class B occurs in the environment of C + ^ in general that is to say, in the environment of some members of C (+A) all members of B occur, and in the environment of other members of C (+ A) some particular
consonant morphemes
:
sub-class of
occurs. In effect, the sub-classes are groupings of
morto
is
phemes
their
in respect to all occurrences of the

all
morphemes (and hence
environments in
these occurrences), while the general class
a grouping of morphemes in respect to a selected number of environments
which they have

the general class
(15.4),
i.e.
in
common
(A
particular
members
of C).
Only the
sub-classes are therefore

is
morpheme
classes proper in the sense of 15.3;
a class of morphemes-in-particular-environments
the particular environments which are
common
to all the
sub-classes.
15.4.
Alternative Procedure: Classes of Morphemes-in-Eiiviron-
ments
Instead of beginning with classes of morphemes having almost identical
environments (with each morpheme belonging to only one
class)
and
first
then adjusting them (as in 15.32) to particular ranges of environments,
we can
devise a procedure of appro.ximation which will from the
yield groupings of those

of environments.
morphemes which appear
in particular ranges
We
begin by selecting a
morpheme
in
one of
its
utterances.
We
select
a few additional morphemes which substitute for our original one in this environment, and then select a few additional environments
in
which
all
these morphemes, both the original one and the additional ones, occur. '^
continue adding to the morpheme list and to the environment list. any morpheme which we seek to add occurs with some but not all of the environments which are already in the list, or if any new envii'onment ocIf
We
curs with
lists
either the
some but not all of the morphemes in the new morpheme or environment, or
list,
we drop from the

one with
else the old
does not indicate membership in this B class, since other vowel morphemes, such as /-e-e-/ are not members of B at all.) But it does not reduce the number of elements. In other cases, however, the subclasses may contain many morphemes, so that they effect a reduction in the number of morphological elements. Cf. class-cleavage and over-differentiation within a class, in Leonard Bloomfield, Language 204-6, 223, 399.
'^
We select such as we suspect will occur with many other morphemes

which we
will
or environments
want
to
add to
this
list.
250
it
which
considerations of expected generality:
new or the old depends on we keep the one with the aid of which we expect to be able to form a larger and morphologically more useful claims. We thus obtain a fairly large class of occurrences of morphemes in utterance environments, such that each morpheme in the list occurs in
did not occur.'*
Whether we
reject the
each environment
in the list.
For example, we
tie,
may
begin with see in
Did you
the stuff?
we add
find, etc.,
which are substitutable for see in this environment, and then
them for me, please, etc., which are substitutable it later, add He'll the stuff? in the case of all these morphemes. We add many for Did you more morphemes, e.g. burn, lift; and many environments, e.g. / didn't ing pictures is a bit out of my line. Finally we try the enthe book,
vironment
in this of
Let's
where
;
it
was.
Some morphemes,
e.g. see, find,
occur
environment others do not. Since we already have here a number morphemes having many environments in common, we do not break
class
up the growing
in this
by
rejecting the old
new environment.
rejected
in
Instead,
we
reject the
morphemes which do not occur new environment, and

class.
is
continue to add other elements to the original growing
Each
other
morpheme
it is
or
environment
fit,
then assigned to some
list,
which
found to
was.
or else
it is
used as the nucleus
of a
new list. Thus a new ment Let's where
class
it
may be begun
To
with see and find in the environ-
this class
we
will
be able to add guess,
which would also be added to the previous
class.
When this work

of
is
carried out in detail,
we obtain a
great
many
classes
e.g.
morphemes
in environments.
Some
of the classes are
very large,
class 7 of the
Appendix
to 15.4, which contains all the
morphemes that
Other classes are
6 in the Ap(not only
occur in a few short environments like They will
very small,
pendix.
many
containing only one morpheme,
e.g. class
Many
of the classes
have morphemes
in
in
common
classes 1-7, but
even these classes with class 8
of the classes, too,
have environments
there would be almost

8).
Many common (so for classes 1-7, but no environments common to classes 1-7 and class
in the Appendix).'^
its
No
two
classes,
however, would have a morpheme in
environment
(i.e.
a whole utterance) in
common.
'* And make up a separate list (representing a special sub-class) of the morpheme-in-environment which does not fit into the main list. We thus have an explicit record of what is left out. " If we set up a class (containing with, to, etc.) for such environments him., it would probably contain no morpheme which also as I'll go occurs in classes 1-7 of the Appendix.
MORPHEME CLASSES
15.41.
251
General Classes for Partial Distributional Identity

larger classes
The
would be
of chief
importance for the morphological

for morphological analysis general
of their en-
analysis. In particular,
we could form
(e.g.
classes containing all those classes
which have a large part
vironments
in
common
the general class 1-7, containing not only
the morphemes which occur in They will

of these classes).'^
class, e.g. class 6,
but also the other morphemes

,
The very small
classes
which are included
in a general
would usually be
of little interest for
morphological
analysis.'^
ever, in very
Some classes contain very few morphemes which occur, howmany environments; such classes are frequently quite imwhen we say
that the gen-
portant in the morphology.
The
general classes are approximations, for
eral class
1-7 occurs after some other general class (say, one including
we mean only that each member of 1-7 occurs after some memOur analysis will also lose something in detailed exactness when we disregard the very small classes which are included in some general class; the saving in work, however, may be very
class 8),
bers of the other general class.
great, since
most
of the proliferation of classes
may
be of this type.
15.5.
Result: Morpheme-Position Classes
We now
of
have a number
or
of classes (or general classes of
and sub-classes)
morphemes,
more exactly
morpheme-occurrences. These classes
are set
up
in
such a
way
that
all
the
morphemes
(itself
in
a class substitute for

class.
each other in approximately every environment of that

occurs in a range of environments
Each
class
stated insofar as possible in
terms of morpheme classes) which

of
is
at least partially different
from that
any other
class.
^^
'*
class 1-7 as, say, V.
More adequate symbols may be provided by marking the general The largest included classes which jointly exhaust it
little
overlapping morphemic membership as possible) would be and V^, etc. '^ These may, however, correlate with features of meaning, of the history of the use of morphemes, and of the history of the culture, etc. Thus some of the smaller classes in which sec occurs may be the results of what
(with as
marked
Vi,
were historically metaphorical extensions. ^" These classes vary in many respects, not all of which will be fully utilized in the remaining procedures. Thus some classes will contain not segmental morphemes but contours, such as intonation or the stress
small classes, too, will be the class containing wilh, to, from, etc.); there is a high probability that such clas.ses, which are sometimes called closed classes, will be identical in any corpus taken from the
feature of English
identical in
compound nouns. Some

of tlu;
any corpus
language
(e.g.
252
STRUCTURAL LINCUISTICS
of further morplu)l()fj;icul analysis, these chisses are
For the purposes no longer relevant."

tion, these classes
our new elements.-' The distinction
among the morphemes
within a class
is
By
representing the major equivalences in distribudea.1
permit the remaining procedures to

in distribution of
separately
with the major difference's
morphemes,
e.g.
such
differ-
ences as that between general class 1-7 and class 5.

15.51.
Morpheme Index
The mor|)hemes of the corpus may be listed under their classes in a morpheme index. Such an index is useful as stating the morpheme stock
language in the near future. In contrast, some classes (usually large ones, called open classes) may have in one corpus of the language several members which they did not have in another. For such classes there is a greater likelihood that a corpus taken in the future will contain a good many new members; i.e. new morphemes develop historically most frequently in such classes.
^' These morpheme classes are elements of the language description not only by virtue of their definition, but also in the sense that many of them are characterized by special features common to all their member morphemes. In this sense we may even say that many morpheme classes (or, in some cases, sub-classes) have a common class meaning. In many languages we find that the distributionally determined classes (of morphemes, or morpheme sequences) have meanings which we may roughly
identify as 'noun', 'verb', 'preposition', etc. Even classes of morpheme classes may have vague meaning characteristics. For example, in many languages the free morphemes (of whatever class) may be said to indicate objects, actions, situations, and the like, while the short bound morphemes (again of whatever class) indicate relations among these, times and persons involved, and the like. This is a very rough statement, and
many exceptions would be found even in the languages for which this statement might be made. Note, however, that when it was discovered that Eskimo had many suffixes with meanings similar to those of stems in many languages, linguists at first considered these to be stems 'incorporated' as suffixes (see S. Kleinschmidt, Grammatik der groenlaendischen Sprache (1851); M. Swadesh, South Greenlandic (J]skimo), in H. Hoijer et al.. Linguistic Structures of Native America 30-54 (1946)). Cf. Slotty, Problem der Wortarten, Forschungen und Fortschritte 8.329-30 (1932).
^^ Systems of marking can be developed which would indicate both the individual morpheme and the class in which it belongs. C. F. Voegelin, and in a somewhat different way W. D. Preston, use Arabic numerals to indicating the class and various digits for identify morphemes, with the morphemes of that class. E.g. one class may be marked by 100, and the morphemes in it by 101, 102, and so on. Cf. C. F. Voegelin, A problem in morpheme alternants and their distribution, Lang. 23.245-254
(1947).
MORPHEME CLASSES
of the language,
253
and the status that each has
in the
morphology
(indi-
cated by the class in which the
mutually exclusive as to
15.3),
morpheme is contained). If the classes are morphemes (as would be generally the case for
If
each morpheme would be listed only once.
the classes of 15.4 are

it
followed, where each
morpheme
occurs in various classes,
may
be con-
venient to go by the general classes, or the few largest classes which

jointly exhaust the general class, in order to avoid
many
repetitions of
various morphemes.
Appendix to
ductive
15.2: Culturally
Determined Limitations and Prois
Morphemes
use of approximation techniques here
A major reason for the

adequacy
the in-
of the usual linguistic corpus as a
sample
in respect to the dis-
tribution of morphemes. In
many
languages, several hundred hours of

of material containing all the
of the
work with an informant would yield a body

different
environments (over short stretches of speech)

If
phonemic
segments.
the operations of 3-11 are carried out for one such corpus
of the language,
and then again
for
another such corpus of that language,

It
no difference in relevant data would appear.

corpus
of the language,
would usually require a

only a very large
that no
many times this size to give us almost all the morphemic segments
by the operation
of
chapter
12.
That
is,
corpus would permit of the extraction of so
many morphemes
matter how
hardly ever
large
much more material we collect in that language, we would find any new morphemic segment. However, even a corpus
all
enough to yield almost
the
morphemes
of the
language
will, in
mo.st cases, fail to give us anything like all the environments of each
tations of the
morpheme. The number of mathematically statable sequential permumorphemes of a language is very great. Some of these
will practically
sequences
will
never occur, and such restrictions on occurrence
be expressed in 16-8. Other sequences, however,
may not
corpus
is
occur in one
larger than
corpus and
may
occur in another (unless the
first
any
linguist could collect).
The
impracticality of obtaining an adocjuate corpus
is
increased by the
fact that
some utterances are

which we
rare not mei-ely because of the great
num-
ber of possible morphemically different utterances, but also because of a

special rarity
may
call
a culturally determined limitation.
Many
culturally recognizable situations,
and the occasion
for certain ut-
terances or the cultural admissibility of them, occur almost never in a

particular society or language
community, even though morphemes
in-
dicating features of these situations (in the sense of 12.41) occur in the
254
language.
STRITCTURAL LIXCiUISTICH
Thus
it
may 'mean
type
will
notliing' to say
The box
will be
murdered.
Utterances of
tliis
he exceptionally infrequent, so that even the
largest corpus will not contain them.
We
would then have a difference

environment The
the distribution of box and of

will be
man
in respect to the
in
murdered.
Some
of these infrequent utterances
may
nevertheless
occur
in special cultural situations, e.^. in
myths and
tales, in artistically
chosen turns of phrase,

turning to earth
in jocular talk, or in
nonsense.
Thus
a ghost re-
may
be described as saying They have killed me, though
that utterance might not otherwise occur except in special situations.-''
In view of
all this, it
would be desirable,
in
grouping the morphemes
into classes, to devise such an approximation as
would disregard
at least
these culturally determined limitations.^^
The argument
for using
approximations
in
morpheme
classification
is
strengthened by the fact that the predictive usefulness of an exact mor-
pheme classification need not be greater than that of an approximate one. If we could state the phonological elements and their distribution for a
corpus consisting of
all
the utterances which have occurred in the lan-
guage over some adequate period, we could be quite sure that no utterance occurring in that language for some short time in the future would
contain a new phonological element or a new position of an old element. Thus given the present English system in which /r)/ does not occur initially, the possibility that someone will pronounce an English utter-
ance containing
initial /r)/, e.g. in /rian/, is
very remote. However,

its
if
we could
state
all
the morphemes, each with

all
exact distribution, for a
corpus consisting of
the utterances in the language over a period,
showing that a given morpheme has not occurred in a given environ-
In a
" An AP Dispatch from Bolivia, July 10, 1944, includes the sentence: moment of consciousness Arze muttered 'the Nazis have killed me.' ^* When a grammar which disregards these culturally determined limi-
is used prescriptively as a guide to what one may say in the language, the user will not be fniSicd into saying these non-occurring utterances, since although the grammar does not exclude them the user will by definition find no occasion (due to cultural limitation, taboos, etc.) to say them. R. S. Wells points out that since this defense, and the whole disregard of culturally-imposed restrictions, depends upon the personal judgment of the investigating linguist, it is fraught with uncertainty as a scientific procedure. The descriptive validity of the remaining procedures is limited if the classes which these procedures will treat can be made here to hide arbitrarily chosen limitations of distribution among morphemes. We can dispense with much of the linguist's judgment if we use a sufficiently large corpus and adequate methods of sampling in order to discover what is said even in relatively unusual situations.
tations
MORPHEME CLASSES
ment
in
255
any utterance
of that language,
dict with high probability that that
we would still not be able to premorpheme might not appear in the
given environment, for the
first
time in the history of the language, in
some new utterance soon

In part this brings up
is
to be said.
true because cultural change, technological and social,
new
interpersonal situations in which the culturally determined
limitations of yesterday
may no longer
apply.
My run averaged better than

never have occurred before
600 miles an hour
is
an utterance which
may
airplanes were developed to a particular extent, but
may
occur several
times immediately thereafter.
Furthermore, this
limitations, because
is
true,
even without regard to culturally determined

of the
it
appears that new permutations of morphemes
which
may
never have occurred hitherto in the history
language
are in general
stretches) of
more readily made than new permutations (over short the far fewer phonemes. This applies not only to long and
as de-frost, de-icer,
complicated whole utterances, but also to brief new combinations of
morphemes such
We
better re-polish
it.
In the latter case, one can term the morphemes, especially the bound
morphemes, which occur
in
new combinations
is
'productive'." However,
the methods of descriptive linguistics cannot treat of the degree of pro-
ductivity of elements, since that
a measure of the difference between
our corpus (which
may
include the whole present language) and

If
some
future corpus of the language.

differ as little as possible
we wish the analysis

i.e. if
of of
our corpus to
from the corresponding part

or in the near future,
any other cor-
we wish our statements about the corpus to be predictive for the language, we must devise our approximation of morpheme classification in such a way as would
pus
of the language,
now
disregard the variations and innovations noted here.
Appendix to
15.3: Identical
Distribution within Short Environ-
ments
The method
is
of
approximation most commonly used by linguists today

full
the consideration of environments shorter than the

is
utterance.
limited stretch of each utterance
selected,
and morphemes are grouped

ly to yield the class of large,
together into a class
if
they can replace each other in that limited environ-
ment. Thus we might select the position
^'^ In general, productivity of a morphome may be correlated with the relations among tliat morpheme, the class in which it belongs, and the differences in environment of the morpheme, other mor})homes of its
class,
and partially similar
classes.
256
environment
auto,
the
clean, true, etc. Similarly, the
or the large
many
might
l)e
used to yield the
eliiss of rnan,
life, etc.'^
This method, however,

it
may
not prove adequate. In
languages
may
be impossible to devise a procedure for determining which short
environments over what limits should be set up as the differentiating ones

for various substitution classes. If
we
select
ing as a
diagnost
ic
environcertain.
ment, we would get a class containing

If
do, have, see, etc.,
but not
we
select
un
as the environment, we obtain a class with do, certain,

if
etc.,
but noi'have, and with see only

different classifications of the
-en or -ing follow.
We coukl oht ain
many
same morphemes.
merely expressions of the relation
These
different classifications are
in question and the various morphemes which occur next to them, or the like. Relations of this kind are not to be disregarded, and are discu.ssed in chapter 17; but often they do not correlate with other relations, so that classifying morphemes on their basis would not necessarily lead to a simpler set of new elements. Furthermore, the syntactic analyses of chapter 16 would in any case require the setting up of morpheme classes based on similarity of dis-
between the particular environments
tribution in respect to the total utterance environments. In
many
cases
such classes would cut across the various classes

peated independently.
classifying the
set
up
all
in respect to short
environments, so that the work of classification would have to be re-
We
might plan to satisfy
considerations
morphemes on the
basis of their short (usually
by imme-
diate) environments, while using the utterance-long position as a criterion
on the basis of which we would decide which immediate environment to

regard as diagnostic. But in
many
cases even this will not

-ly
work
out.
For
example,
if
w-e
decided that the position before
was important
in re-
spect to utterance position,

large, clean, true,
we would obtain
a class containing not only
man (in manly). In terms of immediate environments, we would have no way of rejecting man, because the only straightforward way of separating the -ly of largely from the -ly of manly, goodly
but also
is
based on the position
of these
two
in respect to the
whole utterance.
Similarly, the environment the

auto.
admits
very, large, etc. as well as
And
the environment the large admits
and
beautiful as well as
man, man,
auto;
and many morphemes which we might wish, on utterance-position
grounds, to include in the class of
man may
not occur after
large.
^* This might be called use of morphological criteria, as compared with the syntactic criteria of 15.3-4.
MORPHEME CLASSES
257
Appendix to 15.32: Identical Morphemes in Various Classes The classes of 15.3 are mutually exclusive in respect to morphemes. If a morpheme is a member of a particular class, which may be included in a particular general class, it is not a member of any other class. ^^ In some cases we will find that the range of environments of one class is roughly the sum of environments of two or more other classes. We may disregard this for the purposes of our present morpheme classification.
For the purposes
of chapter 16,
however,
it
will
be convenient to avoid
by breaking the first class up into the two or more other classes: we would eliminate the class G of fn. 27, and would include all its morphemes in A'^ and again in V. This is another step, past that of 15.32, in the direction of making these into morphemein-environment classes rather than simply morpheme
classes. It
the repetition of environments
would
also a
have the new
result of permitting several classes (A^, V) to
have identical
A'^
morphemes: the morpheme book would now be a member
of
and
member of V The convenience of defining a class as a sum of other classes is particularly great when we have not a large class like G, but a class of one morpheme, e.g. the morpheme /tuw/. This morpheme occurs in a unique
range of environments, and would therefore have to constitute a class
by
itself.
However,
it
turns out that these environments are roughly
equal to those of
three,
him.), plus those tain unique positions umnt go

with, at (Don't talk
(7
Jour
{How much
on.).
is
plus six?), plus those of
of also (I'm going
.),
plus cer-
In such cases
we may
decide to
assign
/tuw/ as a member
of the three recognized classes (of three, of
Thus, in terms of the classes of 15.3, we might set up a general class comprising the various classes which contain morphemes like book, walk, tie. We would approach this as follows: These morphemes occur in positions of classes 1-7 (in the Appendix to 15.4) and also in positions of class 8. Therefore the operation of 15.3 would place each of them in some particular class having a wide distribution, roughly equal to that of classes 1-7 (I'll it.) plus that of class 8 (Let's take a .). The similarity among the environments of these classes (the one containing book, the one containing walk, etc.) would lead us to set up in 15.32 a general class G representing their common environments. However, the classes of mori)hemes like hotel, wood (which don't occur in environments like I'll it.) can be grouped by 15.32 into a general class .V. And the classes of morjjhemes like think, die (which dtjn't occur in enviionments like Let's take a - -.) can be grouped by 15.32 into a general class ]'. The range of environments of (r is roughly (Mjual to th;it of \ plus that of l'.
^^
Each
of these three classes contains different morj)h(>mes.
258
wilh,
and
of also),
and as a member
of a small class of its
own, restricted
to a few types of environment.-"*
The question
of
homonymous morphemes
in
is
thus somewhat clarified:
Phonemically identical morphemes

as these procedures are concerned, ings (13.41
one class are one morpheme as far

different their
no matter how
meanin
and chapter
12, fn. 70).
Phonemically identical morphemes
different classes
may
/
be distinguished on the grounds of their different
environments
of the
(e.g.
siy/
V and
/sly/
N in
I see, the sea).-^ If the classes
morphemes have some environments in common, utterances may occur in which we cannot distinguish which morpheme (or class) is present in dialects where / can tell my horse is running, and / can tell my horse s running, are homonymous, the hearer
two phonemically
identical
:
will
not
know from
the utterance alone

is
(if
there are no differentiating
neighboring utterances) which
meant. Similarly, we can distinguish

roo7fi
rumor
pay
in It is
ed that we'll be leaving soon, from
er in
Did
the
his bill?
But we cannot distinguish the two
in That's just
.^
^* A somewhat different but related problem is that of a morpheme which occurs in roughly all the environments of one class but in only one or two environments of another class. E.g. but occurs in the various en/ asked him.) and in special 1' vironments of and. so {I didn't knew it and >V positions in But me no 6?*/s. -^ Alternatively we may, if we wish, say that all morphemes, in no matter what class, which are phonemically identical are 'the same" morpheme. The various tuw morphemes, two, to, and too, would then be one morpheme occurring in various classes, as would the book in A' and ]'. Alternatively we may wish to call book one morpheme, but tuw three different ones. We might decide to consider phonemically identical
in various classes as constituting a single morpheme only if a sufficiently large fraction of the morphemes of these various classes are phonemically identical, i.e. only if there is a sufficiently large number (in any case not just one) of such sets of phonemically identical morand V we have phemes distributed in precisely these classes: for book, ivalk, and many others; for the full range of classes in which /tuw/ occurs we have no other case. (The number or fraction has to be arbitrarily selected, but can be justified on grounds of descriptive simplicity. This holds especially for the disregarding of unique sets of morphemes, whose class distribution would be equivalent to that of no other morpheme.) This whole question, however, is essentially terminological and unimportant. It does not matter whether sets of phonemically identical morphemes are called one morpheme or not, so long as each study is internally consistent in this regard, and so long as the phonemic identities among the members of various classes are noted somewhere, e.g. in the
morphemes
morpheme
^
index.
This is the case because morphemes can be defined in such a way that complete overlapping is po.ssible: a phonemic sequence in a single environment may in some cases indicate either of two morphemes.
MORPHEME CLASSES
Appendix to
15.4:
259
Tabulating Morpheme-Environment Classes
class. If
The work of 15.4 can be arranged in tables, each table representing a ine stuff? and continue as in 15.4, we begin with see in Did you we will obtain the following table, which we will consider as class 1:
Did you
the stuff?
it later.
them for me, please.
260
Tlie hist
morpheme
to be tried, die,
may
not occur in our corpus with the
fourth environment. Rather than reject the morpheme,

to drop the environment,
we may decide
will
and begin a new
class
^ which
contain
many
of the
morphemes
Yoit jvst
1
of class 5, but not all:
stay
where you find a place,

here very often.
used
to
bunk
go
stt
Returning to the classes containing
see,
we
test the
1
environment Do
you
the idea?
Not
all
the
all
morphemes
of class
2.
occur in this environ-
ment, nor apparently do
those of class
We therefore set up class 5:
Do yon
MORPHEME CLASSES
Appendix to
15.5: Correlation
261
between Morpheme Classes and
the members of one class may have in common some phonemic feature which is absent in all the members of other classes. Thus in Semitic languages all morphemes of class C (15.31) consist of several consonants, usually three and almost always interrupted; all the morphemes of classes B, C consist of an interrupted sequence of
vowels, rarely with a consonant added.'' In Tonkawa,'^ verb-theme
Phonemic Features In many languages all
morphemes
are bound, noun-theme
morphemes
free.
These differences
of the class.''
may be such as appear There may be differences in
only in certain environments

contours, in phonemic junc-
morphophonemes. In any case, it is useful to state all such correlations. We may say that these phonemic characteristics of a class
tures, or in
have a meaning, as indicating that
class of
morphemes.
The considerations may have led us to include phonemically identical morphemes in various classes. Such phonemic identity of various morphemes may be singled out for special mention it will in any case appear
;
in
any alphabetical
listing of the
morphemes.
the various
Of. S.
'^
" Yokuts presents an interesting case of a language in which each of morpheme classes has a characteristic phonemic structure.
Newman, Yokuts Language of California; and ch. 12, fn. 40. Harry Hoijer, Tonkawa, in Franz Boas, Handbook of American Indian Languages 3. " For Greek nouns and verbs, see Marcel Cohen, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8.39 (1939).
16.
morphemp: sequences
16.0.
Introductory
the terms of this procedure the linguist can set up sj-ntactic form-
By
classes
function,
which indicate what morpheme sequences have identical syntactic i.e. occur in identical environments in the utterance. It thus
which
called morphology.
covers a large part of the material usually included in syntax, and some
sults are obtained
The syntactic and morphologic reby the same procedure, so that no distinction is drawn between them. Differently from most combinations of syntax with morphology, this section does not proceed by first dividing utterances into
of that
is
large syntactic sections
and subdividing these into smaller morphologic

to ever larger
ones; instead,
function,
it
begins with morphemes, investigates their syntactic
and builds up from them
morpheme sequences
having identical syntactic status.

16.1.
We
state
Purpose: Fewer and More General Classes seek to reduce the number of classes which we require when we the composition of each utterance of the language; and to make it
unnecessary to state in chapter 19 the special restrictions of certain subclasses.
In chapter 15 we obtained classes of morphemes, such that each mor-
pheme
class in
in
a class could be substituted for other

in
an utterance
which
it
occurred. All
morphemes of that members of each class were
thus approximately identical in respect to utterances. In stating the distribution of morphemes we can therefore speak in terms of these classes
instead of the individual
In some languages this

description. How-ever,
member morphemes, with Uttle loss of precision. may represent a considerable reduction in the
will still
most languages
classes after the operation of chapter 15,
have a large number of and the work of description
would be considerably lessened if wâys can be found to reduce this number. To this end, we would want to show that many classes are distributionally equivalent to one another. This cannot be done directly, because
all single
morphemes whose utterance

find
distributions are even approxiin the
mately identical have already been placed
same
class in chapter 15.
However, we can
quences
outside
of
of,
new
distributional equivalents
morpheme
classes instead of single classes.
by considering seNo morpheme
say, the class
(which includes morphemes like quite) has
262
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
precisely the
263
of
same
distribution as do the
members
D; but the sequence
composed
of a
morpheme
of the class .4 (e.g. large) plus the
morpheme
ly
does have the distribution of D; They're quite new; They're largely new.
We
of
can thus extend the operation of chapter 15 to refer to sequences

as well as single
morphemes
morphemes. In the proposed extension,

of 15 thus
as in the operation of 15, substitutability will be considered in respect
to whole utterances.
The work
becomes a special case
of 16,
one morpheme being a particular case of a sequence of (one or more)
morphemes.'
16.2.
Procedure: Subslitutable Sequences of .Morpheme Classes

of classes
if
We equate any two sequences

for the other in all utterances in
If
one of them
is
substitutable
which either occurs.^

always substitutable^ for
J),
the sequence' oi
A A
-\-
ly is
we write
of utter-
the equation
ly
DJ' This equation

ly is identical
means that the range

it
ance environments of
with that of D, or that wherever

not only some other
ly.
we
find a
member
of
D we may substitute for

member
of
mem-
ber of
but also some
followed by
More
generally, given the sequence of
morpheme
classes A' occurring
' Nevertheless, it was advisable to carry out the operation of 15 first, since restricting the sequence to one made the work much simpler; and 16 utilizes the results of 15, in that 16 does not consider sequences of individual morphemes but sequences of morpheme classes it does not state ly ly has the same distribution as quite, and that new that large ly has the same ly does, etc., but that A does, and that utter distribution as D. The work of 16 is therefore greatly shortened by being
:
performed after
^
15.
of
morpheme class, which may be substitutable for a sequence morpheme classes, is considered a special case of a sequence. 'The following morpheme class marks for English are used here:
single
some), I
.
{very, well), T {a, {grow, have), {hut, and), B {if, since). An {-eer, -hood), Nv {en-, -ize), Vn {-ment, -t) {-ness, -th), Na {-ful, -ish), Vv {-ed) Other class marks are occasionally defined for particular examples.
{large, true, etc.), A^ {life, hotel),
{I, it),
{in,
up),
R Nn
{do, will),
&
for
Here as throughout these procedures, X and Y are substitutable if every utterance which includes A'' we can find (or gain native acfor)
ceptance
an utterance which
is
identical except for having
in
the
place of X.
^ The space between the two morpheme-class marks A and ly indicates succession in time. We can understand this equation to mean that the occurrence of I) is the logical product of the occurrence of A and the occurrence of ly (where occurrence means utterances in which the form
occurs).
2G4
in the
etc.,
range of utterance environments
in precisely that range,
M, we
find all sequences Y, Z,

1'
which occur
and write
= X, Z = X,
etc.
First,
single
we try all the cases where the morpheme sequence X is just a morpheme cla.ss.* That is, we take each morpheme da^s resulting
(}',
from chapter 15 and seek sequences

this,
Z) sub.stitutable for
it."
In doing
we use
as testing frames
ronments
of the class
X.
We
all
what seem to us to be representative envimust always be ready, however, to find enif
vironments for which our testing frames were not representative;

substitution occurred in
it is
our frames but not
in
the
new environment,
no longer valid.* Only after this is done do we investigate substitutions among sequences which are not equatable to single morpheme classes.^ In many languages we will find that no such cases exist, and that by the time we have found all sequences which are equatable to single morpheme classes,
we have found
quence.'"
all
sequences which can be equated to any other se-
* For this purpose we can use any of the classes resulting from the procedure of chapter 15, whether of the type of 15.3 or of the type of 15.4. We can use the original sub-classes, or the general classes (15.32. 15.41) which are defined in terms of them. If the more detailed sub-classes of chapter 15 are used, there will have to be many more detailed equations in chapter 16, indicating the particular sequences of small morpheme group and small environmental group which caused us to distinguish this morpheme group from the others which had partially similar distribution. Instead of writing A^ Nn = {boy + hood, or engine +-
substitutable- for boy in Where is my gone?), we would have to write Ni Nn2 = N, where .Vi represents boy, Nni = A^ and N2 girl, etc., Nui represents -hood, A'2 represents engine, profit, etc., N712 represents -eer (boyhood, girlhood, and engineer, profiteer are all substitutable for boy). 'We do not seek single morphemes substitutable for it, for they would already have been included in that class in chapter 15. * For instance is substitutable for I' -f- / (where T' represents know, think) in We would like to: thus, we have both We really would like to and We thirik he would like to. But and T' -|- / are not substitutable for each other in we would (where only really, etc., occurs) did it (where only think he, etc., occurs). Hence we do or in Do you = T' -(- /. not write
eer, is
of
where we first grouped segments into morphemes having only one segment, and later grouped segments into morphemes in a manner calculated to yield the simplest morphemes and the simplest relations of morpheme to its
'
This
is
comparable to
13.4,
morphemes on the model
segments.
"
An
Moroccan Arabic R Pv, noted in the Appendix to 16.22.
e.xample of a sequence which substitutes for no single class is at the end of the list of morpheme classes
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
In addition to indicating the relation of substitutability
265
among
se-
quences (or between a sequence and a single morpheme
class),
each of
these equations also indicates the relation of occurring together in one
utterance (usually next to each other) on the part of the various

classes in each sequence,
i.e.
on the part
of all the
morpheme morpheme classes on one
side of the equation. If

for fool in Don't be a
we say that AN = .V (e.g. good boy is substitutable .), we are incidentally indicating that A occurs
with
in
some utterances."
Substitutions
to be substitutable for a given
in others.
16.21. JWon-repeatable
Some sequences prove

in particular
morpheme
class
environments and not
This brings up a new rela-
tion of non-repeated substitutability, which can be indicated in these
equations by a modification of the class symbols.
For example, if we indicate morphemes like boy, king, by A^ and morphemes like -hood, -dam, by Nn, we may write A' Nn = A^ (boyhood, kingwas obsessed with many fears. Since the equadom replace life in His tion means that A^ Nn is replaceable everywhere by A', and A'^ by A'' Nn, we might be led to think that we could also replace N hy N Nn in the equation itself and obtain A'' Nn Nn = A^ However, this is not in gen-
^"^
eral the case, since
boyhood does not occur before hood. In contrast,
^ A'^ =
man,
A^
is
repeatable, so that
we can
derive
A AN =
A^,
and so on:
old
or old, lonely
man
are both substitutable for man.
The
difference
between repeatable and non-repeatable substitutions
" In many cases substitution occurs only in the environment of some particular class or sequence. E.g. one member of A is replaceable by two, follows fine is replaceable by fine young in but only if a member of They are fine men, but not in They are fine. Instead of saying that A A = A but only before A'^, we avoid the extra comment outside the etjuation
= (or more simply ylA^ = A', from which this can be derived). This equation provides only for the substitution which occurs, and leaves no basis for replacing A by AA elsewhere. The technique here is to include the limiting environment in the equation itself, and on both sides of the equation since it is not itself part of the substitut ion and does not vary during the process of substitution. It goes without saying that the environment is defined not only in terms of the neighboring morpheme classes (and the position of our given element in respect to these neighbors), but also in terms of the intonation, stress, or other contour under which our given element occurs. '^ Since boy and king are in different classes, say Aô and Nb because they don't replace each other before -hood, -doni, we really have two etjuations here: Na -hood = A'', Nh-doni = A^. When we find classes which are mutually substitutable in some positions and not in others, we may indicate them by one letter with various subscripts: Na, N bby writing
AAN
AN
2l)G
raiscii
can bo indicated by the use of

to indicate that A'
numbers.
A"-'
We can
A'^
write A'
Nn =
i.e.
A-
Xn
(which equals
so that
not
A'')
cannot be substituted for
the
A'^
of
A'^
Nn
itself,
we cannot
derive
Nn Nn =
A^;
boy-
hood
is A'-
and therefore cannot be substituted
for the A"' of A''

A''
-hood
to yield boyhood-hood.^^ In contrast, .4A''
states that wherever
we
see A^^
we can
write
AN^
by
in its place,
.4A'',
and
this
.1
permits us to replace
.lA'
even the
A'' of
AN^
'
itself
thus yielding
A'.
The
general
method
of assigning these raised
We assign
see
if
raised
to each class symbol, say A',
numbers is as follows: when it first occurs in an

equation,
equation. Next time the class A' occurs, in a
new
we check new
is
to
the equivalents of
N as stated in this new equation are substitutable

we mark
the
A' as
A' as A^^.
for the previous A^'. If they are substitutable,

A^';
if
they are not we mark the new
This checking
carried
if
out for the
of
each new equation. Each time we
test to see
A'',
it it
the
equivalent of the
new
A^
is
substitutable for
all
preceding
A^^,
or for all as such.
preceding
If in
A"-. If it is
substitutable only for the
we mark
itself,
if
some equation (including the new equation

is
contains
A"' or
more than one A"), the new A'' we mark it as A'^^; and so on.'"*
In this
of their
not substitutable for either
A^,
way
.
A'^ -s
= N^
Note that we cannot write A'- -s = A^^ since that would permit boys to be equal to A^^ and so to replace A'^ before -s, yielding boys
boys or boyhoods replace boy in Such
is the story
-s.''
We
e.g.
can now consider the sequence TN, which
is
substitutable for A';
a cheese, some cheese, for cheese, cheeses, in
We
can use
iti
place
of meat.
'^
However,
TN
cannot replace the A"
in
some
of the
preceding
variously numbered A''', A'^, etc. here and below are all one class from the Q and R of the Appendix to 16.4); and all contain the same single-morpheme members. The numberings indicate the distribution (range of substitutability) of the new morpheme-sequence members which are added to the class by the stating of the equations. Thus A'' represents boy, king, etc. A^ represents boy, king, boyhood, kingdom, etc. A'^ represents boy, king, boyhood, boys, boyhoods, etc. A'"* represents boy, boyhood, boys, boyhoods, a boy, a boyhood, some boys, some boyhoods, it, etc. When we say A'' Nn = A^ we mean that boyhood (which is NKYn and so A'^) can occur wherever A'^ occurs, e.g. before -s {N^-s = N^), but not wherever A''' occurs, e.g. before hood again. '* If some class .symbols never go above we can dispense with the raised number for them. Thus it is sufficient to write D without numbers. '^ On the left-hand side of the equation, each raised number will be understood to include all lower numbers (unless otherwise noted). Hence we do not have to write A^'-^ -s = N^: the A'^ will repj'esent both boy (A'*)
(differently
The
and boyhood
(A'^).
equations:
we cannot
substitute
MORPHEME SEQUENCES TX for N in A N^ =
267
A'^ for
we would
derive a non-extant
resultant
its
A TN^ = N^ {Siviss some cheeses).^^ Therefore the must have a new sub-class numbering which will preclude
TN^ =
it is A''^.
substitution in the preceding equations:
We
can
now say
that the
morpheme
will
class equals this
N*: thus
substitutable ior free-
dom,
tions
the long grind in
will be re-established}''
we
have ones
like ^Nî
N* V = N*:
the books
Among the later equamy various friends
will be discussed later. men I have known rep\a,c'mg fish in Each higher numbered symbol represents all lower numbered identical symbols, but not vice versa. Therefore, the higher numbered symbols
borrowed, or
have a more any compact
inclusive representation,
classification of the
and arc
of greater
importance
a corpus.'*
in
morpheme sequences
of
'* This equation would be correct if we state the relative order of A and T: that whether a formula has AT or TA it always indicates the sequence TA in speech. However, one purpose which the sub-class num-
bering serves is to preclude the necessity for such additional statements, and to let the sequence from left to right indicate succession through time. '^ The equation / = TN^ = A'' indicates that T (e.g. a, some) never occurs before a member of /, since T does not occur before A^^ but is included in it. '* It is also possible to set up a somewhat different system of successive numbering, which would more closely accord with successive morphological levels (cf. ch. 18 fn. 11). Instead of assigning raised numbers for morpheme classes, we assign a number for each boundary between morpheme classes: .4^ -An = 'A'' instead of ^4' -An = A'' (darkness substitutable for light). These numbers are considered as part of the environment of the morpheme classes in question, on a par with the other morpheme classes which constitute the neighbors of the class in question, and the po.sition of our class relative to these others, and the intonation or stress or other contour under which our morpheme class occurs. Whenever we find that assigning a previously-used, lower, number in a new equation would make possible substitutions that do not occur, we use the next higher number. Thus if /iW^ = W^ (old fellow substitutable for Senator), we cannot wi'ite T-N^ = "^X"^ (the war substitutable for butter) since this would permit us to construct the non-occurring AT^X'^ = ^V^ (as though we could substitute old the war for Srnolor). = 'A'^. (The raised-number forms for the fiist and Hence we write and T'A'^ = A'^) In this way, suclast equations here are: .4A'' = cessively higher numVjers are assigned to various inter-morpheme-class boundaries. The boundary numbers are related to the raised numbers, but not identical with them. One of the advantages of the boundary numbers is that they indicate on which side the sequence is reaching a liigli(>r con.struction level (as in 'A'^, which shows that the noun phrase is closed on t he left, since no part of the noun phrase can precede he art icle T, but not on the right, where an adjectival phrase such as/ro?/; Washington can still be added j.
TW
268
16.22.
Analysis of the Complete Corpus
in the ciise of all
As
the other procedures, the operation of chapter 16

in
can be worked out most conveniently

it is
any particularjcorpus only when
worked out for the whole corpus. Trye, the stating of equations can be done for any substitutable sequences, without regard to the other sequences of the corpus. But the determining of the smallest number of
different raised
numerals (16.21) necessary

all
for
each class can only be
done by taking
the substitutions of the corpus into consideration.

for the analysis of 16.3 will also usually require
The use
tion.'^
of this
method
consideration of the whole corpus of material in the language in ques-
16.3.
Sequence Substitution as a Morphologic Tool The operation of chapter 16 expresses many of the most
wide-spread,
and, from the point of view of a systemic description, most structural,

relations
among morpheme
some
of the
classes.
possible to treat
Therefore this procedure makes it more complicated and apparently aberrant
morpheme
relations.
16.31. Exceptionally
Limited Morphemes
turn occurs only with the
is
In some cases we find a class of morphemes which occurs only with

another
class,
which
in
first class.
For example,
(cf
the wh- of why, when, where, which,

then, there),
clearly a separable
morpheme
and occurs
it
in a fairly large
number
of positions (at the beT',
ginning of certain questions and of X, before or after

ever
it
etc.)
But when(-en, -ere,
occurs
always has one of a very few other morphemes

it.
-ich, etc.) after
These morphemes,
utterance position
in turn,
occur only after wh- and

is
after a
few other morphemes

its
(chiefly th-,
is
which
not in the same class
as wh- because
different), so that
they too form
a small special class occurring in very limited sequences.
While the procedure of chapter 15 made it possible only to state the membership and distribution of these restricted classes, the equations of chapter 16 serve as crutches on which to support an analysis of the restricted classes in terms of the other equations of the language.
By
analyzing the sequences in which these morphemes occur, we are able to

''
For a sketchy outline
Harris,
From Morpheme
;
of substitutions in a whole corpus see Z. S. to Utterance, Lang. 22.161-183 (1946) (for
English and Hidatsa); review of Emeneau's Kota Te.xts, Lang. 21.283-9 (1945) (for Kota) Structural Restatements I, Int. Jour. Am. Ling. 13.4758 (1947) (for Eskimo, Yawelmani); and the Appendi.x to 16.22 (for
Moroccan Arabic).
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
show the equivalence
of previously classified
of their sequences to other sequences
269
(composed
morphemes), and so the equivalence
of their con-
stituent
The
quence
general technique used here
morphemes to the previously recognized morpheme classes. is as follows: given a morpheme

(e.g. this)
se-
the parts of which have not been assigned to any
otherwise
known
classes,
we
find
sequences
curs
:
YZ
(e.g.
TA) can
is
replace
what other morphemes or morpheme it in the utterances in which it oca, b of
= YZ. We may
is
then take the component morphemes

a
the
sequence A' and say that a
member of the
it is
class
1',
and
b of the class Z.
a, b of
As a
result A'
no, longer unique:
a sequence of
members
known classes Y, Z, known to occur. The disadvantage

that the
in a
a, b,
;
occurring in a sequence in which these classes are
in the latter part of this technique lies in the fact
analyzed out of
X usually occur only in this one sequence or

memmember
thin
very few more so that whereas in general we might expect any
ber of
b
Y to
occur before almost any

if
of Z,
we
find a restricted to
and
b to a. E.g.
that is
divided into
A'';
T and
-at
-at in
N, we
find al-
most any
etc.
occurring before any

-at
a house, some houses, some stream,s,

others,
but
th-
only before
and a few
and
only after
th-.
16.32.
Morphemic Resegmentation
of 16.31
The method
can be applied to a reconsideration of the mor-
if we permit X to be not only a mormorpheme. In some cases, the operation of chapter 12 leaves us with some particular morpheme which can be assigned to no class, or with a class containing just a few morphemes
phemic segmentation
of chapter 12,
pheme sequence but
also a single
which
differ distributionally
from
all
other classes.
If
now
is
the operation
substitutable
of chapter 16
shows that
this
morpheme
or small class
for
some sequence of other, more general, morpheme classes, there may be some advantage in dividing the unique morpheme (or each morpheme of the small class) into several new morphemes each of which
be considered a member of the corresponding class quence which equals the unique morpheme.^"
will
in the class se-
Thus
before
in
Moroccan Arabic,
dial 'belonging to' occurs after
A'''^
and
<S;
Iktab dialu 'his book' (cf.
Appendix to
16.22).
No
other single
^" This constitutes a reconsideration of the segmentation of chapter 12, assigning some of the phonemes of the dependent .se(}uence (which constituted the unique morpheme) to one new morpheme which is a member of one class, and other phonemes of the sequence to another new morpheme which is a member of another class. These new morphemes will not represent independent phonemic sequences.
270
occurs in this position.
in tliis position,
morpheme
that
(is)
We now
ask what sequence of mor-
phemes occurs
and
find Hi F, as in Ihtab Hi
^ndu
'the
book
with him'.
We
then divide dial into two morphemes, a relative

Hi,
which enters into one morpheme class with

as class
(which
may
be marked
of
D) and a preposition which becomes a new member

are, of course,
12,
by the
side of '^nd, etc.^'
There
chapters
obvious disadvantages to this resegmentation. In

special limitations of concurrence
17
we take
in
among
ele-
ments, and try to express them by including the phonemic sequences
which occur together
one morpheme segment. Here we would be taking

it
a single morphemic segment and breaking
up into two phonemic
se-
quences, two morphemic segments, which only occur together.

replacing here a single
We
are
morpheme which
of
constitutes a unique class

classes,
by
two morphemes which are members

special limitation of occurrence
major
but which have a

the same advan-
between them.
Much
tages and disadvantages are involved in the comparable work of 16.31,

e.vcept that there the
morphemic segmentation had already been made,

for a
so that
we were
in
any case faced with the need
statement
of re-
stricted occurrence
among
the segments.
Whether
this
is
a single
morpheme
(16.32) or a sequence (16.31),
we
have, then, the explicit choice of merely stating that A"
= YZ
(e.g.
= TA;
dial
= DP),
or of identifying the parts of
X with the equated

I
sequence and putting

that TaAa
thin
sub-class Ta
its
and
is
-i& in
is
Aa, and then saying
= TA,
(or dia
with
alternant d
latter
Da and
is
Pa,
and
DaPa is members we have
substitutable for DP)}"^
The
the more useful, the more

in the special rela-
in the sub-classes
which are involved
tion of occurring together (e.g. TaAa), or the greater the
number
of simi-
^' When we try to decide how to divide dial into these two parts, we notice that the second part can be taken so as to be identical in form with a known preposition /- 'to', thus leaving dia- as a relative 'which is' identifiable as an alternant of another member of D, the morpheme d- 'that of thus combine \d\ 'that of which occurs in a very few environments: \l\ 'to' -\-{u\ 'he' to obtain dialu 'which is to him, his'. It happens that earlier periods of Arabic, and other dialects of Arabic today, have cognates of this relative, which has here been isolated on purely descriptive
We
systemic grounds.
The classes Ta and A a are useful only for this one equation, to make clear that th (in Ta) does not occur before any morpheme (any A) which is not in Aa. Once the sequence of th- and -is has been stated by this equation, the Ta and Aa can be disregarded, for the sequence of
^^ it
th-
and
-is is
not restricted in the
way
the
component parts had been; the
sequence occurs wherever
TA
occurs.
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
lar
271
equations which
{this
up
= TA,
what
we would have to = TA, etc.).'^
deal with
if
we do not break them
16.33. Indicating Differences
among
Utterances
Any two utterances which

nized in terms of the
differ in
are not descriptively equivalent differ from
each other in morphemic content. This difference can be readily recog-
morpheme
is
index.
Some
utterances, however, also
a less easily recognizable respect: a
e.g.
sequence in one utterance

the same
member
of a different class
when a morpheme or than when
morpheme
for
or sequence occurs in the other utterance.^''
We take,
cause she
example, the utterance She made him a good husband be-
made him a good wife. We know that there is a difference in meaning between the two occurrences of made; and since we know this without any outside information beyond hearing the sentence, it follows that indication of the difference in meaning and in construction can be
derived from the structure of the utterance.
The
difference
is
not in the
morpheme made,
must therefore be
since the
in
two occurrences are identical in form, and the class membership of made in the two cases. But
we do not break the morphemes up, and obtain a number of simiequations such as that = TA, what = TA, then the procedure of the Appendix to 16.4 would suggest that we put that, what, etc. into a single class for the purposes of the TA position, even if in other positions they do not replace each other and enter into different equations: (e.g. what cannot be substituted for that in the plan that our group proposes).
^' If
lar
^* This is possible because the classes of 15.4, and any morpheme classification used for chapter 16, are classes of morphemes-in-environments, so that a single morpheme or morphemic sequence (or in any case a single phonemic sequence) may in one environment be a member of one class and in another environment a member of another class. This is only
morpheme classes, and given two different utterances containing the same morpheme we can tell to which class the morpheme belongs in each utterance by noting the different environments. In the case of / can tell my horse's (or: horse is) running (Appendix to 15.32), there is a segment /oz/, member of a morpheme \'s\, member of class Na, and a segment /az/, member of a morpheme {be], member of class V. However, here we have complete overlapping, and we cannot tell which morpheme, of which class, occurs because the environment is identical. We could, of course, carry out substitutions in the manner of 16.33, and if we are satisfied that the utterance has not changed except for our substitutions we may find that our informant will accept either / can tell the running of my horse as an equivalent, or else / can tell that my horse is running. But we could never distinguish, except in such terms as informant respon.se to equivalents, which morpheme occurred in the original
partial overlapping of
utterance.
272
in the
the ehiss membership must be recognizable from the different class se-
quences and their substitution
two utterances.
utterance, going
We therefore proceed to analyze the

we know
that the utterance
is
backward along
the equations as far as will be necessary to reveal the
difference.''^ First,
a case of
N*V^
still
& N^V* = N*V\
stage the two halves of the sentence are

structure V^ (make)
identical.
N*
{him)
N*
(a good hxisband / wife)
At this Each V* has the + -Vv (-ed). The
English analysis as a whole contains two cases of this sequence:
F/WW*
Ve^
(make Harding President), and
IVA' W* =
V,^ (make
my husband
a party).
to the
find,
same
We cannot tell which each of our V* is, and whether both go back one, because make is equally a member of Vd and V/. We
= TV A'l* ^cA'M^^'here the
subscript
however, that TVA'Wi^
num-
bers are used merely to identify the A' which has different positions in the
two sequences).
the
We try now to see whether either V* in our utterance has
TV A^* A' * structure by applying to each the substitution which is possible for V/ N* N*. To do this we interchange the two A'^ and insert a Pc
between them. In the
first T'^
we
get a meaningless utterance which does
not occur in our corpus: she made a good husband (Ni) for (Pc) him (N)
instead of she made him (N) a good husband (Ni). In the second, however,
the substitution merely gives us an equivalent utterance which

in our data: she
we have
of she
made a good
wife (Ni) for (Pc)
him (N) instead

T^*
piade
-\-
him (N) a good wife (N\). Yv = Ve^ + Vv. Since the
Clearly, then, the second

first
Vd"^
N* N*
V* does not equal
this, it
-f-
can only
equal the remaining T'A"A' construction, namely T/'A'Â'^

Vv.''^
Vv = TV
" Morpheme classes used here, other than those listed in fn. 3, 32, and 59 are: Vf verbs which occur before A^Â'^^ (two independent noun this book a phrases): make, consider, want (but not buy, go) as in 77/ best seller. Tê^ is equivalent to T'/W^V^ (e.g. make them me?nbers substitutable for join in We're going to for this calendar year.) Pc indicates those prepositions (P) between two A's which sometimes alternate with zero when the A^ which follows the P and the N which precedes the P exchange positions. I.e., when we have NiP\ varying freely with A'A'j we say that the P in question is a member of the sub-class Pc: e.g. to, for in They're giving a present to the boss are replaced by zero in They're giving the boss a
present.
The sections following They in these two utterances are TVA\*PcA'^ and TVA'lVi^ respectively, and are substitutable for T'^ ^^ We can check this by noting that if in the first T''* we substitute a verb which is not a member of V/ we get a sequence which hardly ever occurs, and whose meaning is not changed by the A'^FcA''' substitution: She bought him a good husband would not differ in meaning from She bought a good husband for him. But if we try another member of Vf, e.g. consider, we find again that the substitution gives a meaningless
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
We
have thus found that the two halves
273
of the original utterance are
formally different in the substitutions which can be performed upon them (note, also, the alternative analysis in chapter 17, fn. 12). 2' The method of working was to discover the class membership of the morpheme in question in each environment by expressing the environments in terms of their classes, and then seeing which substitution equations of
chapter 16 applied in each case.

16.4.
Result: Classes of Substitutable
Morpheme Sequences
class of sequences
We now
of
have new morphological elements, each a

classes (including single classes)
morpheme
which can substitute for

morpheme-class se-
each other in any environment whatsoever. The most inclusive elements,

those to which the greatest
number
of different
quences can be equated, are represented by the highest-numbered symbols of each class. E.g., as between
sequences
(all
those of
A'^''
A'^^ and A'^^, the latter represents more and others besides) and would therefore be
taken here as the new morphological element, replacing the

of
A'^
A^')
chapter
IS.''*
Classes like English A,
all
the occurrences of which are
utterance, or in any case one of highly altered meaning: She considered him a good husband as against she considered a good husband for him. Verbs in Vf are therefore verbs which involve obvious change in meaning when the NiPeN substitution is imposed upon them; verbs not in Vf do not involve any reportable change in meaning under that substitution. Therefore the made in made him a good husband functioned as a member
of Vf.
^^ Objection might be made at this point that the potentialities of substitution cannot be used to distinguish portions of speech; for these should be distinguished by their internal structure, independently of what substitutions occur in partially different utterances. However, experimental work in the psychology of perception, especially that due to Gestalt psychologists, leaves little doubt that an utterance is perceived not as an independent structure but in its relation to other utterances. Therefore any differences in substitution potential which can be recognized from the structure of an utterance are relevant even to that utterance alone (and are certainly relevant to the whole language).
Wells terms A'' (up to its highest raised number) the expansion the expansion of a morpheme class is the class of all sequences which occur in its environments. (See his Immediate Constituents, Lang. 23.81-117 [1947].) The classes of chapter 15 were definable extensionally by a list of morphemes and intensionally by environments (any environment in which all the stated morphemes occurred) the classes of chapter 16 are definable extensionally by a list of environments and intensionally by morpheme sequences (any morpheme or sequence which occurs in the stated environments).
^*
R.
S.
of A^';
i.e.
274
some other symbol
(A^),
iiu'luded in equations for
are no longer counted
among the morphological elements. The procedure of 16.2 has indicated the equivalence of many sequences to single morpheme classes, written on the right side of the equations. It will in general be found that very few morpheme classes remain on the
right side of the equations, without being included in
some sequence
which
is
equated to some other morpheme

its
class.
We
thus come out with
a few classes (each having

.V^,
highest raised number,

to
by
16.21), e.g.
V*, D,
and several contours,

is
some one
or another of which every
morpheme sequence
equivalent.
Any
utterance can be described as a
sequence of these few remaining
classes, since
any sequence
is
in the ut-
terance can be equated to one or another of these: These hopeful people
want freedom
is
is
NV
because these
is
TA, hopeful
A^
Na =
A, freedom
{see it
A An =
N, and
for see in 7
now.).
TAAN = TAN = TN =
A^,
and
VN = V
now
These few
classes are classes of
morpheme sequences
(including single
A^
morphemes
workers.
as a special case) rather than of
morphemes:
and
repre-
sents not only these hopeful people but also freedom
the industrial
They
therefore represent a segmentation of the utterance into
larger parts, each of these parts containing an integral
number
of
mor-
phemic segments. ^^ There are as few or fewer of these morpheme-classsequence parts than morphemes in an utterance, and fewer distinct classsequence elements in the corpus than distinct morpheme
tion to the segmentations of utterances into
classes.
In addi-
phonemic and into mor16.54),
phemic segments
which can
quence.
in
(as
immediate constituents, see
we thus have a
derived segmentation into these major morpheme-sequence elements,
turn be segmented into the morphemes included in the se-
In defining these morpheme-sequence elements, the equations of chapter 16
have indicated a great number

classes.
of the special relations of selection
among morpheme
A';
The
fact that free (in

-th is
A^
occurs before
,
dom
while true (jwAb) occurs before
by Aa -dom = N At-th = the equations do not recognize any sequence of At and -dom or Aa
indicated
^^ I.e. in general no utterance has a morphemic segment which belongs partly to one of these major segmentations of the utterance and partly to another, as if in the last utterance example there were some morpheme which was included partly in the A^ and partly in the V. The only possibility of this would come under 16.32 above. We could also say that
Moroccan Arabic S =
-{-
A'^
(Appendix to 16.22), since we have
S = N\ and
IN'
A^l
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
and
-th.
275
are,
The
A^'s
which result from the two equations

is
however, iden-
tical.
No
distinction
made between
the positions of freedom and of
truth:
wherever one occurs the other can be substituted, even though

(e.g.
true
cannot be as freely substituted for free
before -dom).
tions therefore express the restrictions of concurrence

classes,
The equaamong morpheme
tions
make
and are limited by them; but having expressed them, the equait unnecessary for us to consider these restrictions in any of
our further work.^

of the classes of
The
resultant classes no longer have the restrictions
whose sequences they are composed.

It
16.5.
Relation of Class to Sequences Containing
Generalizations useful for the constructions of 17.5, and for other purposes, can be obtained from the equations of chapter 16
if
we consider
it is
the occurrence of each class relative to the sequences in which

tained.
con-
16.51.
Resultant Class Differing from Sequence Classes
In
to
XF
Z,
where a sequence
of
two
(or
more) classes
is
equivalent
we may say that Y changes the utterance position^' of X into that of Z. This way of talking is useful when Y is in some sense secondary to X, e.g. when Y never occurs except in this equation, whereas X occurs in various other equations, too. Thus in A An = N {darkness
some other
class,
substitutable for dawn), or

it is
A'^
Na = A
into
{boyish substitutable for large),
convenient to say that the addition of
^n
permits
to occur in A^
position, or that
Na
changes
A''
as regards utterance position. ^^

in English
Various generalizations
there are
may
be possible here. For example,

transfer each of A^, V,
bound morphemes that

A'^
into each of
the others:
{ionize),
-al
= A
{industrial), en-
= V
{enshrine),
-ize
= V
{sly-
-t
N {portrait),
-able
= A
{agreeable),
-ness
'"
These restrictions can also be indicated graphically by the method
of
the Appendix to 19.31.

''
Or
'syntactic function', or status in respect to the utterance struc-
ture.
^'^
= Z are called exocentric constructions. Sequences of the type primary and Y secondary. Similarly, In XI' = X, we could call we can say that in V/N* = Ve^ {lay it substitutable for lie) it is A^'' that changes V/ into VJ'. In this case, it is not that A'^* does not occur otherwise, but that VJ^ and VJ^ are both sub-classes of V, and that the utterance position in which V'Â'^'' and Ve occur is a position occupied only by sub-classes of V with or without additional classes like A'^ or D. For considerations of primacy, of. J. Kurytowicz, Derivation lexicale et derivation syntaxique in Bulletin de la Soci6t6 de linguistique de Paris 87.7992 (H)36).
XY
276
tiess),
-en
= V
(lighten);
but for
ferred into that class (by the 16.52.
D we find that only A can be morpheme -ly): A -ly = D (really).
trans-
Resultant CAass Identical tvith One of the Sequence

Classes
In XI'
A'
we may say that

is
1'
has zero status in respect to the ut-
terance structure. Such
the status of ^4 inAA'
A' (^nepzonosubstitut-
able for piano), but not in

in
TA =
Ph as
(the blue for dresses in / prefer
or
A An = N. Such
also
is
the status
in
stitutable for young), or of

walk), or of not as in
ofâin^yio = yl (youngish subV^Pt = V^ (walk o^substitutable for

has zero status in
not
= R
(will not substitutable for will).

all of
occurs in
many environments and
utterance or part of utterance containing

wise identical sequence not containing
D
(I
The class them any can be matched by an other:
want
it
for /
want
it
badly).
In some cases there

E.g. in
is
a sequence of
N^PN* =
A''^
(piece of junk for
morphemes that has zero status. auto) and V*PN* = V"^ (travel in
(tried to escape replaceable
this place for travel)

to
we may say
in
that PA'^ has zero status." Similarly
V^ has zero status
V^
to
V^
= V^
by
tried or escaped).
16.53. All
Sequences Containing a Class

of all the sequences containing a particular class perclass.
The comparison
mits various generalizations concerning that
The
class in question
of the
may turn
out never to occur by

(i.e.
itself
on the right hand side
equa-
tions of chapter 16
tc be replaceable
all its
by no sequence,
e.g.
the classes
a certain
An
or &). It
may
all
occur last in
sequences, or in
all of
group
of sequences. It
may
it
occur in only one sequence

it
(e.g.
An), or be
class
secondary in
the sequences in which
occurs
(e.g.
P).
The
may
be such that each time

that sequence
occurs in a sequence
it is
also the resultant of
(i.e. it may always occur as the X oi XY = X). When we match together particular sequences in which a given class occurs, we may be able to derive additional information concerning the
status of the class in one or both of the sequences.
= an
N^
NV
utterance (He fixed
it
or
He fixed
is
the clock)
Thus we have NWd'^N* and ^N^N^nVd* =

(the clock he fixed
first
it,
(the clock he fixed).
Since there
no
N^NW/N*
may
without comma, does not occur), we
say that the
'A'*
of
" Or even that the P annihilates the status of the A"* which it would = are called endocenotherwise have had. Sequences of the type in is then called the head of the contric constructions, and the
XY
XY
struction.
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
'iVWSiV'd^ has the same status as the last A'* of
the rest of these sequences
as a whole
(i.e.
277
N^V/N*
in respect to
to the NVd),^'^ even
though the sequences
have different statuses

find that in
in respect to the utterance.
We may
one language there are certain large morpheme

in sequences
classes each of
which occurs only
equated to a corresponding
position class (e.g. a language with different
noun stems occurring

is
in
noun position and verb stems

there
in verb position). In another language
may
be one large morpheme class which
equated to various posi-
by occurring in sequences with various small morpheme classes of bound forms (e.g. Hidatsa, where almost any stem occurs in noun position if s is added to it, and in verb position if c is added to it). In the latter case we may say that the utterance status is borne by affix
tion classes
classes
which themselves never equal a position
class
but operate on other

is
classes (stems)
which are by themselves positionally neutral. There
no
noun
class in Hidatsa, only a
stem
class (neither
noun nor
verb), a
class of nominalizing suffixes,
and a
class of verbalizing suffixes.
Results of value for a compact grammatical description
may
be ob-
tained from a consideration of the relations of classes and sequences to
the raised-numeral inclusive sequence symbols

of 16.21.
N\
N'',
N^, and the like
Some
classes
may
e.g.
;
turn out to be included only in a low-numbered se-
quence symbol:
able for bread)
e.g.
Vn
occurs only in T''l'w
A^' {abolition substitut-
others are included only in a high-numbered symbol

V'^
Vv
in
V^Vv
(walked, or tried
l''
to
escape substitutable for walk).
We may
the
A''
say that the
substitutes and often in
domain of -ed is greater (in number of possible number of successive morpheme places) tlian
domain
of
Vn. Similarly,
occurs only with A'^ and N^, and
may
therefore be said to apply to a complete noun-phnuse.^''
Some
classes oc-
cur frequently as the resultants of sequences

of the equation)
(i.e.
on the right hand side

(e.g.
and
rise to fairly
high numbers
N^); others occur
fi.rcd).
say that both indicate the object (clock) of the NVj (he of parts of an utterance (or of an utterance section) relative to the rest can thus be gauged by this comparison technique. The method used here is similar to the usual distributional investigations in linguistics. If we find a restriction on the occurrence of clock and it, such that one or the other occurs within an utterance but not both, we can define them as alternants of one element, in this case 'object' of the verb. If clock occurs at the beginning or the end, but it only at (he end, we would place clock into a sub-c^lass which has a broader range of positions (but not necessarily a wider distribution) than the sub-class of it. '^ I.e. to have a complete noun phrase as its domain.
^*
We may
The moaning
278
and require no numbering
(e.g.
rarely as resultants,
D,
all
of
whose
equivalents
may
be substituted for each other.)
A study
of the inclusion
numbers
at
which various new classes enter

e.g.
the sequences equated to any particular resultant,

enters into the sequence equated to A'^ while
the fact that
enters into the sequence
equated to
A''*,
will yield
a picture of what has been called the incre-
mental growth
16.5 1.
of constructions.^
Immediate Constituents
take
all
It is further possible to
the sequences which equal, say, V^
and
compare them with

the ne.xt higher
all
those which equal V^, and so on. In this

is
way we
find
can generalize as to what
added to each numbered symbol to obtain

symbol. In
number
for that
many
cases
we would
that
it is
not a unique
class,
but any one of several classes or sequences,
may be added to a symbol in order to obtain its next higher number. Hence if we are building up a sequence of classes and stop at any point, say when our sequence equals T'^, and then ask what we might add to obtain V^, we will often find a great number of possibilities. The reverse of this procedure, when we take a given utterance in order
that
to equate its successive included sequences to various resultants of chapter 16, is called the determination, in successive stages, of the
immediate
constituents of the utterance."
The operation
is
generally similar to that
employed
simply
in 16.33.
We
take the utterance and see what equation most

is
fits it, i.e.
what
the simplest equation'* such that

it
:
we can conof the se-
sider our utterance to be a case of

is
e.g.
My most recent plays closed down

member
for
a case of
NW^
left
utterance.
We
then take each
quence (on the
hand
side of the equation),
and ask
each of these
what
right
is
the simplest sequence which represents the relevant part of our
utterance and for which the
hand
side)
of the utterance,
member in question is a resultant (on the TN^ = N^ {T for my) would serve for the first part and V^^v = V^ {Vv for -ed) for the second. This operae.g.
Leonard Bloomfield, Language 221-2. Such comparisons will also relative ranks of various classes toward closure of the construction: cf. Otto Jespersen, Philosophy of Grammar. '' Leonard Bloomfield, Language 161, 209. '* Simplest is used here to mean not containing material which could be equated, on the basis of other equations, to the portions of the simplest equation. E.g. the utterance given here could be considered a case not only of N'^V* = utterance, but also of TNW^ = utterance. However, the latter is not necessary, since we have an equation for English which
3
show the
states
TN^ = N\
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
tion
is
279
repeated until the members of the sequences represent the indi-
vidual
morphemes
first
of the utterance.'^
analyzed by the equation V^Pb
V^,
Thus V^ (close down) would be and N^ (most recent plays) would
be analyzed
recent)
into
N^
-s
N^, then into
AN^ =
N^; finally
[most
would be analyzed into DA
^. In
this analysis, the constituents
of
our
N*V* utterance were:

at the first stage, A'^ at the second stage,
and V^
at the third stage, T, N^,
at at
A^^; V^ and Vv and -s; Vv, V^ and Pt the fourth stage, T, A and A'^, -s: Vv, T' and Pt and Pb.'" the fifth stage, T, D, A and N\ -s; Vv,
T and
The
means
basic operation in analyzing

is
any stretch
of speech into its
diate constituents
similar to that of 16.31. First,
immewe determine by
e.g.
of substitution
what
is
the status of the given stretch in respect to

:
the utterance (or to the succession of utterances in the speech)
given
the stretch gentlemanly,

that
it is
we determine
that
it is
a case of
from the fact

etc.
replaceable
hy fine, narrow-minded,
etc. in
He's a fellow,
Then we
(i.e.
inspect the equations of chapter 16, obtained for the language
in question, in order to see
what sequences have
as their resultant
what sequences equal
^4).
We shall
not be able to choose
among
the
In selecting the appropriate equations from the description of the (for these English equations, see fn. 3 above), we adjust the inclusion numbers to satisfy the chain of equations. This is based on the definition of the numbers, which indicates that numbers on the left hand side of the equation represent themselves or any lower number. Therefore, V^Vv = V'^, which is one of the equations of our English analysis, represents V'Vv = V* and VWv = V* as well as itself. Since our next equation, analyzing close down will have as its resultant not V^ but V^ (i.e. close down does not equal V^), we select V^ in our present citing of
'*
whole corpus
V^Vv = V*, and therefore cite it as V^'v = 1'^. "' If we use dots between class markers, with a
inter-class dots to represent
greater
number
of
immediate constituent divisions at an
earlier
stage,
we can
indicate
all five
stages of successive subdivision of this

-s
utterance as follows:
T
For such use
::
D A
.
N^
F'
Pb
Vv
V. Quine, Mathematical Logic. For a general discussion of the methods of analysis into immediate constituents, see R. S. Wells, Immediate Constituents, L.\ng. 23.81-117 (1947). Note that it is possible in most cases to arrange the constituents in the order in which the morphemes they represent occur in the utterance. However, this is not always possible: e.g. the Vv morpheme in the utterance occurs between the T' and the Phi one might say that it is in this case an infix rather than a suffix of the verb phrase.
of the varying
numbers
of dots, see
W.
280
we know the
of class of each
various sequences unless
morpheme
select
in the
given stretch (since by the preceding paragraph,
we
a sequence
which represents the succession

Therefore,
it is
morpheme
(gentle), N'
classes in this stretch).
necessary to consider the individual
morpheme
classes: in
the case of gentlemanly, these are
(man), and either
Ad
or
.Va (ly occurs in both of these classes).'" Division into gently
immediate constituents
that equation
e.g.
' 1
is
excluded because
is
DN
9^
and man as A. Taking gentle and
ynanly as the constituents

is
not satisfactory because although
AA =
A,
valid only for certain stress patterns over the

polite
two A,
is
(He's a
.
young fellow) but not when the

,
first
loud
in
stressed
and the second zero stressed
(as
would have to be the case

is
gentlemanly fellow) Taking gentleman and ly as the constituents

factory because A'
this sequence.^'
satis-
Na =
A, and the loud-zero stress pattern occurs for
Appendix to 16.1: Why Begin with .Morpheme Classes? The procedure of chapter 16 utilizes certain relations among the morpheme classes of chapter 15. In 15 we were able to express, by classification, only one relation among morphemes: substitutability in certain utterances in which the morphemes occurred. Only on that basis were both
large
if
and small included
in the
ne.xt
same
class,
A.
We were unable to indicate

if
one morpheme occurs
to a particular other one; and
two mor-
phemes substituted for each other in only some of their utterances, we had no scale in terms of which to describe and analyze the utterances to which the substitution was restricted. Relations of this type are involved
in the
sequences of morpheme classes which are recognized by chapter 16

16.2,
every statement of
dicates a relation
such as that
A +
ly is substitutable for
D,
in-
among morpheme
of the other)
:
classes (between
any morpheme
of
one class and any one

next to
those of
ly;
e.g.
that
occurs at least sometimes
and that
ly occurs in
environments which are identical with

it.
except that
precedes
Other relations too can be stated
among morpheme
will be indicated in 17-8. But by themselves, without the addition of 17-8, sufficient to indicate where each morpheme class occurs in every utterance. From the statements of chapter 16 alone we shall be able to learn
classes,
some
of
which
the statements of chapter 16 are
^^
Any two
of these occur together as
manly
*^
N Na
all
occurrence
= A; of man
gentleman
in
AN
A''.
an utterance: gently A Ad = D; For simplicity, we omit here the
V (man
the ships).
the possibilities been ruled out, we would have had to accept the three morphemes as equal immediate constituents.
Had
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
what sequences
in the language.
of
281
morphemes, and what utterances, do and do not occur

raised
The question might be

in
why
our procedure begins with morof utterances
phemes, rather than with some larger sections

of ly in utterances,
which might
like newly,
turn be composed of morphemes. E.g. rather than discuss the position
completely, etc.
why not discuss the position of words The answer is that the statements of chapter
16 in
many
cases recognize these larger sections, such as words, but, instead of taking
them ready-made, lead up to them in the course of considering sequences of morphemes: e.g. the sequence A (new) + ly. However, for the purposes of chapter 16
positions of
it is
pointless to distinguish
of
between the utterance
morphemes and
words
in cases
where a morpheme and a
word have identical utterance positions. Thus Moroccan Arabic xuia 'my brother' and ixu diali 'my brother' are substitutable for each other in any utterance in which either occurs. There is no reason to distinguish
distributionally between them. There are, of course, differences between
morphemes or morpheme classes of which they bound or free occurrence of their parts (e.g. ia is never stressed and never constitutes an utterance by itself, which is not the case for diali). But such differences are apparent from the morpheme classes involved in each sequence and from the facts stated in 17 8 about each morpheme class; it is not necessary to repeat these
the two sequences, in the
are composed, in the stress, in the
differences in chapter 16.
Appendix to
16.2:
Morphemic Contours
in the Substitutions
morpheme sequences it is necessary to include all suprasegmental morphemes such as intonation and stress contours. Thus the {, morpheme, which consists of a levelled preceding pitch plus
In the consideration of
j
an intermittently present pause,
is
always present in the equation

it
'NV,
& NV = NVD = NV: We

,
asked him, but he wotddn't do
can bo
replaced
{ j
by We asked him unsuccessfully or We asked him. In contrast, the morpheme is sometimes present and sometimes absent in the sequence NVBN. (i.e. NV, BN. = NVBN.).*^ The command morpheme is the only contour in whose environ{
!
*'
As
in I'll kill
him
if he comes, or I'll kill
him, if he comes.
The
pres-
ence of the
ing
of
comma adds, of course, a note of afterthought, or other meandifference, to the BN; but the addition of any morpheme would add
something to the meaning.
= does not indicate that the meaning good boy is the same as that of boy, but only that when we find one of these we can substitute the other for it and still have an I'lnglish utterance.
AN

282
:
e.g.
ment a member of V (e.g. hurry) is not replaceable by V Vv (e.g. hurried) Hurry! Since 1' plus this morphemic contour also does not occur with
a preceding N,**
we may say
that TV
=
'
A'T'T't'.
,,
=
,
Similarly, intonation contours such as
occur.** This morpheme, with its rare form pheme or sequence bearing the reduced stress /,,/ refers to, or in some way modifies the meaning of, that bearing the main stress / '/. Many equations which contain this modifier morpheme Avould not hold if that morpheme were omitted. 'A'FuA'F = iVFA' is exemplified in the substitution 1 see you're leaving for / see you. But 'A"T' 'AT would only
'
,,
must be noted when they means that the mor-
XVVv.''
occur with a sentence contour such as
{.}
or j?! after each half.
Morphemes like the modifier contour may affect the substitutability of a morpheme sequence more than do most other morpheme classes. E.g. in The stage struck Barrymore we have NVN. The V is replaceable
by other sequences which have been equated to V, e.g. collapsed under. or by ,&NV (or their equivaThe contour {.} is replaceable by B lents): The stage struck Barrymore as it revolved. The stage struck Barrymore, and he collapsed. In the stage-struck Barrymore we have ^X,iA.^^
The
'A"iu4
is
replaceable
by A: The young Barrymore. The whole
se-
quence
the stage-struck
Barrymore
in
may
occur with the contour
(e.g. in
an announcement, or
I
saiv the stage-struck
an answer to a question), and more frequently
before or after V: The stage-struck Barrymore kept up the family tradition.
Barrymore. This sequence cannot replace The stage
struck
Barrymore
'
in the utterances given above. In general, sequences
containing
of the
,,
are replaceable
by one morpheme
stress.
class,
usually that
second member*' bearing a single /'/

sign which
In indicating suprasegmental morphemes in equations,
it
is
useful to
mark them by some
is
inserted in the succession of mor-
pheme-class signs, usually at the point where the domain of the contour
** A7 TV and A', TV occurs But NV! does not occur.

'
as in Fred! Hxirry! or You, get a move on!
** Where indicates loud stress and n reduced loud stress (the * of G. L. Trager and B. Bloch, The syllabic phonemes of English, L.\ng.
17.223^6
*
(1941)).
\
V-en = A {the broken promises). In stage-struck we have \-en\. In The stage struck we have [strike] -f \-ed].
*'
strike]
-\-
E.xcept in statable cases, e.g.
plantable by
when the second is P: put-up {put-up job), push-over by A' (7/'.s a push-over.).
is
sup-
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
ends. For the purposes of the equations, these
283
morphemes can then be
treated just like the segmental morphemes.
Appendix
to 16.21: Alternative
Methods
for Non-repeatable
Sub-
stitutions
also
The restriction on substitutions discussed by writing that A'' Nn is implied by N,

if
in 16.21
can be symbolized
or includes
N, rather than
A'^
A''.
equals N,
iV
every other
If
Nn cannot be substituted for the N oi N Nn itself and for Nn = N does not imply Nn Nn = N. In that case,
A''
we then come upon a substitution which
is
indeed repeatable,
e.g.
in the
AN
N above
(where the
can be replaced by a sequence of
several
of
A: good
clean for good),

else
an implication, or
Alternatively,
we indicate this by an equation instead we use implications throughout but add addiAN:*^ good clean boy replaces good
boy.
tional ones*^ such as
AAN =
we can set the equations up in a descriptive order. Thus begin with the equation N-s = N: boys replaces boy in Where we may come from. Here we can substitute the result of the previous did the
equation, since
it
follows from A^
Nn =
A'^
and
N -s = N that A^ Nn -s
N: boyhoods
not replace
boys-hood). ^
replaces boy in In time they'll forget their

of the
However, we
first.
cannot substitute the result
second equation in the
We canA^ (e.g.
hy
-s in A'
Nn = N
may
and derive
A' -s
Nn =
This restriction can be indicated by defining a descriptive
order in which the equations

results of each equation
in
be carried out.
We may
say that the
may
be substituted in any later equation but not
any previous one
(or in itself). If the results of a
may
is
be freely substituted
number of equations among themselves but not in some other group

the equations in groups, such that no group
of equations,
we may arrange
substitutable in any preceding group.
Instead of maintaining a descriptive order of equations,
we may adopt
yet another method of indicating the restriction on substitution of resultants.
We may
say that the resultant
A''
(e.g.
boys, boyhoods) of
*^ From the equations A = and A yl A'^ = ^ A'' we can derive sequences of any number of A's before an A'^, if on the basis of the first equation we substitute A A^ for A^ in the second.
"
different striction
In cases where many repetitions of a class occur in a sequence, a form of equation may be simpler. In some languages the reon the definition of = may in general not be desirable.
class other 1 luin
^ There are some morphemes, members of a do occur after A^ -s: e.g. ful in hands-ful, etc.
-Nn, which
284
the same class as the
first
N s = N is not
boys
(boy) of
A'^
Nn =
boy,
-s
.V,
since
boys cannot replace boy before -hood.
We may
indicate this resultant
by Q instead
of A^ (where
indicates both boys
place each other except before -hood, etc.),
and and write N
which
Q.
re-
There
would then be no question

have before
our classes
of boys occurring before -hood, since
what we
Nn
(-hood)
is A^,
not Q. Only one change in the definition of

class
is
necessitated
by adding the new
to our list: In the
classes resulting
from 15.3 each morpheme,

of
in general,
belonged to only
one class or other;*' here (somewhat along the

that
lines of 15.4)
many members
are also
in
members
of
we must say N, while none of the morof definition of
pheme sequences included

classes
in
are.
Such an extension
our
(now no longer pure single-morpheme any way the use to which they can be put.
classes) does not restrict
contain the
As we proceed, we obtain various other resultant classes which like Q members of A^ as well as various sequences." Thus the sequences truth, freedo7n, may be indicated by the equation A An = R.
The new
in
class
R includes the whole of A'^,

seeks
But the sequence members of R do not occur before Nn (-hood, -dom), while N does. The whole class R does occur before -s: truths replaces boys. Therefore, by the side of A^ -s = Q we also have R -s = Q, there being no reason why the membership of Q should not be expanded to include the results of the latter equation. When we now consider AN = A^ (good boy for boy), we find that we must also say AR = R (pure truth for truth) and AQ = Q (good boys for
Every
man
since truth, freedom, replace
life
boys). Clearly, the classes A", R, Q, all of
which include the original

in
single-morpheme
class A', are going to

list
have identical occurrences
some
shall
environments, and as long as we
them
as separate classes
we
have to make
special statements for each of them.
On
the other hand,
we cannot combine them

ments
arises in
into one class because there are

of
some environ-
which one and not another

R, Q, and
of
them
occurs. This situation, which
from the
of
partial substitutability of these classes, can be simply inA',

all
dicated by marking
other classes which include the

A' class.
membership
N, as sub-classes
an over-all
We
write A"' for
*' Only morphemes whose distribution differed from that of others and equalled the sum of two or more other classes were placed simultaneously (as 'different' morphemes, if we will) into two or more other
classes.
'"^
This
is
equivalent to the statement that these sequences replace A' in

in others.
some utterance environments but not
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
the original N, N^ for both
285
R and
Q." and so on. This reduces to the
method
of 16.21.
Our equations
are now:
N^ -N^n = A^^ A -An = A''^
(boyhood for boy)

(freedom for 60?/)"
(boys,
_ jya Aî.2.3 = ^1.2.3 ^

jyi,2 _g
freedoms for
feo?/)
(good boy, good boys for boy).
Appendix
to 16.22:
Morpheme-Sequence Substitutions
for
Mo-
roccan Arabic
Before the operation of chapter 16 can be carried out for Moroccan
Arabic
it is
necessary to state the

of
morpheme
classes of the language.^*
Almost
all
morphemes
Moroccan Arabic can be put
into the following
general classes on the basis of gross similarity of environment:
R: roots, most of them consisting of three successive but not necessarily

adjoining consonants, defined by the fact that their phonemes occur
intercalated with those of
Pv
or Pn: d'rb
'hit' in
dd'arbu 'they fought'.
Pv: verb-patterns, most of them consisting of successive but not adjoining vowels or consonants which are staggered with the root consonants;
by their occurring next to certain few affixes (Va): t-a 'do in common' in dd'arbu 'they fought'. Pn: noun-patterns, constructed like Pv, defined by their occurring with
defined
previously-recognized roots;
^V;
i-
'adjectival' in h'mis
'fifth'.
l-
nouns independently
stressed, occurring after prepositions (P),
'the',
or before plural suffixes: t'dmubil 'auto', bu 'father'.

affixes,
Va: verb subject

'I
forming one main-stress domain with

-I
Pv: n-
am'
in nkt^b 'I write',

affixes, in
'I
did' in ktbt
'I
wTote'.
Na: noun
'others'.
one main stress with
R Pn
i.e.
or
N or M
Pv: -a
'fe-
male', -in 'plural' in lah'ur 'the other', l^h'ra 'the other
(f.)',
"h'rin
These two have a repeated form,
when they occur with a

will also
noun
in
what
will
be described below as the noun phrase, they
" It will be seen in the Appendix to 16.4 below that N"^ will be adequate for both R and Q. " In a complete statement there would be several additional subclasses of .V. E.g. we would distinguish Ai -Ani = N* (truth, freedoyn) from Ai-An-i = N'^ (lateness), because N* will occur before -Na (e.g. -ful, -less), while A'^ will not. We have .V'^ -Na = A (truthful, freedomless, as well as hopeless, replace great), but we do not have A'^ (lateness, or boys) before -Na. This limitation requires us therefore to set up N*, and write A'''^''' instead of N^-^ in the equations above. " I am indebted to Charles A. Ferguson for checking the Moroccan forms. For the phonetic values of the symbols, see Z. S. Harris, The phonemes of Moroccan Arabic, Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 62.309-18 (1942).
286
The
plural suffix has
/-
occur with every other noun in that phrase (including the subject
prefix of the associated verb).
/-; 'the'.
many
variant forms.
Distribution as for Na; but
does not occur with the subject
prefix of the verb.
prefix
m-
'place of, instrument of, etc.', occurring before
R Po
Pv
Pv,
with
Na, but not Va, under a

en one' (hrs
sive').
is
single main-stress contour: bnhrr'ds 'the brok-
'break', its repeated
middle consonant
is
'inten-
S: objective-possessive suffixes occurring after
Pv.
Pn,
N, P:
d'rbak 'he hit you', buk 'your father'.
P: prepositions, some of them prefixes and some independently stressed,

occurring before X,
Pn,
M R Pv (with their
P
mnhum
its
affixes
Na), S, and in
/;
fi
fixed combinations before other
and before certain

'from them'.
'in'
in
flnidina 'in the city',

.4;
mn
'from' in
adverbs, occurring with none of the affixes, usually at the end of an
utterance or after
'yesterday',
R Pv
'ever',
(with
affixes)
or
.S;
daba 'soon', iams
abadan
daimn
'always'.
Hi 'which,
who
(relative)' occurring
,
with no
affi.xes,
often unstres.'êd, alof utterance.
most always after

phrases: ana
/.
N R Pn, M R Pv; never at

'he'.
end
Pr: pronominal nouns, occurring with no
affixes,
before
noun and verb

beginning of an
kij 'how?',
T, hua
introducers, occurring with
no
affixes except P, at the
utterance or before any morpheme class including another /.

as 'what?', kiJ as
'in
what way?'. la indicates those which occur sometimes before a verb and two noun phrases, e.g. kifkthti Iktab? 'How did
you wTite the book?' 'What did you \\Tite?'
It indicates those that never do, e.g. as ktbti
or as kt3b rr'azl 'what did the
man
write?'
u 'and' almost always unstressed, before any morpheme
class.
We now ask what sequences can be treated as single classes in relation

to the other classes in the utterance.
There
is
one
fi.xed
sequence which
is
not equivalent to any single mor-
pheme but can be considered as a new single element in the utterance structure: R Pv, which we will call F'. Roots occur also with patterns other than Pv, but Pv never occurs without R:^ nfkatb 'I correspond',
ktbt 'I wrote', tkllmu 'they
conversed' are
all
cases of
Pv, with Ya.
^^ Since one Pv is zero, an alternative description is possible: that \ a also occurs, with verb meaning, without Pv (rather than: with zero Pv), as in nkl9b 'I write' as compared with ntkatb 'I correspond'. In that case = Pv = V, with ktb 'he wrote' as the single-morwe would say
pheme
substitute.
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
In the remaining sequences, we
will
287
always find some single morpheme

equations, like the pre-
which can be substituted
for them.
The next two
ceding one, yield word classes.
R Pv = RPn =
kabt'an 'captain'
A^';
mf^lbm
'servant'
(R:
'Îm),
s'bba^'
'painter'
{Pn:/donbling middle consonant/ plus /a/) each substitutable for
in^n
'Where
is
?'
Na N^ =
above.
l.]S[^
N^: mt^lldm 'servant', mf^llma 'servant
girl'
in the sentence
N'^:
Imt^lldm 'the servant', Imt^lbna 'the servant
girl'.
The
(i.e.
following equations yield
noun and verb phrases. Each
resultant
right-hand side)
iV
V and N can be substituted only for a left-hand side

when the
kan
first
and
having the same or higher raised number.
Vb^
Va
T'2
V^: This holds only
is
one
of Vb, a small
sub-class of roots:
Wi
'want',
'was'; the subject affixes (Va) of
the two
V are
either the
same
'I
or else
-t 'I
.
members
;
of the pairs
which indi'I
cate identical person {n-
am',
did'
etc.) :" 7ib^'i nktab
will
want
to write', knt nmsi
was walking' The second V^ always has the prefixed rather than the suffixed members of Va. This could be expressed by set'I
ting Va- V^ = V^ and V^ -Va = V^. Then n- and -t would contain the same Va morpheme T, except that n- = Va + prefixation, while -/ = Va + suffixation. The equation at the head of this paragraph would then become Vb^V^ = V\ and all V^ in the following equations would be replaced by V^ since that would include all lower numbers, and so
represent verb with prefixation (non-past) or verb with suffixation

(past); V^ in these equations
jyijya
would then become
V*.
^2.
^^'q^
ssult'an '(the) house of the sultan', d'ar sult'an l^'rb

of the
'(the)
house of the sultan
dd'ar '(the) house' in hadi
'this is
West (Morocco)' substitutable for For the A'^ we can substitute
'.
the lower-numbered
A'^^ etc.
A'2
(which in turn
= A" A'^),
A''^
obtaining
A^W A' =
=*
Hence
A''
this
formula indicates that any number of

one with
1-:
A''
without
l-
may
precede the
final
since
l-N\ Usually there
is
only one
before the l-NK In meaning, each

is
noun modifies the pre-
ceding one, and there
no agreement
in
feminine and plural suffixes
among
^V3jY3
the nouns.
f.'(î
^'3;
jfiarikani kbir 'a big
American man',
liiil'-dliua
Ikbira
'the big servant-girl', substitutable for s'bba'^' 'painter' in
^ft
'I
saw'.
in
the
" These pairs can be expressed by a manner of the Appendix to 17.33.
single
morphemic component,
288
Each noun modifies the first one; Z-, -a, and the plural suffix occur either all or with none of these .V. Here too there are great restrictions on selection. Note that the form of the equation covers long series of .V, not merely two: in r'azl marikani kbir we may consider the first two .V to equal one ^V by this equation, and then that new A^ plus the last
with
.V equal
one
again by this equation.
An A^
first
l-N
l-N phrase from
the preceding equation

l^'rb
.S
may
occur as the
of l-X l-X
A'^- stilCan
hml {X l-X l-X = l-X l-X = A'^) '(the) first sultan of the West'. = A'^: The possessive objective suffixes can be replaced by a noun
'I
phrase: sritu
bought
it'
for srit Iktab
'I
bought the book'; ktabu

;
'his
book' for kiab rr'azl Ikbir 'the big man's hook'

'in
fih 'in
him'
i or
fss' bah
the morning'.
Xmi PX' =
XHli
XW^ =
noun
XHli X'V^PX^ =
X\
I.e.
Hi changes a fol-
lowing sentence construction into a modifying noun, which then constitutes the last of the
previous equations follows the
noun phrase: no A^' A''* resulting from

sriti 'the
satisfying the
Hi.
two
ktab Hi '^ndu 'a
book that
(is)
with him', Iktab Hi
book which you bought',

{za)
rr'azl Ikbir Hi za
mâk
'the big
sft
stitutable for r'azl in

(16.32),
man who came

saw
'I
with you'
all
sub-
'.
If
Hi
is
included in a class
we would wTite the formulae X^DPX^, etc. A'M'a = Pr Va = Va = X". Since verbs (R Pv, without .1/) always occur with subject affixes Va (including zero), and Va always with RPv, we cannot substitute a noun for Va. However Va agree in person and number with the preceding noun phrase; and if we wish to describe concord simply as a morpheme repeated throughout an interval (12.323 above) we must say that if a noun phrase occurs before the verb, then the verb's Va is part of that noun phrase: in nta tktab 'you will WTite', vta 'you' and /- 'you will' form a noun phrase together, as subject of the verb. We can also say that any noun phrase plus Va can be replaced by Va: X*Va = Va: Imf^llma tkllmdt 'the servant-girl spoke' replaceable by tkllmdt 'she spoke' {-9t 'she did'). This equation
indicates that
Va
la
is
always the
last part of a subject
noun phrase.
P X* = P
lb
= PA = A:
The
latter
mnd'ari 'from
'from here' for hna 'here' in

kif 'how' in
ziti
'you came
at
my
';
house' or
mn
hna
mn
in 'from where',
ziti.
two have a
different sentence position.
All of these
tions: e.g.
have
different frequencies of occurrence in different posi-
A may
be more
common
the beginning of utterances, and
P X'
A'=T'Â'^
after Hi.
IaX'=V'
A'=T'^; rr'azl iktab ktab 'the
man
wrote a book' or
as rr'azl iktab 'what the
man
will write' for rr'azl iktdb 'the
man
will
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
write.'
289
A'^*):
The
la replaces
the
N* (which can never become
both
in-
dicate the object of the V^.
Any morpheme
class or
class or
sequence plus u plus an equivalent morpheme

itself.
sequence equals the morpheme class or sequence

in
In any
rr'azl
environment
this
A'''
which we find NhtN^ we also find
A^'*,
and so on:
umr'tu zau 'the
man and
his wife
came' {NûN^N''
men came'. Va contains the plural morpheme, as here. Moroccan Arabic morpheme sequences have now been shown
{-u 'they') for rrzala zau 'the
Va
= N'uN'^ = N^) When two or more

to be
all
occur with Va, the
equivalent to sequences of V^, N^, A, and Pr.
We
can write almost

just
A'',
utterances in the language as N^V^, N^N*,

]'.'
N* PrN^ (and
yl,
or
alone) with
occurring at any point, and with any of several intona-
tions, chiefly /./,/?/,/!/. Since the

last
V^ replaces the second
A^'*
of the
first
two types, we
may
consider both as indicating a predicate, the
N'" or A^'*
always representing the subject. A^^F^ does not always mean

A'^^
that the A^^ precedes, since the

klbt 'I wrote'.
may
be a subject
this
suffix {-Va} as in
Agreement correlates with
phrase division: -a and
plural extend over all A^ places recognized here (subject
and predicate)
(but not over the eliminated object N'* of V'^N*
V^, or the A^* of

A''
PN* =
A; these have internal agreement);
I-
extends over each
singly.
further reduction
is
possible
A'*.
present N^
(= N'^Va)
A'''A'^
to
if we write N^Pr = N^, changing the Then buh mf^lbni 'his father is a servant'
would be
b}i.h
{huh
A^'jV^
is
A''^,
which
is
included in
A^'');
A^''
hua mf^lbm
raised
'his
father
a servant' would be A^* A"^ (from
and Pr N*).
The
sequence
in the first
numbers e.xpress the fact that Pr is the last member of the noun phrase, although it can also be viewed as merely
in
a connection, selected in various utterances

the two A'^ of a nominal sentence.
terances as
cates.
N'^'N'*
the place of zero, between
We
would then state the two-part ut-
and
A'^T^, the
A"''
and V^ replacing each other as predi-
Appendix to 16.31: Sequence Analysis of Words Containing wh- and thIf
we wish
to treat
wh
of
what and
th of this as
independent morphemes
of restricted
(Appendix to 12.22), we must consider a group

then, there.
morphemes:
thi.s,
the components of what, which, who, why, where, when, how, that,
the,
We
would
list
wh- as a separate morpheme, occurring

of
in
these
introth-
and other combinations, and always with either
two meanings:
ducing a question, or a subordinate (relative) clause. The morpheme
2*0
STRUCTURAL LINGIHSTICS
less
can be similarly extracted, with a more or This leaves,

in turn, the
demonstrative meaning.
morphemes -at, -ich, -o, -y, etc/""* No one of these morphemes occurs in exactly the same environment as any one of the other English morpheme classes, since the immediate
environment of wh- or
-en, -ere, etc.,
th-
always contains
-en, -ere, or
th-,
the like; while
always occur immediately after wh- or

It is
which no
mem-
ber of the other classes does.

these
therefore impossible to a.ssign any of
morphemes
directly to the other
morpheme
if
classes. Instead of at-
tempting to do
this,
our method will be to analyze the sequences which
contain these morphemes.
We
will see
is
the sequence wh-
-at,
or the
class,
phrase in which what

or for
is
included,
subtitutable for any
morpheme
any sequence
of
morpheme
classes. ^^
Then we
itself
will
work backward
to see
what the syntactic position

begin with the positions
in
of
wh- by
//;-
is.
We
which
appears and wh- does not:

a in
se-
the good
man, I
like this. Since the. this, that are substitutable for
very good
fish,
we say
that each of
them equals
T.
But these are
quences, not single morphemes, and each sequence consists of th- plus
consider the /'h/ of who, how as a positional variant of the or /w/' of what, why. The two similarly-spelled second morphemes of what and that might also be profitably considered alternants of one morpheme, as might the -is and -ich of this, which. If one does not wish to divide these words into two morphemes each, the whole analj'sis of this
^*
We may
/hw/
section can be replaced by including that, what, etc. as single morphemes equated to TA, AV^ and other sequences. They would then be eliminated syntactically in the equations of chapter IG, so that the final picture of the utterance would be substantially the same as we will obtain in our present method, after dividing these words into two morphemes each. There are certain advantages in dividing these words: the similarity of meaning among them, the quest ion-and-answer pairs like where-there, and the fact that the intonation i will turn out to be automatic with respect to the one morpheme ich-.
'"^ The general English analysis on which the following treatment rests referred to in fn. 18 above. Nioipheme classes from this analysis which are used here (other than those listed in fn. 3, 25 above) are: Vb-' be, appear, get, keep, stay, (but not have), etc., occurring between A' and adfresh. Vdi the transitive verbs jectives other than V-ing: The stuff xcill which occur before N: make, buy, want (but not go, sleep), as in 77/ butter. Ve: intransitive verbs which do not occur before X: go, sleep. V represents Vb, Vd, Ve, and so on. X^ is A" -s (boys; although A'^ is used for this in 10.21); A'^* is TN" (the boy, the boys); N* is TAN^'^Va (the best drinks available), or V^-ing (thinking), or 'A'^ X'ûVa* (the clock
is
he fixed), or 'A'Â'S,IVP (the house he slept in), or I (he, it). AX^ = X' (good boy for boy). V^ is have V^-en (have eaten), or V^ Pb (walk off, have
gone over);
IV
is
IV X*
(take it);
V*
is I"'
Vv
(ivalked, icent).
^ ;
one of the mutually
MORPHEME SEQUENCES substitutable -e, -is, -at.^ We
291
must therefore ask
in
what
class to
put the two parts of the sequence. Either both of them are
members of T,^' or else one is T and the other is syntactically zero.^^ The choice between these two statements can be decided with the help
of the other position in for
it
which only
th-
appears:
this, that
substitutable
The sequences this, that equal the class I in We might say distribution, and hence equal a whole noun phrase A' that -is, -at = N^ while th- = T, so that this = T -\- N^ = N^ (noun phrase). However, this is unsatisfactory because we do not otherwise have a sequence T N^ in which some adjective A could not be inserted
in / like
.
is good.
"*.
between the
positions
article
and the noun:

th-
yuan, but not
between
and
-is.
We We
can insert good between a and

can therefore best satisfy both
whereas
thA''
= T
In I
men = T
+ Vb + yli = N'V; this man = T + T + m = N^; these + T + N^ = N\ In / like this, we have this = T +N^ = like these, we have these = T + A'^ = +
A'
A'''.
by saying: -is, -at = T when N^ follows, and A'^''- otherwise; = T. Then the good man = T + A + N^ = N*; This is good.
We proceed to the positions in

Whose books came
through.'
which only ivh- occurs and th- does not Whose came through ? Which books do you ivant?
What do you want? Why did you do this/ On what day did he disappear? In the first sentence the word containing ivh- can be replaced, aside fiom the intonation, by the, my: My books came through. Hence the ivhwords which occur in that position, namely whose, what, which T. In the second sentence, we can substitute it, the books: The books came
through.
Hence the wh- sequences which occur
in this position
equal a
whole noun phrase: who, what, which

*
A'''.
Since th never occurs alone, and

is
we may say that there when -is, etc., do not follow

-at,
is expressed by hence the (which = T) is not sufficient, while this = T -\- N. " This would involve an equation T'T^ = T^ for these members of T. A partial analog for this is to be found in the equations all + T = T
/ like this
distribution from -is, is the variant of th it. The fact that the does not replace this in t here must occur an A' saying that in / like
-e differs in
no
-e
moi'pheme,
the
-\- cardinal number = T {some years ago.). The relevance of these equations here lies in the fact that when by themselves all and cardinal numbers usually occur in the position of T: all, three, my, some all occur in / want books back. ^^ This is not a contrastive zero like that used in morphology, but merely indicates that, aside from .selection, it can be replaced by zero in the syntactic equations. R. S. Wells points out that assigning zero value to some morphemes constitutes the setting up of a new (zero) class, no less than if the new class had any other new value.
{all
my
for
my
in
We
lost
books) and T
three for
some
in It
happened
292
if
we can substitute this book for which we change the order (for the justification, see chapter 16, fn. 34): Do you want this book? Hence the wh- phrases which occur here equal a noun phrase in object (post-]') position: whose N^, what A'',
In the third and fourth sentences,
books or what,
which
A'^,
who, what, which
A'''.
and sixth sentences we can substitute /or a good reason: Did you do this for a good reason? Hence why, when, where, how, P whose N^, P what A'^ P which N\ all equal PA'^ If we summarize all these conclusions we find that they agree on the following: who, what, which = A'^ if no A^^ follows, but = T if A''^ follows (in the latter case who has an added -s morpheme); why, when, where,
In the
fifth
how = PA'*. Now, the morpheme whis the first in each of these words, and we would like to find one value for it in all these positions. Since there is no morpheme class which can be the first member of sequences equalling T, and A'*, and PA'*, we may take wh- as T before -o, -at, -ich, and as P before -y, -en, -ere, -ow. Then -o, -at, -ich = T before A'^, and = iV^
otherwise; and
-y, -en, -ere,
-ow
N*.
The
/,/:
is
intonation of the sentences given above occurs only with sen-
tences beginning with the wh-
morpheme
it
(or
having wh- after

it?).
or
&
or
But why did you

A'*!'*
doitf
Now, why did you do

fell i
When
the wh- phrase

i.e.
followed by a simple verb phrase,
represents the subject;
whis
NW*i =
followed
(What
it
It fell
l).
i.e.
When
wants
the wh- phrase

I
by
R N*V\
represents the object,

I
wh- N^{P)R N* V^
it
=
we
^M yi (P)AM
we can
define
:
+
R
^" (What does he want

A'*F^
= He
A'^'^
i).
Since
never have A'*F^ after wh- words (unless

i
precedes
them
as above),
as the positional variant or value of A'*!'^ i in the
position whFinally,
word N*V^ i we consider the
positions in which both wh-
and
th-
occur:
it
e.g.
which
or that in
here. I
know
The family
it
/ met
lived here.
The family
bought
the
lived
was.
In the family which I met lived here, the wh- word can be replaced
by whom,
met or
the
that,
whose
(in
It
sons', etc.
We
can also substitute
family I
the
family
The family
lived here.) for the
whole phrase
family which I met.
follows that the family which I met,
and each
of its
substitutes, constitutes a
noun phrase
(cf. fn.
A'*.
tions of the corpus as a whole
58)
From the sequence substituwe know that the family I met is

family I met are
the
N^NWd* =
*^
N*.
Now some
of the substitutes for the
The parentheses
indicate that
P may
be included or excluded from
both sides of the equation.
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
family whose very beautiful daughters I met or
the the
293 family ivhose daughters
new
tenant met or the bus the

in itself,
complete N*
I or the
new tenant takes. Since the new tenant is a new tenant must represent the middle N* of
which or the family whose beautiful daughit
N^N*Vd*. This leaves

ters to
the family
represent the initial A'' of that equation, since
occupies the place
of the family or the bus.

(the
Faced with the situation

it
of taking a
noun phrase
family) and adding something to
(which or that or whose very beau-
tiful daughters)
which nevertheless leaves the whole sequence still a noun we turn again to the analysis of the whole corpus, and find as an analog N^PN^ = N^ (a piece of junk for a book in It's just .) which does
phrase,
precisely this.
We
can say that just as the
PN*
here
is
an appendage to
the
N^
so
is that,
or the phrase introduced
by wh-. Of
course,
PN*
can be
way to almost any A'^^, while that or the wh- phrase can only be added when N'^Vd* (/ met, etc.) follows; but that will merely have to
added
in this
be indicated in the present analysis.

that
We may
N*Vd*
therefore say that A^'
+ +
N*Vd* = N^
-{-
wh- phrase
N*. Since very beautiful
daughters
A''-,
the phrase whose very beautiful daughters
= T
(ivh-)
(-ose)
A^^
A^^ Similarly, which and that in this position would be
analyzed as
N^ =
A^'.
The family which I met would therefore be
N^N^N^Vd'^ and would equal N^N'^Vd*

appearance of N^N^
A'^' is
N*, as in the family I met.
The
instead of one
A'^'
would occur only when the second

A^' A^'
that or a
A'^')
wh- phrase. The analogy of this

PN*^,
(which equals the
single
to
A'^^
which also equals a single
A^', is
heightened by
the fact that
we can
also substitute the family with which I boarded or the
family from whose beautiful daughters I learned German, which are cases of A''' PN^ (the second A'^^ beginning only with wh-, not that) equalling
the
N'
of
N^ N*
F/.^"*
When we
lyze
ATS Ar4 Vd*
substitute whichever I met for the family I met,

as
whichever
+T+
A'^
A''^
constituting
the
first
we ana.V of we have
= N\
In sentences like The family which bought the house lived here,
" In the case of A'Â^'A^M'^'' (the family ivhose sons I met), the verb is never followed immediately by a noun phrase. We may therefore say replace the object of the verb, exactly as does the A^' in that the N^N'Vd' {the faynily I met). In the case of A'^ PiV' A^^ V'/ {the family with whose sons I played bridge) the verb is occasionally followed by a noun phrase indicating object (played bridge is Vd*N*). This parallels the formula NW^Ve^P (the family 1 played bridge with, cf. fn. 59), since y/A'4 = I'/. The P of N'PN^ here thus replaced the P of \\*P, and the .VIV' (which remain from the X^PI\''') replaces the A'' exactly as it
A^W
(lid in
the
first
case.
294
{that,
the same substitutions
who, whose sons) as in the preceding case,
except that the wh- word cannot be replaced by zero.*^

the
the
family which by whichever, whatever people, family which bought

is
it
etc.
We may And we may

A''',
replace replace
by
the family. In the last analysis, therefore,

it
the sentence
A' '!''.
The family which bought

i.e.
A''*
consisting of
A'''
plus a wh- phrase (or that) plus 1'^
A'^
ivh-
word
V\^^
wh- N^ N* V/ = N* (the family which I met) of the we can equate the wh- word here with the wh- N^ established above. To do so, we make the morpheme after wh- or th- equal N^, while wh- and th- may be included in the class T. Then which = T + N^ = A', and the family which bought it = A'^ + A' + V* = A'^ And the family whose sons bought it = N'^ + T + T + N^ -\- V* = jî ^n 1^4 = j^r4 Qj^ ^j^g basis of substitutability, we say that whoever
Comparing the
A''
preceding case,
bought
it
or whatever people bought

A^^,
it
also equals A'^ A^^T^^
A^, with wh-
as a preliminary T, -at as
and
-ever or -ever people as the
second
A^
The formula here, N^NW*, differs in two respects from the N^N^N*Vd* of the preceding case (the family which I met) and the A^ N* V/ above {the family I met). First, it lacks the A'^ the one not
including the ivh- word. Secondly, whereas in the preceding type and in
N^N*Va* the
sub-class of
T'
Avas Vd, with
W or FA' occurring only when

on the V. That
is
associated with P, here
we have no
restriction
to say
that whereas in the other cases Ave had met {Vd) or played bridge with
{V
NP
VeP), here we have bought

final
A'^
it
(F
A^
=
T^''*
F^).
We
can therefore
the formal
say that the
which
is
is
included in the
of the present case reis
places the initial
A' which
lacking in the present case. This
feature which corresponds to the fact that the A' included in the F^,
and
the
initial A'^ of
the Vd* formulas, both indicate the object of verb: the

the
jamily which bought
house {N*
A' V*)
the
house which the family bought
(A3 A^ A^
Vd'^)\ the
house the family bought {N^

A^^ occurs in the
N*
Vd*). All three seA^'*
quences equal N*, and when this

family which bought
bought
^^
sequence
V*/./(The
the
house
is pretty quiet.
The house
ivhich the fa?nily
is pretty quiet.) it is
semantically the subject phrase of the verb.
One
is
after
difference is that who usually occurs with following -m when it or in object position, but occurs without the -m in this case.
The treatment of -m in whom, him-, etc., has been omitted from these equations in the interest of simplicity. However, the techniques used here can be used to identify the object position and the morpheme -m which occurs in it. Some indication of the distributional basis is given in fn. 67. ^^ The family is marked A' ^ here because we can substitute the girl 1 V*) lived loved for it, and say The girl 1 loved (N*) who jilted me {wh
here once.
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
The The
verb
first
295
of
each sequence
is
then the subject-noun for that verb V.

in the three se-
different positions
which house and family occupy
quences, then, permit either one of

{is
them to occur
as subject of the new-
pretty quiet), while each retains a fixed semantic relation to the
verb of the original A^* (bought).

Lastly, consider / knov) that
whose, whose book, from what place for that.
which case we have

analysis)
:
We can substitute what, which, who, We can also substitute zero, in V/NH'* = Vd^N* = Y ^ (from the general English
it
was.
I know he was.
I know
it
that.
Since that
it
was equals a sub-
ordinate (secondarily stressed)

phrase,
was, which equals an object

is
we can say
that that
it
was
A^W^F^ =
first
is
stitutable wh- phrases equal that,
i.e.
the
noun The various subN^:from what place is P wh

A"^.*^
first A^^ of
T N' = P T T N^ = PN^ =
place
it
A^^ and
in I
thus the
from what
came,
came (N^N*V* =
A"'*)
know from what
place
it
;VM y^2
^4 = ^4
YÂ
All the occurrences of wh-
and
if
th-
words have here admitted
of the
same
analysis: wh-
and
th-
are included in T: the
bound morphemes that

exact statement can
follow
them
are included in
a noun or noun phrase without article
(A^^) follows,
and are included
in A^^ otherwise.
An
be given as to which bound morphemes occur in which positions. But
how shall we state the distribution of wh- and th-1 In the case of the other morphemes which have been included in various morpheme classes, we know where they occur: dog or the dog may occur, with minor limitations, wherever we have an A'''. In the case of wh- and th-, the occurrence is highly restricted. They occur not in the full range of T positions, but only whenever a post-iy/i- or post-</i- morpheme occurs. When wh- occurs with i intonation, its meaning is interrogative; otherwise its meaning is relative, i.e. it puts the morpheme following it in apposition with the preceding A^' or V^. And th- has relative meaning in the positions in which it can be replaced by wh-, and demonstrative meaning
elsewhere.
Appendix to
tions
16.4:
From
Classes of
Morphemes
to Classes of Posi-
The
process of equating sequences of
morphemes
to our
morpheme
classes has
wrought certain changes
in the character of the original
in
'^Here again we have object nouns following the subordinate verb some cases {that it killed him), not in others {whom it killed). Again we say that wh- words which never have object nouns after their vorl)s
it:
themselves indicate the object. We can further substitute what for that I know what was. Here what was is the subordinate uNV.
296
classes.
Manj'
of these classes are
now substitutable not
only for
members
of their
own
class,
but also for sequences containing members of other
classes. E.g.
substitutable for
TA = N* (which includes TA = TN^) means that A' is A if T precedes (and if no A'^ follows).*' True, the A
from the
A'
morphemes in that they substitute for A' morphemes substitute for each other everywhere. Correspondingly, by the time we have completed our equational statements, the classes on the right hand side of the
morphemes
differ
only in stated environments, whereas A'
equations no longer overlap in environment, as did the classes of chapter 15."
The morpheme
classes
and
A'
overlapped after T, but

fact that the
of the
is
now
is
the whole sequence
TA
is
equated to
A"'*,
and the
.4
of this
equation contains the same morphemes as the
sequence .4A'
irrelevant to chapter 16. Overlapping in environment
thus eliminated
by
letting one class,
which in some position
is
substitutable for another

class,
class,
be equated
in that
environment to that other
and be therechanges
after disregarded except in the definition of that other class.

If
the operation of chapter 16 begins with the classes of 15.3

classes to position classes.'" If
it
it
them from morpheme
begins with the
**
Since
of
N in exactly the same way that another member of A' would take the reclarge, as well as beer, replace records in have replaced ords. A and N would appear to be members of the same class here, almember
it:
TA = TN =
N, we have utterances
in
which
replaces a
I'll
though they differ when A' alone replaces TA (Fll take beer.), as also positions where they do not replace each other at all (no A' for large
the large dry beer).
*3
in
in
The morpheme
class
environments
of
the resultant
classes
of
and V, are necessarily mutually exclusive. For let us chapter 15, say had equalled suppose that in a particular environment .4 a sequence = A V, and only one of these, either both A' and V. Then .4A'l' = A A or A V would have been the resultant (by 15.22). However, there may be cases of morphemes or segment variants of morphemic units in two distinct classes having identical phonemic forms, so that in particular utterances the phonemic environment of A' and that of V may be identical. E.g. yur in./ is / -Xa = .4 plus A' as an answer to Where shall we go to? {Your inn.), but / = A' plus V plus P as an answer to How did I make out? (You're in.).
XY
similarity of, say, class G (book, take) to classes A' (life, house) (grow, wither) (Appendix to 15.32) comes out in the course of statwould have A'^ -s = A'' (houses for house) and also ing the equations. = G^ -s = A'^ (books for book) V^P = V^ (grow up for grow) and also G (take up, book up for take). In general, since G occurs whenever A' or V
'"
The
and
We
occurs, we will have an equation with G paralleling every one containing either A^ or V. If the new position classes tend to contain all the morphemes or sequences which occur in a particular range of environments,
MORPHEME SEQUENCES
classes of 15.4,
final
it
297
groups them on the basis of environment until the
resultant classes of chapter 16 are as nearly complementary in en-
vironment as possible.
Consider the treatment of morpheme classes having overlapping environments.
The morphemes
like
ynari,
environments
in It is a
The
disappeared, and also in

It is
prince, etc. (say, class Q) occur in

It is
ly art
(but not
al art).
In contrast, duke, form, etc. (class R) also occur in

a
The
disappeared, and in
16.
al art but not in

= A
// is
ly art.
Q and
thus overlap in environments. This overlapping comes out in the
equations of chapter
There
is
Q-ly
(manly for
great),
and
(formal for great), but for
all
other equations involving

:
will
be a similar equation containing the other
Q or Q -s = N^ (men for
s
R -al = R there
books,
book),
-s
.W^ (foryns for books)
AQ = N
(old prince for book),
(new forms for book). Environments like

A'^':
= N^ and A
=N
AR =
thus define a position class

stitute for each other, in
tion, the
and other morpheme classes subthese positions. For the purposes of this posiQ, R,
members
of Q, R, etc.,
can
all
be lumped together into one posiA"' -s
tion class, with
no relevant difference among them:

position, in
A'^'.
The remaining
which
Q and
are distinct classes, can be
treated in either of two ways.
We
can recognize small position classes
Q and
also
R, which occur only before

of A''.
-ly, -al,
and
is
all of
whose members are
members
of Q,
The morpheme man
now
member both
of A''
and
of
and form both of A"' and of R. This would satisfy the criteria morpheme-overlapping and complementary environments for position
However, we may also wish to note,
for other purposes, the fact that
classes.
the total membership of Q, R, and the group of positions before
all
the other small classes occurring in

entirely included in the
etc.,
-ly, -al, etc., is
mem-
bership of
in
A'^'
A''.
This can be indicated by saying that Q, R,

-ly, -al, etc.,
are included
even when they occur before
the only difference being
then all the morphemes of G can be contained in A" (although they also occur in non-A^ positions), and all of them can also be contained in ]' (although they also occur in non-T positions). As position classes, therefore, .V contains hou.se, life, book, take, etc., while ]'' contains grow, wither, book, take, etc. The membership of A'' and T' now overlap, but are environmentally differentiated (like the classes of 15.4): e.g. if we find book in N position (in an environment in which it is replaceable by life) we know it is there a member of N. We may now eliminate the equations containing G, since the N and V equations include all its members. Cf. chapter 15, fn. 27.
298
that whereas in position of
A'^'
all
other positions every
member of A'^' can
occur in every
new positions, into which N^ has been extended, only certain sub-classes (i.e. only some members) of .V occur (before -bj only Q. which we may mark now as Na', before -al only R, which we may mark now as Nb)- The usefulness of including Na and A''6 in N is increased if the environments which differen(e.g.
both prince and
dxtke before -s), in these
tiate .Vo
from
iV6, i.e.
which force us to recognize sub-classes
in
A'^,
can
themselves be considered in the same

general position class.
in
A'^
way
as sub-classes of
some more
+ Na =
A,
i.e.
after
Thus we have a class Na {-ish, -like) which occurs any sub-class of A'^ such as Na, Nb, etc. If we
(each of which occur in the place of
now consider -ly,
-al, etc.
Na but after
etc.,
only one sub-class of
each) as sub-classes of Na, say Noa, Nob,
we have the equations Na

can be summarized
in
Noa = A,
N'b
Nob = A,
A'^ -|-
etc., all of
yl
.
which
un-
the position-class equation
Na =
It is
derstood that this equation, unlike our previous ones, holds not for every
member
Since
of the classes involved
but only for certain members (or sub-
classes).'''
summary equations
which sub-class
like A^
of
+ Na
^1
do not show the special

of the
selections of other,
it is
one occurs with which sub-class
impossible to eliminate from our records the explicit sub-class
equations.
"'
This alternative method

In
its
is
summary equation above and

class.
(or, A'a,
to
mentioned here because an extended definition
it
leads to the
classes Q,
of the position
Nb) and
form, however, it is a case of relations A'*, and belongs under 17.32.
among
17.
MORPHEIMIC LONG COMPONENTS

etc.)
17.0.
Introductory
classes. It leads to the recognition of
This section considers the rehitions of selection (government,
among morpheme
terns,
paradigmatic pat-
and
of
components which express the distributional relations
among morphemes.^
17.1.
Purpose: Relations
classes, other
among Morpheme
Classes
We
pheme
seek to express compactly the remaining relations
among mor(3.
than those which are explicitly indicated in 13
We
consider the distribution of
morphemes
in
relative to each other in
utterances of our corpus.
The
relation of
complementary distribution
chapter
14.
was expressed
in chapter 13,
and generalized
sequences.
of substitutability
in
was expressed
in chapter 15 for single
The relation morphemes and
chapter 16 for
morpheme
Various relations, however, were disregarded or not explicitly brouglit

out in these sections. For example, there was no explicit discussion of the
relative distribution of the
morpheme
classes
which were grouped
to-
gether into the general classes of 15.32, or of the overlapping in mor-
pheme membership among the

pendix to
16.4.
position classes of 15.4
and
of the
Ap-
In the classes of chapter 15 no notice was taken of such
relations as the relative distribution of
segment members within each
morpheme, and no indication was given as to identities in such relations throughout the morphemes of a class, or between the morphemes of one
class
and the morphemes
of another. in
Similarly,
class
no study was made

class
chapter 16 of the relation of one
to
some other
B in all
the sequences in which
and
B occur.
All these correlations are not necessary for the construction of utter-
ances in the corpus.
The procedures
is
of
13-6
suffi(;e
to
show how every
utterance in the corpus
constructed out of the morphological elements
established in chapter 12. However, the treatment of chapter 17 offers
ters 17
Whereas chapter 16 covered primarily what is called syntax, chapand 18 parallel most of what is usually considered morphology proper. This order of treatment was most convenient for the methods de'
veloped here. It is also possible, however, to treat the morijhemic relations within whole-utterance environment (syntax) after the relations within smaller domains (morphology proper).
299
;U)0
STRUCTURAL LINCJUISTICS
morphemes and
their occur-
additional general statements about the

rence,
and makes the detailed description
of utterances for the
whole
corpus more compact.

17.2.
Preliminaries to the Procedure: Disregarding the Rest of the l Iterance

chief relations
The
among morphemes which

and
will
be treated here are
their relative limitations of distribution,
their correlations with
various other features such as junctures. In 16.5
currence of one class rejative to
all
sequences containing
we considered the it; here we
ocin-
vestigate the occurrence of one class relative to another.
The occurrence
of
one class
.4
relative to another
is
limited
if
A and
occur together, while
and C do
not, in
some
utterances.
if
We
A
also say
that the occurrence of class
relative to
is
limited,
the sequences
AB, DB,
thing in
DC
occur, but not
AC
or
EB}
Distributionally,
has some-
common with its neighbor B, which it does not have with C; and A has something in common with D which replaces it (even though D also occuis in positions where .4 does not), while it has nothing in common
with E.
In
all
these cases
we
are dealing with the co-occurrences of
.4
and B,
or
with the substitution of

rest of the utterance
A and
be.
D, in
all
utterances, no matter what the
may
The
considerations of chapter 17 therefore
do not
require, as did chapter 16, that the rest of the utterance be held
:
constant in
many
cases
we may even disregard the
rest of
the utterance,
and deal
onlj^
with the parts of the utterance containing the classes under
consideration.
All these cases
may
be considered partial distributional identities
among the classes

vironments;
in question:
A and B have identical
distribution in that
each occurs in the other's neighborhood in certain total utterance en-
A and D
the environment
B, even
have
identical distribution in that each occurs in

if
the rest of the utterance environment

for
may
be different for
AB than
it is
DB. The
identity
is
only in some of the
^ If AC also occurred, then (as far as this data goes) A and D would be put into the same class (since both would occur in the same environments B, C) but we are assuming that A and D are not in the same class, i.e. that there are environments in which one occurs and the other does not. The non-occurrence of EB shows that not all the morphemes of B while other classes the corpus occur in B, i.e. A and D occur in C while A (as well as do not, and D (as well as other classes) occurs in other classes) does not.
MORPHEMIC LONG COMPONENTS

occurrences: there
else
301
or
must be environments in which A, B, they would all have constituted the same morpheme
differ, or
class.
17.3.
Procedure: Morphemes Occurring Together Share a
Com-
ponent
We
classes
express the partial distributional identity of any two
morpheme
in
by
saying; that these

If classes
two
classes
have a morphemic component
common.
A and B
occur together in certain utterances while

that
is
A and C do
not,
we may say
and
each contain or represent a

If .4
morphemic component which

occur in the environment
B, whereas E and G do not occur there, we

among
not represented by C.
and
each
say that A and D, as well as the environment B, each represent a morphemic component which is not represented by E and G (or by C).'
may
Many
i.e.
different cases of partial distributional identity
classes,
many
different conditions of limited co-occurrence or substitution,
occur in various languages.
The
exact
manner
of following out the pro-
cedure of 17.3 in each case varies with the particular conditions and with
the relation to the rest of the corpus.
17.31. Classes
Which Accompany Each Other

is
The
simplest case
that of classes which always occur together.
Thus
English morphemes
-ceive, -cur, -mit, etc.

re-, con-, per-, etc.
never occur without a preceding
morpheme such
as
Particular
of the
morphemes
:
of the first
group occur only with particular ones
second
perceive, permit,
but
not percur. Nevertheless, we can briefly
sum up
the facts about each
morpheme
^
as follows:
we
define the first group {-ceive, etc.) as consti-
In brief:
AB DB
We say
is
occurs,
"
,
EB GB
does not occur,

"
" "
,
EC GC
occurs,
"
AC
does not occur,
that A, D, and B all contain a morphemic component .Y, which not contained in E, G, or C. The residue of A D, and B after ext racmay, for convenience, be identified with E, G, and C respection of = D, C -^ = B. The = A,G may be extracttively: E able as a specific phonemic sequence or morpheme, as in the case of -ess: author -\- ess = authoress; or it may be definable only as a symbol of a relation among morphemes, as in the case of cow: bull -\- F = cow (see 17.31). The identity of this operation with that of chapter 10 is obvious. Morphemes which extend over several morphemic lengths, or are spread out among them, have been noted in 12.32 and 12.34 (and the Appendices to 6.1, 6.6). Cf. the analysis of contrasted morphemes and morpheme sequences into 'merkmalhaftig' and 'merkmallos' (based on the
,
+X
+X
parallel analysis in
phonology, cf. ch. Zur Struktur des russischen Verbums,
10, fn. 51) in

in
Roman
Jakobson,
Charisteria Gulielmo Mathesio
74 (1932).
;}02
STRUCTl'RAL LINCiUISTICS
S
tutinp a general class
and the second group
as a general class E;
we
member of ^S occurs without some members of E, and that most members of E do not occur without some member of ^S after them. The statements as to which members of S occur with which members of E will be made in the detailed equations of chapter 16. However, the fact that no member of one of these classes occurs without some member of the other (except for statable cases) could be indicated here by extracting a long component v which extends over both S and E. The individual members of E and S are then indicated by differentiations in the first and second position of the v domain. The v has in general the same positions as the T' class of chapter 16 (lose, come, etc.). The comthen state that no
p(;nent v thus indicates a single element (even
though
it
is
two units
it
long) parallel to the single-morpheme,

is
and
also longer,
]'
with which
positionally identical.
In Semitic,
members
of the class v
(Modern Hebrew
-a-a- indicating
action, -i-e- indicating transitive action, etc.) never occur without
mem{-e-e-
bers of the class
(spr
'tell',
bud
'learn', etc.),
nor do members of n
'object', -i-u- 'object of -i-e- action', etc.)
occur without R.
R never occurs
'a
without either
v or n: safar, 'he counted', siper 'he told', sefer 'book',
sipur 'story', lamad 'he studied', limed 'he taught', limud

study'.
subject of
n occurs in the positions of A'^ {hen 'son', bdyit 'house', etc.): haben sel axi 'my brother's son (lit. the son of my brother)', hasefer sel axi 'my brother's book'. R -\- v, however, occurs in positions in which no single morpheme occurs: there is no single morpheme which occurs in the position of lamad {Imd + -a-a-) in hu lamad hetev 'he studied well'. We may extract from i? -f n, a two-unit component N, which has much the same distribution as iV; and from R + v, a two-unit component v, nvhich has a distribution different from that of any other class. These two components would be useful in our description, because of the syntactic equivalence of n and A', and because of the importance of the n and v positions for our description. With each N or V there would then occur two differentiations: one from the original R class (usually 2 or 3 consonants), and one from either the n or f classes
(usually
1
The sequence R
or 2 vowels).
These differentiating elements could be mor-
phemically identified with any elements which do not occur with x or v
and which are therefore complementary to
these.''
* In particular, the differentiating elements of the second n position can be morphemically identified with those of the second v position. I.e. each of the original v (say, -is-) can be paired with some n (say, -i-u-), into a single morpheme (say, -i-x-). The difference between the paired
In all cases where chapter 16

sultant
MORPHEMIC LONG COMPONENTS shows XY = Z we can

first
303
say that the re-
is
a long component whose

of
position
is
differentiated
}'.
by
various
members
X and the second by members of
Alternatively,
we can say that Z is composed of two parts Zi and Z2, the former being a member of X and the latter of }'. The second method is the more convenient when the Z is a class of only one or a few morphemes. Thus in Moroccan Arabic dial = DP (1G.32), dia was assigned as a new member of D, and as a new member of P; this was especially advantageous since could be identified with a known member of P, and dia be considered an alternant of a rare member d of D. This second method may not be desirable in the case of large classes, e.g. English proper names = TN,
I I /
or I
= TN
(Clarkson or he substitutable for a young fellow in

If
can't
make good here)}

of
we sought
to assign one part of each proper name, or
member of /, to T, and the remainder to A'', we would have to great many arbitrary divisions into T and A' elements which would occur only with each other. We therefore leave each proper name or member of / as a whole morpheme, and say that it equals TN, i.e. N* (16.21). The use of the higher numbered, more inclusive, symbols of 16.21 thus parallels the first method of the preceding paragraph: Given I = TN^ =
each
make a
A''',
we can say
of
that A'^
is
a long component extending over the sequence

in
(of
one or more morphemes) TN^, the residue
whose
first
position are
members
of A'^ (e.g.
T and the residues in whose any AN, ANs, etc.).^
second position are members
17.32. Restrictions
among
Sub-classes
is
frequent type of limitation
that in which
members
of
one sub-
class of a general class occur with each other,
but do not occur with
(-i-e- and -i-u-) is now attributed to the occurrence of the newly unified member -r'-x- with v in one ctuse and with N in the other. This is particularly useful in certain Semitic languages, e.g. Arabic, since particular n may be similar to particular v in the selection of particular R with which both occur. One of the n and one of the v can also be considered zero for the second positions of N and v respectively.
elements
^ Similarly, Semitic morphemes for 'he', 'his', 'him', and the like are substitutable for article plus noun. Cf. chapter 16, fn. 29.
T,
and
'
we might have to divide he into /h/, as a morpheme member of morpheme member of N. Just as we derived general statements concerning all the sequences
I'lg.
/iy/, as a
in
which a particular
class appears, or all the resultants to
which these
sequences are equated (16.5), so we can here derive general statements concerning all the sequences which are equated to a particular resultant.

304
,,
of
members
etc.
another sub-class of the same general
class.
Thus
in the
Eng-
lish general class A'
we have
Of
all
book, artist, author, cow, bull, king, queen,
In the sequence class A'* (16.21)

I, etc.
our cow, he, she, the two -V

together in
:
we have this old-fashioned artist, members occur together in positions* of A'^Fb^V*. One group of members which occur these A' positions may be called A'/ and contains she, cow,
these, certain
of
queen, etc. She's a good cow, She will remain as queen. The cow is the queen
of
farm animals. Another group
members which occur together
in
these A' positions
may
be called A'^ and contains
he, bull, king, etc.:
He's a fine
bull. He'll
remain as king, The
bull is the king of farm animals.
Members of A^ hardly ever occur with members of A'^ in the environment NVbN. If the first A' of A'T'Â' is he or the bull, the second A' will not
be she or queen: our corpus
will
not contain
What
breed of bull
is
she?
Utilizing the operation of 17.3,
we may
define an element f
which
is
common
in
of
members of Nf, and which extends over both A' positions ATfcA". Then each member of A'/ is differentiated from each member Nm by that fact that the former contain the morphemic component f.
to
all
Since no
member
of A'^ contains this
component, each A'^
is
comple-
mentary to each Nf. We may therefore identify each Nf with some one Nm, on the basis of their occurrence in identical environments except for the F component (13.43). On this basis we would associate cow with bull, queen with king, she with he.^ She would then be he plus the f component
queen would be king plus
f, etc.'
which contains be, remain, and in A: Your share will remain large. ^ E.g. king and queen are among the few members of A^ which would appear in The -present of England has reigned for fifteen years. In some cases the member of Nf and the member of A' which we would naturally pair together on the basis of meaning turn out to occur mostly in different environments: cow and bull do not substitute for each other in: That cow's a good milker. We've got twenty cows and one bull on our farm, bullfight, cock-and-bull story. Even here, however, it will usually be possible
* Vb indicates the sub-class of general such others as occur in A'^
show that it is distributionally simpler to associate coiv with bull than with any other member of A'^. ' This is similar to w}iat was done in the case of other morphemic elements which always occurred together in particular environments the two positions are both bon (12.323). In the environment fili filled by a, or both filled by us (just as in Ar6A^ the two A' positions are both Nf or both A'). In that case we set up a single long morpheme a a extending over both positions; similarly we set up here a single long component f extending over both A' positions. Two major differences distinguish the present case from that of 12.323. First, the extended a a by itself filled the two positions of fili bon
to

In considering the particular case of the N/ sub-class,
that there are several
of Nf,
305
we find further morphemes which may not themselves be members
but which have the following property: the sequence consisting
of some member of Nm plus one of these morphemes is a member of Nf. Thus -ess and -ix are not members of N/, but authoress, princess, aviatrix, are (while author, prince, aviator are members of N^)- She, woman, lady, madam, are themselves members of Nf; but their combination with members of N^ yields new members of Nf: she-elephant, woman writer, lady dog, Madam Secretary}^ It is only particular members of Nm that combine with particular ones of these Nn or Nf morphemes to yield Ihe new Nf members. The morphemes, such as -ess and woman-, which transpose A'm into Nf can be considered (in these environments) members of the F component. Given such members of Nf as cow or queen, we cannot say what part of them represents the f component which they contain. Given such members of Nf as authoress or woman writer, we say that -ess and woman- are the respective morphemic members in these environments of the morphemic component f. Finally, there are many members of ^V which occupy one of the A''
could be regarded simply as a morpheme occupying both places. places, however, are filled by various particular members of Nf, so that it is not enough to set up the extended f element over both occurs in each posipositions; we must also indicate which member of tion. Second, the phonemic differences between each Nm and its paired Nf are highly variegated (e.g. between bull and cow, hoy and girl). It would therefore be inefficient to assign some phonemic part of cow or girl as member of an f morpheme (as, one might say, a phonemic part of filia is assigned to the a morpheme), while leaving the remainder of cow and girl as members of the bull and boy morphemes respectively. The F is thus a morphemic component, not. a morpheme. The general problem of the grammatical concord that is involved here as well as in 12.323 has been widely discussed. Cf. for example, Edward Sapir, Language 100; V. Mathesius, Double negation and grammaticuil concord, in Melanges J. van Ginnoken 79 83 (1937).
so that
it
The two
" Note that these morphemes which transpose Nm into A^ are not members of one position class in terms of chapter 16. She, woman, etc. are members of A', and their combination with writer, etc., is a case of 'NhN = N (or uN'N = N); in particular 'NfNm' = Nf (where the Nf and Nm' represent the particular members of Nf and A^ respectively
which enter into these sequences). In contrast, -ess and -ix are of Nn, together with the -eer of engineer and -hood of boyhood which do not yield Nf; and their combination with prince, aviator, etc., is a case of A^ Nn = A', or in particular Nm"Nnf = Nf (where Nm" and Nnf represent the particular members of A' and vVn respectively which
members
enter into these sequences).
;?06
A'^
positions in A' TkA' whether the other
is
Nm
or N/: She is
an
artist,
He
is
an
artist.
We may say
A'^ is
that the f component fails to extend to the

if
second A' when that

then the f
artist,
one of these members. Or,
we
wish,
we can
is
say that these morphemes are members of A'm and also members of A7;
is
contained in she and in artist in the utterance She

artist in
an
but
is
not contained in he or in
the utterance the
He is an artist.
of
The
relative limitation of distribution
among
members
A7 can
thus be expressed by extracting a long morphemic component f which

extends over the positions in which the limitation applies; the residue of
each Nf can then be identified, some member of the class which

bution in question.'^
17.33.
if
convenient, with
some
A'^,
i.e.
with
is
excluded from the limitation of
distri-
Sub-classes Representable by Several

often find a
Components
which
We
number
of
morphemes
or sub-classes each of
all of
occur in a different utterance environment, but
which occur always
with some one other class. This is seen most generally in what are called noun case-endings, or tense and person conjiagations of verbs. Thus if we compare Latin hortus bonus est 'It is a good garden', and campus
bonus
den'
est 'It is
a good
field'
'I
with ego in horto fui
'I
have been
in the gar-
and
ego in
campojui
have been
in the field',
we
see that -us occurs
in certain utterance
environments and
-0 in certain
other ones, but that
both us and
containing
occur always with one or another
member
of the class
hort-,
camp-. Following 17.3,
morphemic component common to hart-,
we would say that there is a camp-, -us, and -0, and that there
^^ Following 17.2, the substitutions involved in extracting the component are limited to a stated domain. If we identify cow (when it occurs without another A'/) as bull + f, and so on, the f will in this case operate only on the morpheme {bull) with which it is associated. The component F is long, of course, only in the environments such as A'T'tA' for which
defined as long. the basis of this component, the analysis of 16.33 can be made in a somewhat different way, more related to the immediate constituents of 16.54. If we consider the domains over which f can extend, we find that there are two domains available to f in She made him a good husband: in one domain (she) F is present, in the other domain (him a good husband) F is absent. Similarly, there are two domains available in she made him a good wife: in one domain (she ... a good wife) f is present, and in the other (him) f is absent. The two clauses differ (somewhat in the sense of chapter 16, fn. 34) because in one case the noun following good is in one domain with (and so refers to) him (in respect to f), while in the other case it is in one domain with (and refers to) she. We can consider the first clause as consisting of she -\- made -\- him a good hisband, and him. the second of she ... a good wife -\- made
it is
On

is
307
utterance
its
a component (which
we may mark
environment, and another ance environment.
common to -us and its component (a) common to -o and

n)
utter-
horti
The analysis becomes more complicated, however, when we compare bom erant 'they were good gardens' and vlginti hortl erant 'there
'I
were twenty gardens there' with ego in hortlsfui

dens'
have been
in the gar-
and
ego in mginti horils fui
'I
have been
of
in
twenty gardens'.
hart-.
We
But
have here additional members

while
of the class
which occurs with

-i
many
of the utterance
environments
and
-Is
are identical with
those of -us and -o respectively,
we
find certain partial environments,
such as mginti,
-us
in
which
-%
and
-Is
occur while -us and -6 do not. Hence,
and
-is;
-I
have certain features

-us
of
environment
of
in
common
as against -6
and
and
-%
and
-o
have other features

that -o and
of -us
-is
environment
in
common
-Is
as
against
and
-is.
We say
each contain the component a
as against the
component n
and
-i;
but also that
-I
and
each
contain a component p as compared with the component s contained in

-us
and
-6}^
Additional complications appear
when
is
these
morphemes occur with

is
only a sub-class of some general class, while parallel sets of morphemes

occur with other sub-classes. This
the case in what
called
noun
est
gender or different verb conjugations. Thus by the side of hortus bonus
we have mensa bona est 'It is a good table', and by the side of hortl bonl erant we have mensae bonae erant 'They were good tables'. This can be treated after the manner of the Appendix to 12.323-4. Since hort- never occurs without one of the morphemes -us 'nominative', -o 'ablative', -uni 'accusative', etc., we can say that one of these is automatic (dependent)
in respect to hort-;
i.e. it
occurs whenever hort- occurs, and
is
therefore,
despite
-us,^*
apparent independence, not a distinct morpheme. If we select our morphemes are now hortus 'garden', -us -^ -o 'ablative', -m
its
'' Such interrelations, as that of us with I on the one hand and with o on the other (not to mention with camp-), are discussed in Edward Sapir, Language, ch. 5, especially p. 101. '* In some cases of classification it is not essential to select one of the members as primary in respect to the other members classified with it. E.g. in grouping complementary segments into one morpheme, we may regard one member as representing the morpheme, and call the other
members positional variants of that member in stated posit ions. Alternawe can regard the morpheme as a class of members, all equally limited to particular positions. However, in selecting a member of the us, 6 class to be considered part of hort-, we cannot avoid deciding for one
tively,
member
in the
as against the others.
We
can select that

E.g.
if
member which
occurs
most general environments.
o occurs only in the neighbor-
308
STRUGTURAL LINGUISTICS
mens- never occurs without one of the
'accusative', etc.'* Similarly, since

parallel set of
etc.,
morphemes
-a 'nominative', -a 'ablative',
-am
'accusative',
we take one of these as automatic in respect to mens- and set up the morphemes mensa (and mensa a, etc.) 'table', -a -^ -a (and a a -^ ... a ... a) 'ablative', -m (and ... to ... m) 'accusative', etc. We further note that -us -^ -o occurs in the same total utterance environments as -a -a, except that the former follows morphemes ending in us while the latter follows morphemes ending in a. Therefore -a * -a
.
>
can be morphemically identified with -us -^

to
it
-o,
being complementary
phonemically definable preceding environment.'* The unified -us > -o and -a -^ -a 'ablative singular', and also the unified -us -^ -Is and -a > -Is 'ablative plural', contain, together with their
in the
utterance environment, a component a.

this
The component extends over
morpheme
position immediately following the
N and also over part
of the utterance
environment (that part
of the
environment which oc-
curs with these case
the case class). Similarly
morphemes but not with the other morphemes of -to 'accusative singular' and -T -^ -os, -ae -as
'accusative plural' contain, together with their differentiating utterance
environment a component c. Again, -us plural', -vs > -Is and -a -^ -is 'ablative
'accusative plural',
differentiate
all
-I
and
-a
> -ae 'nominative

-os
plural', -us
>
and
-a
^> -as
contain together with the environments which
them from the other morphemes, a component p. The mor-6, -fl -a is thus represented by a; the morpheme -us ^ -is and -a -^ -is by ap; the morpheme -us -^ -i and -a > -ae by p; and so on. The components x and s may be eliminated, since -us/-a 'nominative singular' is no longer a morpheme, but a phonemic part of the A'^ mor-
pheme -us
>
of certain morphemes, and um in the neighborhood of others, while us occurs in a great variety of environments, it is clearly convenient to select us as the member to be included with hort-. The criteria for selecting a basic alternant are not meaning or tradition, but descriptive order, i.e. resultant simplicity of description in deriving the other forms from the base. '^ In some environments, e.g. before an adjective, the first morpheme us, which with bon yields hortvs bonus. The forms will be hortus morpheme is no longer -MS -^ -0, etc., are necessary because once the us, etc.), the addition which is made to hori- but hortus (and hortus it in the .\ environment (the environment of the ablative) consists in dropping of -us and adding of -o (or dropping of ... us ... ws and adding ... o). of ... '* In other cases, the difference in preceding environment between the various gender forms of a case-ending (us * o, a > a, etc.) is not so simply stated.
hood

phemes. Every case morpheme
tion of the presence
is
309
thus identifiable as a unique combinaof a
and absence
few components.
And
the A^ mor-
phemes no longer are

hortus
is
restricted to occur with the case

A''
morphemes, since
taken as the
morpheme
itself.
Furthermore, the same com-
ponents which, when they occur immediately after N, identify the case
morphemes may now be used
to identify those other features of the ut-
terance environment which do not
come immediately
i.e.
after the
but
are diagnostic for the particular case components,
occur only
when
in
these components occur. In
all
such cases, we say that the component
extends not only over the position next to the

the utterance.
17.4.
but also elsewhere
Result: Components Morphemes

of
Indicating Patterned Concurrences of

set
We now have sets
that as nearly as possible
morphemic components (and residues), so all sequences and combinations of them
up
occur,
each sequence or combination identifying one or another of our mor-
phemes
or
morpheme
sequences.
For purposes
of morphological description, these
components are a pre-
ferred set of basic elements.
We
can state the morphology in terms of

of
them, and then add a dictionary-like itemization

languages
what morphemes are
represented by each particular combination of our components. In most
many morphemes
will
remain without being reduced to com-
binations of components; this will include
morphemes and
sub-classes
which have unique limitations

itself to
of occurrence of a
(17.5). All
type that does not lend
component representation
of the
non-componentally repre-
sented
morpheme
classes will, of course, be included together with the
components as elements
morphology. The particular limitations of
the classes and sub-classes (and of the components) which have not been
expressed in the definition of each of these
will
have to be included as
17.5.'^
minor relations among elements,
e.g. in
such equations as those of
Each component represents not only any morpheme which occurs
in
a particular environment, but also the features which differentiate that In view of the similarity between these components and the higherinclusive symbols of 16.21 (as noted at the end of 17.31), we can state the morphology in terms of these inclusive symbols and the components, both of which are our basic long elements, extending over any number of morpheme positions. The relation between such a general morphological description and the individual utterances of our corpus is given by statements of the morphemic differentiators in each position of these long elements. These positional differentiators can be indicated
'^
numbered
310
of other
environment from the environment

each component
only the
is
morphemes.'* Therefore,
it
long,
though
in
some environments
may
involve
morpheme
class in question (in positions
where that morpheme
sub-class does not differ environmentally from other sub-classes of its
general class); in the latter environments the
component has one-morrepre-
pheme
length. It
is
therefore necessary to state, in the definition of each

(or
component, not only what morpheme

sents in each environment, but also
phonemic sequences)
its
it
what
domain
is (i.e.
over which
morpheme classes, residues, or positions it operates) in each environment. Each morpheme can now be identified by a combination of components (plus its own particular residue, if any), each component indicating some of the special limitations of occurrence which this morpheme (or its class) has, but which other morphemes or classes do not. However, it is
not in general convenient to identify particular phonemic parts of each
morpheme with
particular components, because no regularity can be
obtained in the phonemic sequences that would be associated with each
component. This results from the
fact that the
components,
like the
morphemic segments
of each other.
of chapter 12, are elements
which are independent

is
The method used
here in setting up the components

all
comparable to that used to establish the morphemic segments:

therefore independent (in as
interis
dependent features are included in one element, and each element
many environments
as possible) of the other
elements.'^ Since the independent
phonemic sequences were already
represented by the morphemic segments of chapter 12, and since the

simpler groupings of phonemic sequences into independent morphemes
was carried out

fully
little
in chapter 13,
it
follows that any search for yet

is
more
to
independent elements, such as
attempted in
elements.
17.3,
would lead
phonemic regularity
for the
new
By
the same token that
the
new components
are far less restricted in distribution than the origi-
of the equations of chapter 16 (e.g. in TX^ = X*, T and N^ cover the two positions over which X* extends), or by residues which are left after the components are extracted (e.g. in authoress, author is the residue after f is extracted in 17.32), and so on.
by means
'* In particular, those other morphemes which have mental difference as against the morphemes in question,
least environe.g.
the other
sub-classes of the
in our utterance
all interdependent phonemes were included in one segment. In the case of the morphemic components, all interdependent morphemic choices in an utterance arc included in one component.
same general class. " In the case of the morphemic segments,

nal
311
morphemic segments, they are

in each
far less regular in their

in
phonemic con-
tent. Therefore, rather
than define the components
terms of their pho-
nemic content
entirely,
environment, and thus supersede the morphemes
we
define the
components
in particular
in
terms
of
morphemes and mor-
pheme
of
classes, leaving these, as before, to
be ultimately defined in terms
phonemic sequences
environments.
The
fact that in
many
positions one or another of the
components
may
tion
extend over more than one morpheme (over the morpheme in ques-
and over at least one morpheme of the diagnostic environment) makes it all the more undesirable to identify the components phonemically. The length variability of the components, which raises them above the restrictions of the single morphemes, is the feature in which they differ fundamentally from a mere noting of the relations among morpheme classes.^" Because of their length, these components express not only the relation among morphemes which substitute for each other in a particular environment, but also the relation between these morphemes and the
17.5.
It
differentiating feature of that environment."
Restrictions Not Represented by
Components
may
not be convenient to represent by means of components such
limitations of occurrence
other limitations involving the
among morphemes as do not intersect with same morphemes (as in 17.33 and its Ap-
^ Aside from this, the components can be considered as indicating relations among morphemes or classes. They thus closely parallel, though in the form of elements rather than of relations or clasS'es, the grammatical constructs known as categories: cf. E. Sapir, Language ch. 5; L. Bloomfield, Language 270-3; B. L. Whorf, Grammatical categories,
Lang. 21.1-11 (1945).
" While the components continue the search for independent elements which was begun in chapter 12 and advanced in chapter 13, they do so with a method essentially identical to that used in chapter 10 for phonologic elements. The similarity between the relations among morphologic elements and the relations among phonologic elements has been recognized by several writers, e.g. L. Hjelmslev, Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Phonetic Sciences 268 (1938). As in the case of many
of the procedures discussed previously, the method of this chapter enables us to state on distributional bases results, such as paradigms, which
are often (and
much more
easily) obtained
by considerations
of
meaning.
However, again as
in the case of the other procedures, the
method en-
ables us to check the distributional relevance of the meaning differentia, and enables us to find patternings over and beyond those whole meanings we consider 'grammatical'. The fact that distributional methods are able to bring out the major grammatical meaning categories is merely an indication that the old results are not lost in the new methods.
312
pendix), or as do not lead to the division of a class into sub-classes clearly

differentiated on that basis (as in 17.32). In this respect the criteria as to
what restrictions on the freedom of morphemes are to be represented by components correspond to the criteria as to what restrictions on the freedom of phonemes are to be represented by morphemes (12.233).
This
is
frequently the case for
morpheme
classes
which are grouped
together into a general class on the basis of major similarities, but which
have small and unpatterneddifferences in distribution. E.g. the morphemes

close, erase
occur with -ure (in closure,
etc.)
but not with -ion or -ment;
relate, protect
occur with -ion (as in relation) but not with -ure or -ment;
appoint occur with -ment but not with -ion or -ure; and so
differ in
curtail, retire,
on.
Although these forms

in
some
of their distribution,"
they have
all in-
many environments
common
(e.g.
They'll
it
soon)
and are
and -ment are included in a general class Vn. Rather than extract a component common to each set of co-occurring morphemes (e.g. to -ment and curtail, retire, appoint),
cluded in the general class V. Similarly,
-ure, -ion,
it is
more convenient merely to

16
state co-occurring sets. In chapter 15,
we
A^,
would recognize sub-classes

In chapter
Vmcni
Vure (including close, erase), Vion, Vmtni, etc.
we would
state:
Vure
+
be
-ure
= N
F,on
-ion
{Vure
N /V ton/ Vment) +
+
-ment
etc.
This
can
summed up by
in the
AVTiting:
{-urc / -ion / -ment)"^^

of sub-class
= N, where some
two
technique,
such as the matching
members
classes, indicates
which sub-class
of
of
T'
occurs with which (single-morpheme) sub-class
Vn}^
to 17.32: Sub-classes Consisting of Single
Appendix
It
its
Morphemes
upon
frequently happens that a
morpheme has unique

itself.
restrictions
occurrence relative to certain other morphemes, and would thus
properly constitute a class, or sub-class, by
In some cases
to consider the
it is
most convenient,
in
terms
of the present
methods,
morpheme in question as a specially restricted member of the recognized morpheme class (within whose range of distribution its
^^
in
For example, close occurs The ment is complete.
in
The
ure
is
complete, but curtail occurs
23
Or (Vnurc/Vn^JVn^cni).
^* Statements about sub-classes would also be most convenient for the scattered limitations of distribution of single members or small groups

own
distribution falls). This
313 (Ap-
was done
for the boysen of boysenberry
pendix to 12.22).
We
which occurs before
assign boysen to the class

berry.
Nb
(straw, goose, etc.)
that most of the other
The uniqueness of boysen appears in the fact members of A'";, occur also in other A" positions
partially depend-
while boysen does not.
In other cases,
it is
more convenient to analyze the

was done
ent sequence as due to independent but special components whose definition contains peculiar applicability. This
(12.324).
for the -s of he thinks
We
could say that
-s is
the
and that he, she, Fred, my uncle, morphemic components) of individual

person'.
morpheme meaning 'third person' thinks) are morphemes (or etc. (in
differentiation within the 'third
We
could then try to associate each of the differentiating com-
with other morphemic components w^hich never and are therefore complementary to our he, she. For example, we might associate he with / and say that these are complementary members of a single morpheme. Then 'I' would be indicated by /,
ponents
(he, she, etc.)

-s
occur with
is 'third'.
by / -|- -s, the -s sufficing to indicate that the person in question However, such analysis is of no use in this case. First, because there is more than one complementary to he: had we carried out this analysis we would have obtained a wider distribution for /, which would
and
'he'
now
occur with
-s (in
-s 'he')
as well as without
it
it
(in
'I')
but you
Second,
remains restricted, as the old / was, since
never occurs with
-s.
we have only two morphemes which do not occur with -s (/ and you, not counting the plural), to match against the extremely great number of morphemes or morpheme sequences which occur with -s (he, she, Fred, my uncle). There are thus no sets of morphemes or morphemic components
comparable to the individual differentiators within the
'third person'
and complementary
with
-s
to them. Finally, the fact that he, Fred, etc. occur
only in a highly restricted environment (in Fred walks, but not in

I'll
Fred will walk, Fred walked,
ask Fred) makes
it
less
convenient to
reduce these morphemes to the status of differentiators (morphemic
components) within the
-s
morpheme.
of members of general classes. This includes groups of morphemes whose special limitation of distribution cannot be correlated with any other distributional or phonemic feature, but at best with some feature of meaning. As an example of such sub-classes, consider school, bed, jail, while pokey, etc. which occur both in He was in , and He was in the and troxMe, house, prime of life, city occur mostly in He was in the
good form occur mostly in
He was
in
314
17.33:
Appendix to
Limitations
Morphemic Components
of intersecting limitations
-us,
-I,
for Intersecting
For a larger number

-us, -0, as
than those of Latin
compared with
we
consider the
morphemes
for
T,
'you', etc., in
If
Modern Hebrew.^^
17 utterances,
set
of the
we consider the following same type.^* we would

y
.
and many
sets of utterances
up a
class (C) of 17
:^''
morphemes
-ti 'I
did', a- 'I will',
u 'they
will', etc.
lo limadti
didn't teach
him a
thing.

Every member
every one of these
of the class
315
(katav 'write', 60 'come') occurs with

this stage of the analysis, the 17
C morphemes. At
class of separate
morphemes restricted to occur only with V. We could say that one long morphemic component extends over the two positions of V and these morphemes, but it would still be necessary to indicate which V and which member of C occurs in the two parts of that long component in any given utterance. However, we find additional environments in which some members of oto davar C occur while others do not. The first 9 occur in lo limad didn't teach him a thing yesterday,' but do not occur in etmol ' lamed oto davar maxar won't teach him a thing tomorrow'; lo
would constitute a
'
the last 8 occur in the latter but not in the former.^*

tract a
We
therefore ex-
component t common to the first 9 and to their differentiating environments, and another component i common to the last 8 and to their differentiating environments. The residues of the 9 t morphemes may
be identified with the residues of the 8 i morphemes venient way of matching these residues pair-wise.
This pairing
bers of the
if
we
find a con-
may
of
A'^
be carried out on the basis of the particular

with which each
mem-
class^^
member
of
occurs (since not
every
member
occurs with every C).
WITH
THERE OCCUR ONLY
316
etc.'"
By
17.3,
we consider
A' to
be also contained
in
the differentiating
-ti
environment ani (which occurs only with the A'-bearing

tained also in ata (which occurs only with
1' -|-
or a-),
i),
conon.
t or
}'
-f
and so
We now have
10 joint residues. These
may
be divided into two smaller
sub-classes on the basis of the fact that they have different restrictions
in respect to particular
environments which have not as yet been con-
sidered.
In the environment ani vdhu

gether', the only
oto
hdydxad
'I
and he
will
him
and
tofi-
members
of
oto
(nlamed).^^ In ala vdhem
C which
occur are -nn (limddnu) and
bdydxad 'you (m.) and they (m.)

occur,
him
only
together' only limadtem
and tlamdu
hî
and
in at vdhen
limadten and tlamedna. In

gether' only limdu
Avife
vdhi
oto
bdydxad 'He and she

in hi vdisti
and ylamdu occur, and

If
him tomy
morphemic component
a basis
'she
'
only limdu and tlamedna occur.
we
consider only the presence
of vd 'and' in A^ vd
residues occur in
N vd N We
.
N, we
find that only the last 5 of the 10
may
therefore extract a p
from these 5 and from

for identifying the
their
environment
N vi N.
We therefore seek
is left
Five of our residues contain p and 5 do not.
secondary residues of these 5 (what

of
after their p
component is extracted), each one (from which no p was extracted).
them with one
of the
remaining 5
The
in a
basis for pairing the residues of these
two new
sub-classes, of
those morphemes which contain p and those which do not,
may
be found
more
detailed consideration of the restrictions of occurrence of our
10 residues with respect to particular
members
'we'
of
The
residue of
A' vd
-nuf n- 'we' occurs not only with andxnu 'we' but also with any
where one
other
of the
two
is
ani
:
or
andxnu
member
of the A^ class
ani vdhi
and the other A^ is any limddnu oto 'I and she taught him',
will
andxnu vdhamore haxadas nlamed otxa 'We and the new teacher
teach you'.
No
other one of our 10
morphemes occurs
t
. . .
in these environpi.)' is
ments. Analogously, the residue of -tern/
u 'you (m.
the
^^ If we wish to assign some particular feature of these morphemes to the T component and another to the i, we may say that position purely after V is represented by the t component and position before V is represented by I. Then the phonemic sequences ti and a are positionally dewhich occurs termined members of a morpheme (morphemic residue) with T and i. As examples of utterances for the list above: ani limddti oto 'I taught him', ani alamed oto 'I will teach him', ata limddta oto 'You taught him'.
is
^' Literally, 'I and he, we taught (or: will teach) him together'. There no /,/ juncture or intonation in this utterance in Hebrew.

only one that occurs with any the other
A'' is
317
is
any member
of
N vd N where one ata or atern, and N (including these two) except ani and
andxnu:
ly,
e.g. ata
t
.
vdhu tlamdu oto 'you (m.) and he will teach him'. Similar.
na 'you (f. pi.)' occurs with N V3 N where one A'' is at and the other is at, aten, hi, hen, or any member of A'^ containing the F component defined below: e.g. at vaaxoti tavona 'You and my sister
only -ten/
.
or aten
will come'.
Again, the residue of -u/y
u 'they (m.)'
is
is
the only one

ata, at, or
that occurs with any
N vd N where neither A^
ani,
andxnu,
atem and where not more than one A^ includes
f:
hu
vdhi ydabru ito
'He
and she
will talk
with him', habanai vdozro sidru

it'.
A'^
et ze
'The builder and his

(f.)'
:
helper arranged
Similarly, only -u/t

is
na 'they
occurs with
N Vd N where each
Of the
-ti/a-
either hi or hen or an A^ including f
hi vahabaxura
tdaberna 'She and the

five residues
girl will talk'.
containing
p,
A'^
then, only the

ra
A'^;
first
{-nu/ n-) occurs

it
with ani in either A' position of
we
therefore pair
with the
ocit
morpheme which
-ta/t-
also occurs with ani.
Only the second ever
curs with ata or atem in both A' positions together;
we
t
therefore pair
with the
morphemes which occur with

.
ata.
An
-t/
analogous restric. .
i. The third members of A'^ not listed here (is 'man', etc.), in either A' position:'^ we pair it with the zevo/y- morphemes, which occur with hu. Analogously, we pair
tion to at leads to the pairing of -ien/t
na with
morphemic residue occurs only with
hu, hi, hem, hen or the
hi. We can express the matching by means of 5 residual morphemic components: 1 contained in -ti/a- and -nu/n-, 2 contained in -ta/t- and -tem/t u, A contained in -t/t na, 3 contained in i and -ten/t zero/y- and in -u/y u, B, contained in -a/t- and -u/t na. These components, of course, occur not only in these members of C but also in the particular members of A^ in respect to which these members of C were diiYerentiated. Hence the component 1 is also contained in any A'^ (including A'' vd N) which includes ani or andxnu; 2 is contained in any
-u/t
na with -a/t- on the basis of
of these 5 pairs of residues
A'^
(or A^ Vd
is
N) which
includes ata,
A'^
at,
atem or aten but not ani or andxnu;

'I
contained in any
other than these." In ani limddti
taught'
we
hi,
But only one of the two A'^ positions can be occupied by any one of na both A"" positions are hen or A' plus -a 'feminine'. Before -u/t occupied by morphemes of this group.
^^
. .
.
be noted that some phonemic features are common to sevmorphemic segments which contain a particular component. Thus all segments containing the component 2 have the phoneme /t/, but so do some segments which do not contain 2 have this phoneme. Only
It
"
may
eral of the
318
1
have a long component

If
extending over ani

t
li,
in ala vdhu
tlamdu
'you and he will teach' a long 2 over ata vdhu
u,
and so
on.
we
consider the limitations of occurrence of these

in respect to
their
segments
the -a 'feminine' morpheme,
morphemes we find that

is
or
A'
occurring with
A
et
or
B always has the -a

'The
girl
morpheme, whereas
N occurring
clear:
sela tsa-
with 3 or S does not.'* The restriction upon habaxura sidra

derna
et ze
as against 5
ze
arranged
(f.)
it',
habaxura vdhaxavera
arrange
it'
'The
girl
and her
friend
will
as against habaxur
selo
sider et ze 'The fellow arranged
it',
habaxur vdhaxavera
it'.
ysadru
et
ze
'The fellow and his friend
(f.)
will
arrange
No A^ with the -a
two.'*
'she'
'feminine'
morpheme
substitutes for habaxur in the last

first
two utterances, nor can
baxur substitute for baxura or xavera in the say that the -a/t- and -v/t
.
We may therefore
(f.)',
na residues, hi
and hen 'they

absent in
and
-u/y
-a 'feminine' all contain a

.
. .
component f which
(m.)'.'^
is
zero/?/-,
XI,
hu
'he',
and hem 'they
The same component

contains
at
f,
f can be extracted from

(f.)':
as against 2. Just as hi
girl',
so does at 'you
(f.)
hi baxura hagu7ia 'She's a decent

girl'
baxura haguna 'You
are a decent
as against
hu baxur hagun
'He's a decent fellow', ata baxur hagun 'You (m.) are a decent fellow'.
Since
.4
occurs with at but not with ata,
we
extract f
component from
also.
segments which contain 5, but not all of these, have the phoneme /y/; and only segments which contain p, but not all of these, have the pho-
neme /u/. " And A^

not.
occurring with
sometimes has the
-a
and sometimes does
'= A'' + -a may substitute for A' without -a, e.g. habaxur in such environments as A^ ra A^ {habaxur vdaxi sidru et ze 'The fellow and my brother arranged it', habaxura vdaxi sidru et ze 'The girl and my brother arranged it'); or in the A" of VN = V {limddti et habaxur 'I taught the fellow,' limddti et habaxura 'I taught the girl'); or in the second A^ of
A^ se
ze
PN = N
sel
{ze
hamakom
sel
hamakom
habaxura 'That's the
habaxtir 'That's the fellow's place', girl's place'); etc.
'^ say that this component is present in hi not only because of hi sidra 'she arranged' as against hu sider 'he arranged', but also because of hi baxura haguna 'She's a decent girl' as against hu baxur hagun 'He's
We
a decent fellow.' In baxura haguna we have a single repeated morpheme ... a ... o (12.323). Since hi occurs with baxura as against baxur, we extract from hi an f component, identical with the a a morpheme, and say that it extends over the whole utterance hi baxura haguna. In the first morpheme, this component yields hi instead of hu; in the remaining morphemes, this component adds parts of the repeated ... a ... a.
. . . . .

Further consideration shows a limitation
respect to at containing
of occurrence of 2
319
and 3
in
A
of
and
hi containing B, as well as to ala contain-
ing 2 and hu containing 3, respectively. Before 3, hi or' hen sometimes

constitute one
member
vd
(see fn. 32)
whereas
at
does not: hi
vdaxi 'she
(f.) and my and you (f.)' occurs before 2, whereas ata vdani 'You and I' occurs before 1. Hence the component 2 may be extracted from at, aten, and from the A morphemes which occur with these, while 3 may be extracted from hi, hen, and from
and
my
brother' occurs before 3; at vdaxi 'you

2.
brother' occurs before
Similarly, ata vdat 'You (m.)
the
B morphemes which occur with them. Component A is thus replaceable by the combination of components 2 and f; and B by the combination 3 and f. We now have a set of components in terms of which each member of C
may be identified and differentiated from each other one,
without residue.
MORPHEME
1
MORPHEME
-ti
'I
did'
-ta
-/
'you (m.) did'
'you
(f.)
did'
zero 'he did'

-a 'she did'
-nu
-tern
'we did'
'you (m.
pi.) did'
-ten
'you
(f.
pi.) did'
-u -u
'they (m.) did' 'they

(f.)
did'
;V20
all
non-p morphemes contain s, we can neglect m and s and consider them automatic for this class C (and for A'). If the position of one member of C (or of* A'') is not occupied by f or p we know that it has the M or s characteristics: if we write V -\- 2\, we know it is T' -|- t- 'you (m.) will' (not i, which would be ^ F i). By the same token, we can omit indication of the components t and 3 (given above in parentheses); we
t
. .
long as
be able to differentiate each member of C from the other, so we know from its position that the morpheme indicated by the components is a member of C (as it must be if it follows V, since after every T' there is a C). The morpheme 'he did' which is phonemically zero would thus be represented by an absence of all components: limed 'he taught' is now represented by T' alone, but ylanied 'he will teach' by 1' + i and limddnv 'we taught' by 1" + ^ p. Each of the C morphemes which substitute for each other (in some environments) after V is now a unique combination of the presence or
will still
1, 2, v, f,
absence, after F, of the components
and
i.
These components can be used further to identify other morphemes

which constitute the differentiating environments
of the 17
one-mor-
pheme combinations of these components. Thus andxnv, the only single morpheme which differentiates -nu (1p) and n- (Ipi) from the other members of C, can be identified as 1 p. We may analyze andxnv katdvnu 'we wrote' as i p + V -\- 1 v. Ov we can say that andxnu nu'i^ identified by one long component 1 p which extends on either side of the Y Then both andxnu katdvnu and the equivalent katdvnu 'we wrote' are
.
.
V+
tic,
1 f;
the difference between the
two may be considered

'I
free or stylis-
or
may
be indicated by a component representing emphasis or the

andxnu. ^^ Similarly, ani V-ti and V-ti
'I
like in the case of
both be
V +
1,
while ani a-V and a-V
will
(f.)
ed'
T'
i
would
i
'
both hen t-V-na and t-V-na alone 'they

(in
will
would both be
'
would be
+ 1; +fp
the former case with an emphatic component); hen V-u would be
will
(f.) wrote'); hem y-V-u and y-V-u 'they (m.) would be Vi -f p; hem V-u would be T^ + p; and V-xi by itself (which is the same after hem or hen would be T' -|- p or f p (katvu 'they (m. or f.) wrote'). Finally, hu V and V by itself would both be just T^
V +
F p (hen katvu 'they

'
(hu katav or just katav 'he wrote').
When
these components occur without
]',
the part affixed to
]'
(and
In terms of the constructions of chapter 18 there is, of course, a between the two utterances: katdvmt consists of one word, and andxnu katdvnu consists of two.
^'
difference

which had been included
identify ani
'I',
321
in
etc.
the C)
is,
of course, absent.
We
can
still
hu
p
.
.
'he',
by the same components, but the com-
ponents are not long in this case. Thus andxnu po 'we (are) here'
may
be analyzed as
+
.
po.
The component combination
p thus indicates
-nu and andxnu
nu next to V, but andxnu elsewhere.^'

differentiated
In another class L, containing 10 bound morphemes which occur after

A''
and P, the members can be
by means
of these
commor-
ponents.'"'
The components f and

^^
.
may
also be used to identify certain
In the case of the third-person pronouns {-u, hem u, -zero, zero, etc.) a special difficulty arises. In the neighborhood of V, the component 3 which had distinguished these morphemes had been considered equivalent to the absence of 1 and 2, and therefore was not written. This was unambiguous in that environment, since V never occurred except with the accompaniment of or ^ or 3. In other environments, however, the absence of both 1 and 2 does not necessarily indicate the presence of 3, because all three may be absent. Thus the utterance po 'Here' (e.g. in response to eyfo ala? 'Where are you?') is not identical in distribution or meaning with the utterance hu po 'He is here'. Hence, whereas andxnu in andxnu po can be represented by the same mark as in andxnu V-nu, namely 1 p, hu in hu po cannot be represented by the zero which indicated it in h\i- V We can therefore represent the third-person pronouns (when not adjoining V) by the component 3, or else by the class-mark A^ (as distinct from any particular member of N: see the Appendix to 18.2) hu po would be S -j- po or A' po; hem po 'they (m.) (are) here' would be 5 p -|- po or A^ p -f- po; and so on.
. .
hu
.Z
The
-i
10
morphemes
'my, me'
'your,
'his,
of class
are:
-enu
-xen
'our, us'
pi.)'
-xa 'your,
-ex
-o
you (m. sing.)' you (f. sing.)'
-xem 'your, you (m.

'your,
'their,
'their,
him'
-am
-an
-a
'her'
you (f. pi.)' them (m.)' them (f.)'
substitute for each other, and for any A', in the following environments: P (as in li 'to me' PL, labaxur 'to the fellow' PN), ,N^ {beti 'my house' NL, bet sefer 'school house' ,N^N), rarely VC (bikaUixa 'I asked you' VCL, bikdSH tova 'I asked a favor' VCN). However, only -i occurs in ani acm 'I -self, only -xa in ala acm ^self, and so 'you on. We therefore indicate -i by /, -xa by 2, -ex by 2r, and so on. Then heii is iNal, bet sefer is j.Vo' Nb, and so on (the subscripts a, b indicate different particular meml)ors of the class A'^). In the case of the third-person pronouns we again have difficulty in indicating them by zero, since absence of / or ^ does not necessarily mean presence of 3 (except usually after P): and VC often occur without any member of L after them. It is therefore necessary, as before, to represent these either by 3 or by the undifferentiated class .symbol ;V (see Appendix to 18.2): lo 'to him' is Pa -|- S or Pa N, roso 'his head' is Na 3 or Na N, ros haxevra 'the head of the company' is Na Nb, roS 'head' is Aô-
They
322
(class A')
phemes
which occur not

'girl',
in .V position
but immediately after

'girls',
.V.
In baxur "fellow', haxura
baxuritn 'fellows', baxurot
we have
-a oc-
three such morphemes: -a 'feminine (singular)', -im 'masculine plural',

-ot
'feminine plural' (and zero 'masculine singular').

1',
When
N+
A'
curs before
girl
the
is
always always
T'
f or
1'
i:
habaxxira sidra 'The
arranged', habaxura tsader 'The girl will arrange'.

V' is
When
-im
occurs before V, the
V+
p or
T+
habaxiirim sidru 'The

-ot
fellows arranged', habaxurim ysadru 'The fellows will arrange'. In A"
V,
the
T^ is
always
f p or
T+
f p
i:
habaxurot sidru 'The
girls ar-
ranged', habaxurot tsaderna 'The girls will arrange'.
When
followed
by none
of these three
(i.e.
N+
zero) occurs alone before V, the
is
always just
or
-\- i:
habaxur sider 'The fellow arranged', habaxur
ysader 'The fellow will arrange'.
ponent
all
F,
-im by
p, -ot
by F
p (and the zero
Hence we represent -a by the comby our previous zero 'he'),

identified
after A'.
large
number
of 5
of
morphemes have now been
by various
combinations
components,
in various utterance positions.
One component, i, occurs only after T' and has no relation to any other morpheme class. ^' The components 1 and occur in A' position. As has been seen, they
are substitutable for
VC ; in these environments they represent

occur in other
ter' 'A'a'A'h/
any particular
'
A' in the
environments
P,
,N^
N positions, e.g.
'I
the
L morphemes. They
(is
also
^'A'
{yosef nagar 'Joseph
a) carpen-
ani nagar
(am
a) carpenter' 'i 'A'i),
where they represent
the
morphemes
ani, ata, etc. In all these positions the original

ne.\t to T'
compobe re-
nent 3 (which when
has been replaced by zero)
may
placed by the undifferentiated class-mark
(as distinct
from particular
A'b, etc.)
:
members
(A\) of the class
A'
which are individually marked Xa,

(is
roso 'his head' lA'a'A';
hv nagar 'he
a) carpenter' 'A''A'5.
e.g.
When i
or ^ or
zero occur with
V we have two
forms,
'we wrote', hu katav and kaiav 'he wrote'. With this
andxnu katdvnu and katdvnu we can match only
*' If we find a component which is complementary in position i.e. never occurs after V, we may group it with i in one component having two (or more) positionally determined members. Note that V is not restricted to occurring before i, since we can also have katvu 'they wrote' which does not contain i. This is so because we eliminated t by writing V for V -\- t, so that kaivu is not T' t p but just T' p, and katav 'he wrote' is just V. The phonemic form and the meaning of i are correspondingly changed. In nsader 'we will arrange' V i p i as compared with siddrtiu 'we arranged' V 1 p, the i component does not consist in the adding of n-, but in the replacing of a suffix by a prefix; and the meaning is the change from 'did' to 'will'.

one
323
NiV
form: hais katav 'the
man
wrote'.
The -nu
of katdvnu
and the
zero of katav
may
therefore be considered as replacing the hat (the par-
ticular N,) of hais katav. If

will
we
represent andxnu katdvnu
have no A" position comparable to the position
of the
pare hais katav lo mixtav 'The man wrote him a letter' andxmi katdvnu lo mixtav 'We wrote him a letter' 1 p Val p PN Nb. There is no member of A^ which can occur after the Va in the way that the
p,we comNaVaPNNb, and hy

1
V1
second
1:
second
1 does. It is
therefore convenient to consider the

1 p
andxnv
nv
as
represented by a single
extending on either side of the V;

is
it is
thus
merely a long form

Similarly,
of -mi,
which
also
p but on only one side of the V.

of katav 'he wrote',
hu katav would be merely a long form
both
represented by
of 1
lar
alone
(i.e.
plus absence of 1 or ^).
The occurrences
A'',,
and 2 next to V can now be considered to be occurrences of particusince 1 and 2 can now be substituted (in their long or short form)
A',-.-
by any particular
around katav 'wrote' we find

'he' (zero
-ti
(1),
ani
ti
(/
emphatic), hu
emphatic), zero
'he' (zero), hais 'the
man'
(A'a), etc.
We
consider
the class A\
indicated
The
original
of
by absence
of
1, 2, zero, Aa as particular members (A',) of component S in these A' positions may now be 1 or 2, and does not have to be indicated by the
undifferentiated class-mark
A.'*^
The
zero
may
be considered either as
member
A,
or as absence of
A in the positions for which A is defined.

NV;
in the latter, katav
In the former case, both hais katav and katav are

is
just V, so that
some utterances would then
consist of
alone, with-
out
A."
*' The use of 1 and 2 both for the L morphemes and the C morphemes makes it necessary to consider possible confusion arising in the case
where C is zero. For example, hirseti 'I permitted' is V 1, hirSa 'he permitted' is V, hirsdni 'he permitted me' would be V' (+ zero) /. In order to avoid the confusion of two different V -\- 1, we define the 1 and ^ of C as occurring before the V, and the 1 and ^ of L as occurring after V: hirSeti is 1 -\- V, hirsdni is V 1. Note that the which will be seen below to be substitutable for the 1 and 2 of C also occurs usually before the V rather than after it; haiS hirsa 'the man permitted' Aa V has the same utterance status as hirseti 'I permitted' 1 -\- V. Similarly, the which is substitutable for the / and 2 of L occur after the V: hu hirsd li 'he permitted me' V PI, hu katav mixtav 'he wrote a letter' V Mb, have the same utterance status as hirsdni 'he permitted me' V -\- 1. Note also that the 1 and 2 of C themselves occur before the V rather than after it whenever i is present: arê 'I will permit' I -\- V i, narse 'we will per-
mit'
Fi.
is replaced by zero (instead of by the undifferentiated class mark A') after p as well as after \', we would have la 'to her' as P zero -\- f (i.e. f), and so on. *^ If
the component 3
324
f and p occur, singly or together, only after
A', in/, 2,
The components
cluding the
and zero next to T'. However, if the zero is considered not to be an element (member of A^), we would have to say that f and p also occur next to V or i {ysadru 'they will arrange' T' + i + p), and next
to the
i.V,
,A>, or liVp of ,A''iV (bnam 'their son' A'
?; bnotehen 'their
daughters' A'
p -f f
p).
is
The
result of this
whole analysis
thus the representation of the high-
morphemes of classes C, L, and A' by 5 components: i, re(or, if zero is an and V F and p, restricted to N stricted to V element, to A' alone); 1 and 2 (or, if zero is an element, /, 2, and zero) as new members of A', which have both a short and long form when next to T'. The elimination of 3, t, m, and s, as being automatic in stated environments, removes from V and A' any dependence upon the various 'plural', 'feminine', 'person', 'tense' morphemes: e.g. V ocly restricted
curs with
I,
but also without
it.
18.
CONSTRUCTIONS
18.0.
Introductory
and the same
class in other positions. It leads to the recognition
This section considers the relation between a morpheme class in one

position
of constructions
such as word and phrase.
18.1.
Purpose: Recurrent Arrangements of INlorphenie Classes
note recurrent êts of similar morpheme classes, independently of how these classes or arrangements fit into the utterance. The considerations of 16.5 covered the relations of a morpheme class
to the sequences which contained
it
We
and to the inclusion numbers which
marked the
resultants of these sequences.
The procedure
of chapter 17
expressed the relations between one class and the other classes which
accompanied
which a morpheme
among
ing A.
all
all the sequences, of any length, in and to see what similarities there are these sequences, and what sequences of other classes are analoit.
It
remains to survey
class
enters,
gous in various respects to
all or
certain ones of the sequences contain-
To
ments
a large extent this attempt to summarize the recurrent arrangeof classes
combines, or
17.
may
conveniently begin by combining, the
results of 16.5
and
The
considerations of both of those sections lead
to recognizing various larger-than-one-morpheme-length portions of ut-
terances: in 16.5, these portions are the immediate constituents (at successive stages of analysis) of an utterance or stretch of speech; in chapter 17, the
domains
of the
components. Here we
will
go beyond these
combined
results, in seeking identities
and
similarities in other features
as well as in those previously considered.

similarities
For example, we
may
note
among
classes holding corresponding positions in various
sequences, or junctures and contours involving particular sequences and
not others.
18.2.
Procedure: Substitution in Short Environments

classify into
We
one construction
all
sequences which are similar
in
respect to stated features.
Given the Semitic morpheme-class sequences

katdvli
'I
-\-
-\-
C (Hebrew
wrote') and
-\-
-\-
K (baxurim 'fellows': 17.31 and Appendix

between the two sequences:
other,
to 17.33),
we note a number
;
of connections
occurs in both
and n are complementary to each

325
and both
oc-
326
cur only with
R
(and in the same position: staggered
in respect to it;
phonemically, both chisses together represent the only morphemes which

consist of broken sequences of vowels, rarely with a consonant added)
C and
are complementary classes in respect to v
and n}
These two sequences have entirely

utterance, since
different statuses in respect to the
Rv C = V and Rn
in
= N,
so that the similarity be-
tween them could not be treated

larity
is
chapter
16.
Here, however, this simi-
can be expressed by setting up a sequence

v
-\-
a class of vowel morphemes including
and
n, while
H includes
H, where p C and
K.
fixed sequence such as this
may
be called a construction.
obtained in chapter
The
setting
up
of
such constructions without reference to utterance
status causes us to miss here
some
of the results
IG,
so that this procedure cannot replace that of 16.
Thus
in 16
we would
p
have
for Semitic
Rn =
{baxur 'fellow' substitutable for av 'father').
Here, however,
we can
state
no such connection between
R +
+H
con-
and
A' (or
N + K).
it is
However,
struction
possible to find other similarities between the

of utterances.
RpH
and other sections

in these
is
RpH
class
and
NK
have
this in
common, that only

these two
two does the
appear, and only in
there a sequence of free form with or without
bound form.
Rp and A^ occur by themselves (katav 'he wrote', baxur 'fellow', ben 'son') or with C or X (katdvti 'I wrote', baxurim 'fellows', banim 'sons') C and K never occur unaccompanied by Rp or N. We may therefore recognize
;
this as a free
form-bound form (stem

of
zero or
more
affi.xes)
construction
FB
even when no member
occurs (as in ben 'son' where the free
form occurs alone).
The
of
FB
construction occurs also with the accompaniment of

'to
L and
'in
P: laben
the son'
PN,
basipur
'in
the story'
PRn,
bdsipuri
my
story'
PRnL, sipuray 'my stories' RnKL. Since both L and P are bound forms, we can include the sequences containing them with Rp or A' (e.g.
PNKL)
'
in the
FB
construction.^
In the Appendix to 17.33, the class C is broken down and parts of it become identical with parts of A^- however, in chapter 18 we consider not the morphemes or components of C and A' but their class domain. I'^ven without this breaking down, C and A' can be said to have one morpheme in common: -a in katva 'she wrote', yalda 'she gave birth' (RvC), and in baxura 'girl', yalda 'female child' (RuK). However, the classes C and K we can replace -a bu -u 'they remain distinct, because in katv , yald we can replace it by -im 'plural', etc. yald did', etc., while in baxur
never occurs without Rv, but

^
K occurs with A^ as well as with Rn.
We may
F
also recognize a
the
represents only
Rp
or
compound ,FB'FB construction in which A', and in which the tFB part may be re-
CONSTRUCTIONS
However, the sequence
me'. It
is
327
PL
also occurs without

all
any
free form:
li
'to
the only sequence which occurs (in
but exceptional circum-
stances) occasionally as a complete utterance, and none of
whose mem-
bers
is
a free form.'
stress,
Each occurrence of FB (including ,FB^FB) and PL has one main and some of the occurrences constitute utterances by themselves. The only other construction which has these two features is the class U of unchanging morphemes: 7na 'what', ze 'this', etc. The members of this class never occur with any bound forms except those mentioned below. All of these constructions occur occasionally after unstressed bound morphemes of the class Q: vd- 'and', se- 'which', etc. These morphemes,
which
differ
from each other
in utterance status
(i.e.
in the considerations
of chapter 16), never occur except with
FB, PL,
or
U following them.
We may now say that

portions in such a
every utterance can be divided into successive

portion
is occupied by either FB, or PL, Each such portion may be called
way that each
or U, each with or without preceding Q.
a word. FB, PL, and

Semitic wôrd, and
struction.*
are then the three constructional types of a
sionally
occur at the beginning of a word of any conEvery word has precisely one main stress, and occurs occaby itself as a complete utterance. No word is divisible into small-
Q may
er sections
each of which occurs by
itself
(except in special circumstances)
as a complete utterance.*
The construction ,FB'FB (or ,FB,FB'FB, etc.) differs from a word in its two (or more) parts also occurs as a word (except that the stress of each part is secondary /,/ instead of primary /'/ when it
that each of
occurs in other than last position in this joint construction).
On the
other
hand, the two parts

curs only with the
differ
from the
FB word
L and
construction in that
oc-
first
iFB, while
ha- 'the' occur only with the
peated:
bet hasefer 'school (lit.
head
of the school.'
with the last

^
CFB)
the house of the book)', ro bet hasefer 'the (and the morpheme ha- 'the') occur, if at all, only of the series: bet sifri 'my school.'
PL
it
can be considered a special case of
PNL,
with zero N. In that
case
''
would be included under the
FB
construction.
There are various limitations as to which particular which particular word.

*
occurs with
Using this property, Bloomficld defined the word
in
general as a
utterance: L. Bloomfield, language, L.\ng. 2. 150 (192G).
minimum
A set
of postulates for the science of
328
last ^FB.^
We may
call this
compound word, extending over two
for
more) word-length portions."
Features of Construction Whether we take a construction such as RpH, or a more inclusive one like FB, or the domain of various constructions such as the word, we
18.21.
always do
it
on the basis
of certain features of relation
among
the mor-
pheme
classes (and sequences) involved.
We
take
all
instances of the
construction or domain in question as being identical in respect to these

features.
i.e.
Such features would be stated

it.
for the construction as a whole,
for all instances of
These features
staggered
will often
be the types of
classes, sequences, or
com-
ponents involved; their order (including such unusual orders as the
and
p: katav
from
k-t-v
plus -a-a-); stress and intonation;

is
which classes are occasionally

the smallest, largest, or usual
of the construction; etc.
free
and which are always bound; what
number
of classes that occur in instances
feature of a construction
may
also be the pri-
macy
of
one of
its classes
over the others. For example, A' could be conin a construction

if
sidered primary
and Y secondary
X occurred in every
some
instances.
instance of the construction while
appeared only
in
^'arious different constructions, including construction types
grouped
together in some one domain such as a word,

other in
may
be similar to each
some
of these features, or in particular aspects of
them; for ex-
ample, certain constructions

construction.
may
all
have
their
primary
class first in the
and of all construcsame domain, is their relation to contours and junctures (Appendix to 18.3). Thus in the Semitic example above, all word constructions, and only word constructions, had precisely one main stress; and compound wôrd ahvays had a secondary stress on each sub-construcparticularly frequent features of constructions,
tions having the
tion
(FB) before the
last.
(or refer in meaning) to the school (lit. house of books)', bet hasefer 'the school (house of the book)', sebet sifri 'that my .' school occurs with each FB independently: bet aii 'house of my brother', batey axi 'houses of my brother', bet axay 'house of my brothers', baley axay 'houses of my brothers'.
*
I.e.
Q, L,
and ha- may be said to apply

het
whole joint construction:

. .
sefer
'a
^ compound word functions as a long component, determining certain restrictions (as to stress, Q, L, etc.) in the several word lengths over which it e.xtends. The particular FB constructions in it may be considered residues in each of these word lengths.
CONSTRUCTIONS
18.22. Successively
329
Enclosing Constructions
the relation of each construction type to
it,
It is possible to investigate
longer constructions which enclose
and to the whole utterance
in
which
it is
contained.
is
step in this direction
taken when we state whether a construction

for this
struction sometimes or never constitute
means that members of the conby themselves the whole utterance in which they are contained. Or we can say that almost all English utterances contain at least one of the free classes (A, N\ V\ D, etc.) or the bound class S of 17.31, with zero or more morphemes of the other bound classes {Na, several T and P, etc.) grouped around each of these. If each of these free classes, and the sequence of bound classes S + E, each with or without any of its accompanying bound classes, is not diviscontains free or
bound forms;
ible into smaller sections
which occur as complete utterances, then each
of these constructions satisfies the
two conditions
for being a
minimum
utterance of the language.*
ances or other constructions

ter 16.
Noting whether a given utterance contains various minimum utteris a departure from the methods of chap-
Those methods enabled us to equate sequences on the basis

xîia
of
their elements without regard to the type of constructions that these
elements comprise. Moroccan Arabic
'my brother'
is
A''W^
A^''
and as such has the same resultant me)' which is A'Z) P N^ = N^. The
dependent
occurs by
for -ia,
If
is
of
the stresses in
'my brother (brother of fact that diali has a main stress inthe environment, and that it occasionally
as
xu
diali
itself as
an answer, whereas neither

16.
of these facts
is
the case
not noted in chapter

in
we speak
terms of words, Moroccan ana

sft rr'azl 'I
Sflu
'I
saw him'
is
proin
noun plus verb, and

substitutable
saw the man'
is
verb plus noun; but
meaning
of
morpheme sequences each of these is AH'W^, with the subject-action-object. The relevance of the NW^N^ analysis
is
to utterance structure
seen in the fact that that sequence, or rather the

is
N^V^
of
which
it is
a special case,
true of almost
all
utterances contain-
ing the /./ intonation, whereas the particular
word sequences pronoun-
verb, verb-noun, etc., are far less general and each occurs in a smaller
number
of utterances.
On
the other hand, the analysis of utterances into
* The two conditions being: first, that the construction (class or sequence) occur occasionally as a complete utterance by itself; second, that it not be completely divisible into smaller parts each of which meets the
first
condition.

330
DP
word
minimum
utterance domains
is
again very general, being true

for dividing
of all utterances. It follows that the
most general xnethods
utterances into sections are in terms of the utterai>ce-status elements of
chapter
not
in
16, or in
terms
of the construction
domains
of chapter 18,
but
terms of particular sequences, constructions,
or
morpheme
classes.'
If we arrange the various constructions and their domains in such a way that the domain of one set of constructions encloses that of another, we will often obtain results parallel in part to the sets of increasingly
higher inclusion numbers (for
A',
V, etc.) of 16.21.
It is possible to establish first the lowest construction
domain longer
morpheme, by inspecting all the constructions of a language, and taking all those which include, or can be described as including, no smaller construction.'" This group of constructions may or may not have a common contour which is lacking in larger constructions, e.g. precisely one loud stress, or the domain of vowel harmony. The porthan that
of a single
tions of the utterance occupied
by each
of these constructions
may now
be considered to constitute a unit length for constructions the minimal construction length; and the boundaries of each of these constructions
are boundaries of this unit length.
We now
proceed to group together
all
those constructions which can
be described as containing more than one occurrence of the constructional unit length (i.e. of any of the smallest constructions) but of no
For example, the English construction consisting of two morphemes, each with zero or more bound morphemes, plus the
other.
'
free
,i
contour
'
(e.g.
hookworms, get-up) can be described as containing the

is
contour with two constructions, each of which

plus zero or more
one free mor-
pheme
bound morphemes plus loud
stress.
Then
hook-
' Languages differ, of course, in the degree of correlation between minimum-utterance construction and substitution class sequence. In Arabic, single-word sentences have sequences identical with those of sentences of several words; kthtu and ana ktbt lih both mean 'I wrote him' {N'V^X*). In English this is rare. When an English minimum utterance occurs as a whole utterance it usually does not have a sequence structure comparable to that of longer utterances. We have one-word sentences like This. (A'), Going? (A), No! (Indep.), as compared with several-word utterances like We need some rain. (ATA'). Such differences between minimum-utterance and long-utterance constructions give different ut-
terance-status to the various
morpheme
classes of the language
(cf.
Edward
'"
Sapir,
Language
116).
Following Bloomfield's terminology, this would be a
minimum
con-
struction.

CONSTRUCTIONS
worms
'up
is
331
is
'book
'
'worms
the
'
'
,,
the
contour.
li
The
i,
contour, and get-up + contour thus covers the domain

'get
of a construction
which encloses two
(or
more) unit-length constructions,
but which encloses no other, longer, construction than the unit-length." All constructions which enclose more than one one-unit-length construction,
but no others,
constructional domain. In
may be said to have the next higher many languages, this may be
(second order)
the domain of
compound words. ^^ We may now proceed
to those constructions which occasionally en-
close constructions of the second-order domain. For simplicity,
we might
take certain sequences^ ^ comprising English
A'^''
as covering a third-order
domain, since some
of
the constructions enclosed in such a sequence

that old
is
may
be
of the
second order:
bookworm. Note that not every construc-
tion enclosed within A^^
of the
second order:
that is not,
nor
is
old (al-
though old can be replaced by one which is, as
in that sour-faced
bookworm).
None
of the constructions
in a particular A^^ (that old fellow)
need be
of
the second order; but the fact that several of
second-order constructions
{that old
them can be replaced by bookworm) makes it desirable to conF'*
sider A^* even then as being of the third order.
Similarly, sequences comprising
may
also be
shown
of these
to cover a
third-order domain, since the constituent

are
members
sequences
constructions of the
first
or second order.
As we establish the constructions of some particular order, we define them in each case as possible sequences of constructions of lower orders. Thus, for English, the first -order word construction was defined as containing one
member
of A' or
or A, etc., with or without certain ac-
companying bound
fined as containing
classes.
two
or
The second-order compound word was den contour. The more words plus the
'
third-order phrase constructions could be very roughly defined in terms

of
words and compound words:
e.g.
the noun phrase would usually con-
" Similarly, the iFB'FB compound-word construction of 18.21 covers the domain next larger than unit length; we may call this the secondorder domain. The successively higher orders are often called successively higher morphological levels.
'^
Compound nouns may be A''
or A'^ in terms of chapter IG
(bookuwyn
or bookworms). have inclusion

'^
Thus constructions of the second order do not necessarily number 2 (N^ or V^) in 16. This applies to sequences like TDAN-s = A^ {some very old book-
worms), but not to /

struction).
A'"*
{you) which
is
a simple word (first-order con-
332
tain
TDA
where each class and each
partial sequence of classes can
be repeated with a member of D, A, or
&
before the second occurrence;''' any
could be a
compound word.
be repeated until we find no larger construction
long,
This procedure
or domain, in
may
any utterance no matter how
which we can describe
as a regular combination of the last previously established domain.
18.3.
Result: Constructions Included in the Next Larger Constructions

of elements, constructions
We now have a new set

These do not replace
the relations
all
and
their
members.
all
the
morpheme
classes,
nor do they express
among
the classes. Nevertheless, they furnish our most
compact way
the
of describing
classes.
many
of the facts
about the occurrence of

in general the
morpheme
These constructions are not
most
convenient elements for the utterance analysis of chapter 16; but they
satisfy other types of utterance description: e.g.
we can say
that the
al-
minimum
utterance of a language
of the
is
a word construction, and that

is
most every utterance
language
a succession of one or
more
v,-hole
word constructions.
Constructions are particularly useful for various purposes because they
can be defined, for each language, in a series such that

of
all
constructions
one order enclose constructions

class,
of
lower order.
We
can thus identify
any morpheme
cupies in
group
of classes, or construction, in
it
terms of the
it
next higher construction in which

it.'^
participates
and the position
oc-
Furthermore, since each construction

as containing such
is
a regular combination of next
lower constructions, we can conversely take any utterance and describe

it
and such longest constructions, each containing

is
such and such next lower constructions, and so on down to the mor-
pheme
is
classes of the utterance.'* This
similar to the process of deter-
mining immediate constituents (16.54), except that the present procedure
more
it
general.
The
constructions and domains defined in chapter 18
make
possible to state a single procedure for analyzing the correspond-
ingly ordered immediate constituents of various utterances, even though
'"Yielding
'^
TDA&AX, TDAX&DAX,
etc.
Much
along the lines of identification in terms of genus and spe-
cific difference.
" Cf. the description for classical Hebrew in Z. S. Harris, Linguistic structure of Hebrew, Chap. 6. Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 61.164 (1941).
CONSTRUCTIONS
the
333
of the
morpheme
classes of the utterances
and the utterance statuses
constructions
18.4.
may
be quite
different.^''
Reconsideration of Previous Results
Various operations in the course of chapters 16-8

in the
may
effect
changes
elements set up by means of the earlier procedures.
Any such
changes constitute a further approximation beyond the results originally obtained. Thus the setting up of zero segments (Appendix to 18.2) involves the addition of
etc.) to
new elements (morphemic segments, morphemes, new environment,

to a
our stock, or the extension of the distribution of our old elements
(by adding a new zero member, in a

or
morpheme
and
of
morpheme
class, etc.).
The
definition of our stock of elements
the environments in which each occurs must

basis. Similarly, the voiding of
now be
corrected on this
elements (Appendix to 18.2) eliminates
from our stock some elements which had previously been set up to represent particular segments, and changes the distribution of classes, members or residues of which have been voided.
Other cases may also arise. For example, the new division of morphemes resulting from 16.32 (e.g. Moroccan dial into dia and I) corrects our morphemic segmentation and stock of morphemes, and also the membership of some of the morpheme classes. Aside from these required corrections, the detailed consideration of
relations
among elements which

of chapter 17,
led to the equations of chapter 16, the
and the constructions of chapter 18, may enable us to reconsider our previous work and to carry out the earlier procedures to a closer approximation. This may be done so as to yield somecomponents
what different elements, in terms of which the equations, components, and constructions would be more simply stated.'* Thus if a word-con'^ Cf. the discussion on constructions in R. S. Wells, Immediate Constituents, L.^NG. 23.81-117 (1947). "* Neither this nor the considerations of fn. 33 below imply that the previous work is inadequate for 16 7 or has to be reorganized. The morpheme classes of 15 satisfy 16 by definition, since the operations of both
sections depend upon substitutability within the utterance. These classes also satisfy 17, since the requirements of 17 (substitutability within any stated part of an utterance) are included in those of 15-6. The classes of 15 can therefore enter as wholes into the groupings of 17, though the sequence resultants of 16 of course may not. In none of those cases is it necessary to take into consideration the individual members of these classes, except insofar as there may be distribulionally different sub-classes which were disregarded tentatively in 15. The work of 16-7 may nevertheless lead to changes in the membership of the classes of 15, and may require a comparison of the distribution of one member of a
384
St
is
and if morphemes are found to members at the boundary of this construction and elsewhere, in a way that had not been previously expressed, we can now set this difference up as marking a construction juncture.
ruction
set
up
for a particular corpus,
have
different
Appendix
1.
to 18.2: Zero
Segments and Voided Elements

in the carry-
Zero Segments Represented by Elements

In setting up the constructions of chapter 18, as elsewhere
ing out of the linguistic description,
we may have
occasion to accord the
status of linguistic elements to zero stretches of speech. True, this pro-
cedure
is
never unavoidable: in any corpus of material,
it is
possible to
identify every linguistic element solely in terms of non-zero stretches of
speech. For that matter, any corpus could be described in terms of ele-
ments each
which
it
of
which represents only the addition
(to the utterance in
some cases, however, it is convenient to identify an element as representing an interchange of segments (i.e. the omission of one stretch of speech and the addition of anoccurs) of
some stretch
of speech. In
other in
cases,
its place, e.g. in 12.331),
rather than a simple addition. In other
we may
recognize just the omission of a stretch of speech as indi(e.g. 12.333).
cating a linguistic element
Even
in the simpler situations,
when we say
that two stretches of
speech contain an identical additive element, we
may
not wish to state

the components
what part
difference
of
each stretch represents that element
(e.g.
of chapters 10
and
17)
in
such cases the linguistic element represents the

(as f represents the difference
between two segments

'he'
between
Hebrew hu
and
element to indicate
we may wish to set up a linguistic the non-addition and non-omission of anything in a

hi 'she'). Finally,
i.e.
particular environment,
to indicate a segment consisting of zero."
All such elements are possible, in terms of our present methods, because
they are
all
definable in terms of segments they are

:
all
relations
among
segments.^"
class with that of the other members (e.g. in the Appendix to 18.2 and in reconsider our work here because our later results fn. 33 there). show us what choices it would have been most convenient to make at
We
various earlier stages. '^ Cf. e.g. R. Jakobson, Signe zero, in Melanges delinguistique oflferts a Charles Bally 143-52 (1939) also Das Nullzeichen, in Bulletin du cercle linguistique de Copenhague 5 (1938-9) 12-4 (1940). 2 All such elements may be looked upon as extracted from simple representations of segment sequences by element sequences (20.22, cf. chapter 20, fn. 12, 13).
;
CONSTRUCTIONS
The
basic condition for setting
is:
335
element representing a
up a
linguistic
zero segment
Given a
class
containing stated
members
in stated
environments A, the class
may
also be defined as always occurring in

its
certain other environments
where
other
members do not
occur.
Then
zero segment, as a
member
of that class, occurs in each of these
other environments B.^'
Giving the status

ried out in a great
of a linguistic
element to zero segments can be car-
many
situations. It can be
used
in
such a way as to
blur the differences between two sets of morpheme-class relations. Note
must
that
therefore be taken of the descriptive effect of each zero segment
is
recognized in
it
t'he
course of an analysis. In keeping with the pres-
would be required that the setting up of zero segments should not destroy the one-one correspondence between morphological description and speech. Hence a zero segment in a given environment can
ent methods,
only be a
member
of
one
class.
Defining a zero segment
may
be useful in
a case such as the following: Suppose that the sequences AXaYa, AXbYt,
and
AXc
occur (where
of class
morphemes
X), and that
Xa and Xb are either the same or else different Xa and Xb have no descriptively rele-
vant difference as against Xc except for the relation to
stated here.
member (Yz) of Y, and thus obtain the element sequence AXcY^. We can now say that each occontains some member or other of }'. currence of the environment AX Techniques of this type are especially useful when we wish to set up
Then we
recognize a zero segment after ^X,. as a
AXY as a construction,
clude therefrom the
in
terms of chapter
18,
and do not wish to ex-
AXc
sequence.
in
Examples
segment
in
of
such zero segments
phonology were the phonemic junc-
tures (chapter 8), which set
up a new phonemic element indicating a zero a unique environment of other segments. The juncture ele-
ments do
segment
not, of course, represent zero; they represent particular fea-
tures of neighboring segments.
But the position they occupy

into a
is
that of a
of zero length in the utterance.

of zero
Examples
morphemic segments grouped
morpheme: the
mor-
zero after cut in / have cut can be included as a
member
of the {-en}
pheme
of / have taken, I have
walked (Appendix to 13.42); the zero after
sheep in The sheep are being shorn can be included as
member
here.
of the
-s
morpheme
of the boys are returning,
The children are
In both cases,
^'
I.e., if
^X occurs,
define
and
occurs (without X), while
BX does not oc-
cur,
we may
as representing the elements
represented by
in
the environment
BX. The segment
is
zero.
336
the
in
morpheme can be considered
to occur (inchidinp; in
are
it
.
its
zero
member)
every / have
it
or
it
The
On
the other hand, matching
/ cut
with / picked
and / saw
of {-ed],
it,
does not enable us to define after cut

it
a zero segment
member
because I cut
it.
can also be matched
environmentally with / pick

of {-ed] in the first / cut
it
I see
We cannot set
up a zero member
ciit
it
and not
in the second,
because the one-one without
correspondence would be lost thereby: upon hearing /

further environment,
Similarly,
we would not know

set
see the dogs
if
the
morpheme
{-ed\ occurs.
we cannot
matched both with I

tion,
up a zero {-s} in / see the sheep which can be and / see the dog. In view of this situa-
cut
we might not wish to recognize even the zero {-en} after cut, since would anyhow have to remain an exception in respect to the {-ed\ morpheme. Similarly, we might not wish to recognize a zero {-s] for
sheep in The
are
since sheep remains an exception in respect to
. However, there is some reason for setting up the zero segment in the cases where it is possible to do so. The recognition of the zero shows that in these positions one can distinguish the grammatical category (and meaning) marked by the morpheme in ques-
the same
{-s\ in
/ see the
tion from that
marked by
is
its
absence: / have cut
is
distinct
from
I cut just
as / have taken
from /
take.
:
Examples of zero morphemes in a morpheme class If we consider the and V general classes in English, we find that they have a great many morphemes in common. We find further that some of these morphemes occur with greater frequency in N positions than in V (e.g. book) and
iV
others occur with greater frequency in
positions than in
(e.g. take).
We also note that

(e.g. lionize),
there
class
is
a class A'V of morphemes such that

that
N Nv
= V
is
and a
Vn such
V Vn =
(e.g.
punishment). It
therefore possible, though not necessarily convenient for most purposes,

to define a zero
.V
morpheme of the Nv class which occurs after the primarily morphemes when they are in F position, and a zero morpheme of the Vn class which occurs after the primarily V morphemes when they are in A' position. Then book could be A^^ in a fine book, and Na + Nva = V
in Better book this fellow; take could be
in Better take this fellow
and
Va
Fa
A' in o fine takc.^^

different case of zero
A somewhat
morphemes may be seen

is
in
such ut-
terances as the clock he fixed N^N*Vd* and / know he
N*Vd^NH'*.
These vary freely (except
for stylistic differences) with the clock that he
^^ Cf. also the zero stress stem in Leonard Bloomfield, Menomini morphophonemics, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8.108 (1939).
CONSTRUCTIONS
fixed N^
337
Na^
A'M'rf^
and with / know

that N'^Vd^
that he is
A'^V +
Na^
+ NW*
respectively (Appendix to 16.31). In terms of chapter 16

state that
N^N'^V/ = N^
if
A^^.
we would merely Here, however, we can say
that the two equated sequences

class composition,
may
be considered identical as to their
includes
/
that,
who, etc.
know he
is is
we define a zero member of the class A'"o^ which Then the clock he fixed is also N^NJN*Vd^, and A^^TV.VaÂ^^V^; and Aô' is defined as having members
any
of
that,
who, zero,
etc.^^
which
may
occur in this
position.^''
2.
Voided Elements: Non-zero Segments Represented by Absence

of
Element
we may consider a technique which is some ways its converse: the voiding of elements (i.e. replacing an element by zero). The setting up of an element for a zero segment had regularized the class involved, i.e. had made its distribution similar to that of some other class. ^^ To effect this, a portion of speech containing no segment or no change of segments, is represented by a linguistic element.^ Conversely, there may be situations in which we wish to say that a porIn contrast with zero segments
in
tion of speech which contains an observed segment
is
represented by ab-
sence of a linguistic element. That

of speech
itself
is,
we may take
i.e.
a non-empty stretch
is
and say that

in
it
has no independent descriptive status and
in
represented by no linguistic element,
by a voided,
or zero, ele-
ment. All the cases
which
this
can be done are cases of partial indeis
pendence, and the effect of this technique
to change these to cases of
complete independence.
'^^
he fixed and / know he

would suggest) second.
^*
:
Many
details are omitted here.

is
For example, the classes
in the clock
are not identical (as the Aâ^ used in both zero or that occur in both, but ivhat occurs only in the
In contrast, the use of zero would not be desirable in such a case as make him a party N* V/N/Ni^ matched with ni make a party for him N*V/Nb*I^ci\'a^- It would seem that we could set up a zero member of Pc between the two A' of the first utterance. But it would then be necessary to say that NJPcN b* when Pc has zero member is equal to Nb*PcNa* when Pc is not zero. We (;ould not simply write N*PcN* since unless we know whether the Pc is zero or not we do not know which of the two A'^ is the direct object of the verb.
I'll
^* E.g. if Y occurs in all the positions of A' (or in corresponding ones) except for certain of these positions, we define a zero member of )' in those positions and thus remove the exception. The distribution of )' now corresponds fully to the otherwise recognized distribution of A'. ^* The setting up of zero segments structions, e.g. in some of the cases of
may
what
be useful also
is
known
in larger conas ellipsis.
338
basic condition for representing an
The
added segment by no added

which never occurs
(in
linguistic
element at
all is:
Given a
that
class A'
stated
environments) without some
member
(î, A^, etc.) of
another class
ac-
companying
ing
it,
we can say
X occurs sometimes without accompany-
(i.e. is
independent of
status.
voiding
its linguistic
it), by choosing some member A^ of A and That is, we say that the segment sequences
XA\, XAz, etc. are cases of the element sequence XA, but that the segment sequence XA, is represented by the single linguistic element X. The segment A^ in the environment X, is void so far as descriptive
elements are concerned. ^^
This technique
is
useful
if
we wish
methods
to free the distribution of

of
X.
It is
basically an extension of the
chapter
,
12.
For
if
every time
occurs
ent of
it is
A
If
accompanied by some member of A then X is not independand the two should not constitute two separate linguistic ele-
ments.
X and A
were individual morphemic segments, this would be
a case of partial or complete dependence (according as whether
for its
part ever occurred without X), and the two might be set up as constituting together one linguistic element (Appendix to 12.22). However,
when
X and A represent classes (of segments, morphemes, etc.)

to consider their sequence as one element, because though
it is
impossible
is
dependent
upon
etc.).
(i.e.
always occurs with

(since
it), it is
independent of any particular
member
of
sometimes occurs with Ai, sometimes with A2,
Our methods seem inadequate for the expression of this relation between the classes X and A.^^ This crux is eliminated by the present technique of voiding one of the members of ^. In effect, this procedure
replaces the class-dependence of
X on J.
.
by a complete dependence
of
upon a particular member ^^
of yl
This complete dependence is expressed
^^ The absence of the class symbol A after (when we find by itself) represents the occurrence of the segment .4^. In selecting which member of A should be the voided A^, we consider how we may obtain greatest simplicity of description, or which member has special restrictions or least statable specificity of environment: cf. the component 3 below, and chapter 16, fn. 32, and chapter 17, fn. 14.
^* If we say that X and A are interdependent, and constitute one element, we would leave unexpressed the difference between XAi and A^42; and if we say that X and A are two independent elements, we would leave unexpressed the fact that A' never occurs without .4. Since the elements of descriptive linguistics are the distributional independencies we have here a case which is satisfied neither by setting X and A as separate elements, nor by setting them up as a single element. It will be seen that the desired elements are the new^ class A' and the new member X^ of X,
below.
CONSTRUCTIONS
in the
339
manner
of chapter 12
by saying that the segments XA^ together

all
constitute one element
X (or rather, its new member XJ. A new class A'

the
may now
be defined, containing
members
of the old class
A, ex-
X has various members before various members of A'; when no A' follows, the new member of X is A'^. X is now no longer
cept for Az.
The element
dependent upon the class A':

without A'.^^
it
often occurs with A', but
it
also occurs
In some cases the environment in which an element

zero)
is
is
void (considered
simply statable, and the segment which

is
is
no longer independent-
ly represented
indicated by the absence of a stated

in the
i
number
or class of
other elements.
Thus
Appendix to
or t,
17.33, instead of saying that
always occurs with either
we
identify
Ft
as a single element V,
and say that V is free: sometimes it occurs with i, and sometimes it does The segments which had been previously represented by t are now represented by the absence of i after V.
not.^
In other cases the environment in which an element

variegated or unstatable, but
is
is
void
may
be
always identical with the environment of
a particular
morpheme
class.
For example, the Hebrew component 3

in A^
'third person'
(Appendix to 17.33) occurs

him', etc.); in
P V
,
,
(e.g. -o 'his,
it is
him' roso
'his head', lo 'to
all
these positions
replace-
able by A^ (ros haxevra 'head of the company', laxevra 'to the company',
yi&ddti xevra
'I
establish a company').
We cannot,
even
if
however, state a diag-
nostic environment for 3, in such a
way
that every time the environment
occurs
we would know that 3 occurs

3.
too,
we
don't explicitly indi-
cate the occurrence of

3: ros 'head' yisddti
'I
For
N and V also occur without following N or

Hence, 3 cannot be indicated merely
established'.''
is
2^ In voiding elements, one-one correspondence of our representation preserved by defining the segments XA^ as the element only in those without following segment A does not environments in which segment occur. When, in these stated environments, we see the element X, we know it indicates only the segments XA^. In spite of this limitation, the indiscriminate use of zero segments and void elements can make many different language structures seem sterilely similar. Caution in their use
is
therefore necessary.
^^
ly,
In the latter case, the element V indicates the segments Vt. Similaror V when not followed by f indicate the segments and Vu respectively, and when not followed by p indicate the segments A's and
Am
Fs
respectively.
does not occur without following A' or 3. could therefore consider 3 as void A' (i.e. as represented by mere absence of A'^), and write for lo 'to him', PN\ for li 'to me', PN\V for Idnu 'to us', PNa for laxevra 'to the company', PNb for lai^ 'to the man', and so on.
''
We
340
of
by the absence of A' in A" any particular member
or V
of A'^:"
But
it
can be indicated by absence
roSxa 'your head', A^rAâ ro
would be roH 'my head', NrN't haxevra 'head of the company', but A'^rA'^
A'^rA'i
(with no subscript to indicate any particular

roSo 'his head',
member
of
A'^)
would be
and Av with no A'^ (either particular member or general class mark) following would be ro 'head'. The case of t and the case of 3 may be considered to be similar, if we
say that
in
each case there

in
it:
is
a diagnostic environment plus a class of
elements which occur
the occurrence of each
member
of that class
indicates some corresponding segment, and the occurrence of no

of that class indicates the of T, the
member
one remaining (voided) segment. In the case
environment was
the class occurring in
it
and the segment indicated by absence or VN the case of 3, the environment was AÂ'
ponent
I,
of that class
(or PN
was the comwas t. In

),
the class
of A^
occurring in
it
included the differentiators of the particular
members
(subscripts i, 2, a, b, etc.), and the segment indicated by absence class of differentiating subscripts was S."
3.
of that
Relation between Zero Segments and Voided Elements

There
is
no necessary relation between zero segments and voided elemay be represented by a non-void element: e.g. Or it may be represented by a the zero member of -en in have cut
ments.
zero segment
j
-.
^^
A" (which
Or any member of A'^ other than it would be on grounds of
3, if
3 is taken as being a substitutability).
member
of
" certain extension in the use of our symbols is involved here. Previously, (in chapter 13) we had considered the individual segments such to be our elements. Later (chapter 15), we took all as ros 'head', ani those elements which substituted for each other and considered them
members of one larger element ros and ani became merely members of A', and the difference between them no longer mattered; all that mattered
:
i.e. their occurrence in .V position. recognize both the element A' and the elements which are distinguished among its members (ros, ani, etc.): A' is an undifferentiated class element, and the differences among ros, ani, etc. are residual differentiating elements <,, i, etc. These residual differentiating elements occur only with X, and are therefore complementary to the residual differentiating subscripts of other class elements such as V; hence, we can pair them, if convenient, and consider the subscript of A' to be the same residual element as the subscript of V. The inefficiency of considering
was
their distributional similarity,
Now we
both the class A' and also all its members (ros, ani, etc.) as independent elements is avoided by taking one of the old members of A' (in this case 3) and considering it to be identical with, and indicated by, the uridifferentiated class-mark A", so that when no subscript follows, A^ indicates that which we would have otherwise written A'3.

CONSTRUCTIONS
void element. The void element
'masculine' and 'singular' after
341
class: e.g. zero
may
be the absence of a
A'^
Hebrew
are indicated by absence of

'fellows'); zero 'third per-
F or p (baxur
son' after
'fellow',
baxura
'girl',
baxurim
by absence of / or ^ (katav 'he wrote', katavti 'I wrote', katdvta 'you wrote'). Or the void element may be the absence of any member differentiator of a given class: e.g in Moroccan Arabic, absence of vowels in R may be regarded as a zero segment, meaning action, which constitutes the void member of the class v of vowel morphemes (with action-type meanings: ktb 'he wrote' Rv, katb 'he correis
indicated
sponded' RVa).
Analogously, non-zero segments or classes of segments
sented by non-void elements, as
is
may
be repre-
usually the case: ani
represented
A'^).
by the component 1 (or the residual differentiator A'î Or they may be represented by a void element. Here
element
of the class
again, the void
may
be the absence
A'^
of a class: e.g.
hu
'he'
before
'I
is
repreis
sented by absence of
hais katav 'the
(A'îFo is
ani katavti or katavti
wrote',
NaVa
void element
class: e.g.
man wrote', Va is hu katav or katav 'he wrote'). Or the may be the absence of any member differentiator of a given
(is)
hu more 'he
AîAâ.
a teacher'
is
A^
Na
as against ani more
'I
(am)
a teacher'
Nevertheless, there are frequently special relations between zero seg-
ments and void elements. Thus the voiding

venient
casionally zero. For example, void
of elements
is
especially conis
when the segment represented by the void element

A'^
at least oc-
in the
environment
repre-
component 3 'third person' which appears in several morphemes, one of them zero: katav 'he wrote' V, hu katav 'he wrote' V, yixtov 'he will write' Vi. Elimination of 3 is particularly desirable because when the ^V preceding V is any member other than / or 2, the affix of V is always 3: ani katavti 'I wrote', hu katav 'he wrote', hais katav 'the man wrote', hais yixtov 'the man will write'. If 3 were recognized as a member of N, on a par with / and 2, we would have to say that when Na occurs before V, 3 occurs affixed to the V: katavti and ani katavti are both NiVa, katav and hu katav both N^Va, but hai katav would be Na + 3Va, haiS yixtov Na + 3Vai. There would thus be a special limitation upon 1 and 2 as compared with 3 in the environment A'o Va. However, if 3 is represented by no element at all in the environment V, then haiS
sents the
yixtov
is
merely Na
V'qI,
just as ani extov
'I
will write' is
A'î
-j-
I'ai
and
hu
yixtov 'he will write'
is
Vai.
Instead oi
2,
and 3 constituting a
number,
3,
differ-
ent class than the other

these other
A'^
A',
and having one

3Va),
of their
/, 2,
occur with
A'^
(as in
A'ô -f-
we now have
and
all
other
mem-

342
bers in one class.
The non-occurrence
/
of other .V
with
or ^
is
due not to
a restriction of distribution but to the fact that in general the members

of A^ (including
and
2) replace each other rather

1
than occur together.

is
The only
which
is
difference
between
or
2 and the other
one of phonemic
i,
constitution rather than of distribution: the form of the verb-prefix

yi after other
1
members
of
(and after absence of
A'), is differ-
ent after
and
2.^*
The similarity and
difference
among
zero segments, void elements,
and
other elements of our representation of a corpus

lows: in the case of other elements, segment
may
be
summed
as fol-
X is represented by element X; in setting up a zero, segment X is represented (in given environments) by elements XY; and in a voided element, segments XY are represented by element X.^^
18.4: Correlation
Appendix to
1.
with Previous Results
With Phonemic Features

The
various
new elements and
classifications of chapters 16-8, the
sequence resultants and successive inclusion numbers, the components,
and the constructions, are often found to correlate with phonemic sequences and the like. This may happen if all the members or every domain of some sequence, component, or construction (or of some position within these) have some feature in common. For example, if we have a
number
of
morpheme
is
classes
which regularly have zero
stress, ^^
these classes occurred in a particular construction position,
and if we could say
that zero stress
a feature of this construction position: this position

in question.
always has the feature

that these
Furthermore, we no longer need say

stress;
it
morpheme
classes
have zero
is
enough to say that
^* A partially similar special relation of one member of a class to the other members is seen in the substitutability of one for almost any member of English X: a long experiment, mid a short one. Cf. Leonard Bloom-
field,
^=
Language 251.
of the Appendix to 18.2 is thus essentially comparable to that of chapter 12; and the operation of 12 may be considered a first approximation to it. In both cases the operation is one of according element status to segments. For example, in the Appendix to 12.233 it would n /a ', /ae/, run into r have been possible to segment ran into r n walked into walk zero. It would then be possible ed, walk into walk to void the /9; of run and the zero of walk.
The method
" Which
wôuld have been noted in the Appendix to 15.5.
CONSTRUCTIONS
that construction position has zero stress, and
for the individual
343
make no
if
stress correlation
morpheme
classes.
This correlation becomes of greater interest
the phonemic feature in
question does not occur outside of that construction position.
We
can
then recognize the occurrence of the construction, with

classes,
its
morpheme
also
from the presence
of the
phonemic feature."
The very fact that a sequence, as it appears within an utterance, occurs by itself, or does not, may be a characteristic feature.
2.
With Boundaries
Frequently, the phonemic features characteristic of a construction
its
occur at the boundaries of occur only or never

while the rest
is
if
domain.^* Certain
is
phoneme sequences may

in
part of the sequence
the end of one construction
the beginning of the next.
Thus
Hidatsa of North
Dakota, kk occurs across the boundary of two constructions, but never

otherwise: ha^ruk
are
kaWak
'then running' (two constructions in that there
two loud
stresses; the
morphemes
are he 'say, do', ru subject changer,
ak indicator of immediately preceding action), but a'ah^kic 'he brought
him to
it'
(one construction with one loud stress; the
morphemes
are
e-'e 'have',
ak indicator
of
immediately preceding action, with k replaced
regularly
tion).
by h before
close juncture
k,
kv 'get back',
indicator of ac-
From
the presence of kk
we know not only that

lies.
there are
two con-
structions present, but also where their boundary
Such distributions
a
limited to boundaries are frequent in
many languages, and are among the

if
justifications for the operations of chapter 18; for
number
of seis
quences which differed
in chapter 16 (e.g. sixths is
A'^
and glimpsed
is
V)
if
are structurally similar in chapter 18, (both stem plus suffix),
and
some phonemic feature
(clusters like /ksfls/,
/mpst/)
all A^
limited precisely
to these structurally similar sequences (not to
or V, but only to
it is
any construction containing

venient to describe
all
suffixes after the stem),
then
most conof that
these structurally similar sequences as constituting
one construction, and the phonemic feature as a characteristic

construction."
"
the
^*
E.g. the
number
of
number
of times the construction occurs can be gauged from times the phonemic feature occurs.
And
are often included in
what are
called sandhi features.
" The term construction type will sometimes be used for construction to make it clear that the reference is not to a particular combination of morpheme classes but to a combination of groups of classes as defined in
chapter
18.
344
In
many languages such
special
phonemic features occur
at the
bound-
aries of various sequences,
components, or constructions, including con-
structions one of which occurs within the other.

features at these boundaries in
The special phonemic some cases are the same as those at other boundaries, and in other cases are different. In some cases, a special phonemic feature occurs both at the boundary between morphemes and
at
some
or all boundaries
between the larger stretches.

it is
For each special phonemic distribution,
possible to reconsider the
grouping of phonemic segments into phonemes (chapters 7-9) and see

if it is
possible to find a grouping which will obviate the phonemic differ-
ence at these boundaries without sacrificing any of the advantages of the

e.xisting
grouping. If phonemic segment or sequence
occurs near a
or sequence
particular morphological boundary,
and phonemic segment

juncture.''"
never doeSj we
may make X and Y phonemically identical, while recogThis

is
nizing the
boundary as a phonemic and means merely

for the status of
exactly analogous
to chapter 8,
that here, as in chapter 14,
we may
find
new candidates
if
phonemic
is
juncture.'"
of course the
This regrouping of phonemic segments
more important
the boundary and the non -boundary ones, which at present are
memelimi-
bers of different phonemes, occur in different
members
of
one morpheme.
For then,
if
we put the two segments
into one
phoneme, we have
nated the morphophonemic difference between the two (phonemically) variant members of the morpheme and left one member (phonemically)
in their place.
In addition to the phonemic features, constructions in some cases have

phonetic boundary features which though positionally limited are not
phonemic because they appear only occasionally,

free variant of their non-occurrence.
tion, for
i.e.
their occurrence
is
Thus pauses
etc.)
(for breath, for hesita-
emphasis, for interruption,

in
rarely occur within a
mor-
pheme, but
many
languages will occur with increasing frequency at
successively larger morphological boundaries. These are the intermittent-
If
X also occurs otherwise than at the boundary,

phoneme
it
could be assigned
it
in those other positions to some other complementary in those positions.
to which
would be
^' If some occurrences of a construction boundary can be made into a phonemic juncture (say, those where a particular phoneme precedes the
boundary), while other occurrences of it cannot, we say that next to the phoneme in question the new juncture indicates the construction boundary, but that next to other phonemes this construction boundary has no phonemic mark.

CONSTRUCTIONS
ly present distinctions of the
345
4.3,
Appendix to
and one
of the con-
veniences of setting up the domains of sequence resultants, components,
and constructions
is
that
it is
these domains which usually correlate with
the point of occurrence of these intermittently present elements.
We can
structions
group together
all sequence resultants, components, and conwhose domains involve the same boundary junctures, inter-
mittently present phonologic elements, contours, or other features.
The
juncture, contour, or other feature involved would then be said to apply

to the
domain common
to all these, or to the class of morphological eleall these. ^^
ments (and sequences) which includes
In
many
languages
we
will find several
such sets of features, marking several types of doother).
mains (usually one enclosing the

3.
With Contours
In
many
languages there are phonemic or phonetic features which ex-
tend over the length of various morphological domains. E.g. in English
and
in other languages, the constructions
which sometimes occur by
themselves (FB: a free
morpheme with
jj
zero or
more bound forms,
oc-
casionally doubled or trebled with
stress)
have exactly one loud
stress;
and
in general
no stretch
of speech contains precisely
one loud stress ex-
cept one of these.
A domain of this type is often called a word.

all
There
may
be several contrasting construction types
having the same contour
(and boundary) features, and hence constituting the same domain.'"

This, or a somewhat similar domain may also be the domain of other and less frequently noticed features. E.g. in some languages, the duration
phonemes is longer if the word in which they are contained is shorter. The phonemes /taeb/ are longer in The number on this tab has to be registered than in The number on this tabulating -machine has to be registered. If we find, for example, that the domain of vowel harmony in a language is somewhat larger than the domain of word-tone contours, or that its
of
*^ If the various features all occur whenever the domain occurs (i.e. are automatic in respect to it), they are not phonemic but are included in the definition of the juncture or contour marker of that domain. If various grades of them occur in various occurrences of the constructions of that interval, then these grade contour differences are phonemic and are marked as in chapter 6.
" Constant checking on

equatable to some one
the
morphemic contours may show that
cer-
tain of them correlate in a general E.g. any English sequence which
way with
is
other features of sequences. covered by a morpheme is

'
morpheme
class.
346
effect carries for
one morpheme class
in
the sequence longer than do
the morphophonemic changes of tone,
we merely recognize two domains,

it,
one being that of tone contours and the other, including or overlapping
being that domain of vowel harmony. Both would roughly be the length
and character
of
what
is
often called the word/''
The contours
indicate in general the boundaries of the domains over

e.g.
which they extend, although in some cases,

nemes, the boundary points are
less fixed,
the duration of pho-
much
harder to discover, and perhaps
than the character
of the contour.
4.
With Morpheme Classes

Constructions and other domains
may
correlate with particular
mor-
pheme
classes in a sufficiently general
manner
to merit special note.^^ For
example, a number of morpheme classes
may
appear together
in various
combinations, but never in constructions with other
morpheme
classes.
The
constructions in which the former participate

is
may
differ in
many
respects from the other constructions. This
often the case in languages

foreign sources
which have a large stock

of Latin
of
morphemes borrowed from

e.g.
with some of the grammar of their original language,
English words
and Greek
derivation.
Many
of these constructions
and
classes
may
e.g.
occur primarily in special styles or social dialects of the language, the use of the above English vocabulary in learned speech and in
writing.'**
In extreme cases such situations
may
be best handled by independent
grammatical systems for the distinct sets of material, below a certain

level (e.g. in
domains
of
word
or smaller); the constructions resulting
^ A language may thus have two different domains, one enclosing the other but only slightly larger than it, and both of which are close to what would usually be called the word. Rather than make one of these domains basic and say that the other is based upon it but with some change, we can simply speak of two different related domains. Such is the case for the domains of vowel harmony and of word in Turkish.
*^ Thus the special Semitic classes of non-contiguous-consonant morphemes (R) and non-contiguous- vowel morphemes (n and v) had to be treated separately in chapter 16: R + n = X, R + v = V. In 18.2 however, both sequences, i.e. all cases of these discontinuous morphemes, are grouped together into one construction. Most Semitic words are of the
structure
*^
Rp
(where p indicates either n or
f indifferently).
Leonard Bloomfield, The structure of learned words, in A commemorative volume issued by the Institute for Research in English Teaching (Tokyo 1933).
Cf.

CONSTRUCTIONS
from each system at the highest
level at
347
which they are distinguished

in
would be used
stylistic
in identical
in
environment)
manner (though perhaps with differences the larger domains of the utterance. ^^
5.
With Meaning
The meaning
of
any domain, whether morpheme

is
or larger,
may
be de-
fined as the
common
feature in the social, cultural, and interpersonal
situations in which that interval occurs. It
often impossible to state
such a
of
common
feature of meaning;
we can then say that the meaning

is
an element
in each linguistic
environment
the difference between the

of the
meaning
terance
of its linguistic
(i.e.
environment and the meaning
whole utof blue in
the whole social situation).
Thus the meaning

of blueberry
blueberry might be said to be the

of berry
meaning
minus the meaning
and
of the
'
,i
morpheme: blue here therefore does not mean
simply a
color,
but the observable differentia of blueberries as against
other berries.
However,
in
variation of meaning
some languages, including English, the easily observable is very great. The correlation with meaning can then
its
be made directly with the sequence of morpheme plus

using as
cial
environment,
much
is
of the
environment as
is
necessary to differentiate the speblueberries, since the
meaning: we use blueberry but not

simply the meaning
meaning
of
of
-s.
blueberries
of blueberry plus the
meaning
their
Thus the dictionary which would ordinarily list only the morphemes and meanings and individual special selections, would also list these
constructional sequences of morphemes, instead of discussing the par-
ticipating
morphemes
it
separately.
of the
In some cases
ing
is
would be possible to show that an aspect
common
to all the occurrences of a particular construction,
meanno
matter what the individual morphemes involved. That
much can then

if
be taken out as the meaning of the domain arrangement, and need not be
given as due to any of the morphemes involved. Of course,
there
is
morpheme
of the
characteristic of the construction, like the
'
morpheme
îi
FBFB
construction, the constructional meaning can be assigned

If
to that
is
morpheme.
there
is
no such common morpheme, the meaning
assigned merely to the arrangement of
morpheme
classes
which con-
stitutes that construction.**
*^ Compare the occurrences of foreign phonemic sub-systems within a person's speech, as in 2.31 and chapter 2 fn. 9. **
Cf.
tagmemes
in
Leonard Bloomfield, Language
IGO, 27(),
and the
Appendix to
12.3 4 above.
348
All the classes
which occupy a particular position
in
a sequence or
construction or in a group of partially similar construction types
may
be said to have a feature of meaning in common: Hebrew

cludes
(which in-
C and
A':
18.2) in
RpH may
be said to have the meaning of
'word
inflection.'
In some cases the participants in a particular position of a given construction have such
tive verb).'^^
common meanings
as 'plural,' 'object (of transi-
These would be examples of what may be called semantic categories grammar. Cf. John Lotz, The semantic analysis of the nominal bases in Hungarian, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague
*^
of the
5.185-96 (1949).
19.
19.1.
MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE
What Utterances Occur
11,
Purpose: Stating
in the
all
Corpus
Up
to this point the morphological procedures,
and
the procedures
with the exception of chapter
have only stated various relations

classiall
among parts
of utterances
methods of segmenting utterances and

can
fying the segments.

utterances, consists
We
of.
have no check on what a whole utterance, or
We
now show how
the previous procedures
serve to identify the utterances.

19.2.
Procedure: Sequences of Resultants or Constructions
We state which sequences of the resultant position classes of chapter 16

or the constructions of chapter 18 occur as utterances in the corpus.
This procedure, like that of chapter

of occurrence rather
11, consists of
:
making an assertion
than a relational statement not that

as condensed
i.e.
to or
is
substitutable for Y, but that utterances consisting of
X occurs next XY occur.

possible,
In order to
make these assertions
and as general as
they are put in the most general terms:
they state the occurrence of

it is
the most general classes or constructions. E.g. for English

to say that utterances consisting of
possible
NVX'^
occur. This
would represent
the great bulk of English utterances, each of which will contain .V and
in that order, lar
although of course they need not each contain any particuA'^
member
of
or V.
To
obtain from the
NVX formula any of the utfor A^ or

T"
terances which
it
represents,
we substitute
the various mor-
phemes by which they are

first
defined. This
may
be done by substituting
e.g.
an equivalence
in
terms of other variables,
TN
for
A'^,
then
AN
final
for the
N, and
DA
for the for
A, and so on until we
i.e.
finally substitute a parin
ticular
morpheme
each variable,
each class mark,
our
form
of the formula.
restrictions
The expansion of the formula, along the lines of the upon concurrence among cla.sses, is carried out by applying
19.
the relations of chapters 16 and 18, equations and constructions, to the
formulae of chapter
In this
manner we can derive from the formula

it is
any utterance
of the class
which the formula represents. Correspondingly,

identified,
given an utterance we can say by what formula

ing to that utterance the equations
ters 16, 18.
by apply-
and construction
results of chap-
'
Where
indicates the class of utterance contours.
349
350
19.3.
The
Selective Substitution
of 19.2
Diagram
of a horizontal
The formulae
have the form

(in
sequence of vari-
ables (class or construction marks), the succession from left to right being
used to indicate succession in time^

represents),
the utterance which the formula

fill
and the choice
of
what variables
the successive places
being the indication of the restrictions upon concurrence

jor resultant classes or constructions.
among
the
maall
They thus
leave unexploited
geometric dimensions above one. These further dimensions could be used

to indicate other relations
among morphemes,
classes,
and constructions
of these elements;
than those of selective succession. The second dimension, that of the

vertical line,
i.e.
it
can be used to indicate substitutability
can be used to show various equivalences which the variable has
in given conditions.
Thus instead
of saying
,YFX we
could say
meaning that both

chapter
16.
XV and .VFA" occur,

VX
which
i.e.
that the variable
T'
can also
be replaced by the variable
is
equivalent to
in
terms of
The
condition under which
we can have
VX is indicated by
is
what goes with

i.e.
it
horizontally, since horizontal sequence represents con-
currence. In this case, the condition (or environment)
a preceding
both
T'
and
VX
have the same condition, .Y
and
after A'
X: we may
get either one of them.
19.31.
Different Conditions for Different Substitutions

of this vertical
The use
These
dimension
is
more important when we indicate
different conditions for different substitutable equivalences of a variable.
different conditions are
always indicated by the sequential varilevel as the substitution in
ables which appear on the same horizontal

question. E.g. instead of
XV we could say,
if
we wish
to detail only
what
occurs after the verb-phrase:^
This diagram, like the comparable one in chapter
currence of
all
351
represents the ocleft
11,
sequences indicated by any line which proceeds from

indicates the occurrence of:
to right without crossing a horizontal bar (and without turning back to
the
left).
Thus
it
NV {Our best books have disappeared.) NVP (The Martian came in.) NVPN {They finally went on strike.) NVN {We'll take
it.)
NVb NVbP
{He
is.)*
{I can't look up.)
NVbPN NVbN
NVbA
relation (zero
{The mechanic looked
at
my
engine.)
{He's a fool. I looked daggers.) {He's slightly

liberal.
They look
old.)
All the information about the substitutability indicated
by the
vertical
above A^ above A,
etc.) is of
course indicated in the pro-
cedures of chapters 16, 18.

cedures
The
substitutions deriving from those proin-
may
and
be shown in these diagrams merely for convenience of

in order to utilize the
spection,
second dimension permitted by the
two-dimensional face of the paper and not e.vploited by the formulae

of 19.2.
19.4.
Result: Sentence Types
We now
please,
have a way
what utterances
state the occurrence of
much or as little detail as we The most detailed diagram or model may each actual morpheme sequence. The most simple
of stating, in as
occur.
formulae, such as the
NVX
of 19.2, are
couched not in terms
of
mor-
phemes but
ter 16, or in
in
terms of the broadest position classes resulting from chapof chapter 17
terms of the components
and the constructions
of chapter 18.
if
The formulae do not
state that, say,
NV occurs, but that

he equated to A^
iV
and
each represent any of the sequences equated to them re-
spectively in chapter 16, then

of
NV occurs. I.e. utterances occur consisting

of chapter 16,
any sequence which can, on the basis
followed by any sequence which can, on that basis, be equated to V.
Many languages will

at least one free
have more than one basic utterance formula. E.g.
in English not only does
NVX occur,
as
but also any sequence containing
morpheme^ occurs
an utterance with utterance con-
tour. If all these different utterance types contain the
same contour
is
* Vb indicates a class of morphemes like be, seem whose distribution similar to that of V except that they also occur before A. ^ In a manner described by the procedure of chapter 18 as constituting a word or minimum utterance.
352
class,
it is
say
A',
we may omit
X from the formulae or diagrams and say that

of utterance structure.*
an automatic feature
The
utterances, or the sections of larger stretches of speech, which
satisfy these formulae
may
be called sentences.
Any
stretch of speech in
the language, no matter
how
long, can then be identified as a sequence of
sentence domains (no matter

type). It
how long
or short, or of
what formulaic
may
be that regularities can be found in the consecution of
sentences in a stretch of speech or in a conversation, showing that sentences of one type are usually followed by others of the
otherwise. Such regularities
ing in the language,
same type,
or
may
perhaps be shown for one style of speak-
and not
for another.
Appendix to
19.31: Detailed
Diagrams
the substitutions or equivalences, condi-
Diagrams, or comparable geometric and physical models, can be constructed so as to represent

all
tioned by particular concurrent environments, recognized via chapters

16, 18.
However, such diagrams would
in
plicated,
and the advantage
of easy inspection
most cases be extremely comwould be lost. For pardiagram
ticular constructions or parts of utterances the
may
provide a
convenient
summary
of the relations of chapters 16 or 18.

i.e.
Thus the
minimum
utterance or word in Moroccan Arabic,
those sequences
which occur by themselves (with complete utterance intonations), but

also as parts of longer utterances (in which case they have only
section of the utterance intonation), can be described
some by the diagram^
on the opposite page

* More generally, we do so if it is possible to determine from the structure (i.e. the sequence of classes) of the utterance what contour class occurs with it. In English also occurs by itself, without other morphemes, (written M?n.) and {?!j with automatic e.g. {! with automatic [m rp [ha] or [n] (written huh/ and Hmm!). ' The function of these diagrams is to present inter-element relations which would take up far more space, and be far less inspectable, if they were stated in English sentences. Each diagram indicates a large number of combinations. Hence, far too much space would be required to give an example of every sequence permitted by this diagram even if we were to use throughout but one member of each of the large classes (S, .S", R, P", P"), i.e. even if we were only to indicate the various combinations of the morphemes and morpheme classes explicitly listed in the diagram. A few examples of these combinations are afforded by the various Moroccan Arabic words cited in this and previous chapters. This diagram is not stated in terms of the reduction to components mapped out in the Appendix to 17.33, because those components do not differentiate between elements which occur within a single word and elements which occur over several words.
As
(e.g.
353
in the
diagram
of chapter 11,
if
we draw any
line
from the
left
end
left
to the diagram to the right end, without crossing any horizontal bars
the line cannot go from Hi to ma), and without going to the the line cannot go from
fi
(e.g.
to
ma
or mn), the line will pass through
a sequence of morphemes or
morpheme classes which occurs as a word (minimum utterance) of the language. Column 1 indicates that every word (minimum utterance) may begin with u- 'and' or without it. Col2 indicates that every word, whether or not
it
umn
began with
u-,
may
354
will
umn 4. No word
indicates that
have zero
for all of
P''
columns 2 4
all
inclusive.
Column
members P" and

in-
occur with
occurrences of R. Col-
umn
6 shows that
'nominalizer' sometimes occurs next to

will
P" and
P",
and that any sequence containing P" but not msuffixation
contain either the

'imperfective';
morpheme
7
'past' or the prefixation
morpheme
and column
or jn|
shows that every occurrence
of the 'past' or 'imperfective'
morphemes is followed by one of the personal affixes, either \t\ 'you,' T, or {ip 'third person'. Column 8 indicates that all the sequences not containing {-/} T, have either the feminine suffix \-a\ or the masculine suffix zero. Column 9 shows that all sequences containing
or 5" have either the plural suffix or the zero masculine suffix. Col10 shows that
all
umn
sequences containing R, S", or one of the mor-
phemes
one's',
(prepositions) of
{-i\
column
3,
have one
of the personal possessive-
objective suffixes
'me, my', {-k\ 'you, your', {-u] 'that one, that
and that those with
or S"
may have none

column
of these;
(i.e.
and further
that any sequence containing P"
-\-
m-, or P", or S"

6) will
the same sel-
quences which contain

'the'
yn- or
zero in
sometimes have
instead of the personal possessive-objective suffixes.
Column
11 in-
dicates that any sequence containing {-k} or {-u} from column 10 will have either the feminine or the zero masculine suffix following it; and
suffixes of
column 12 shows that any sequence containing one of the three personal column 10 will have either the plural or the zero singular suffix
following.
morpheme from columns 1-4 inmorpheme of column 9 or with a morclusive, and ends either with a pheme of column 12 (or with S of column 2)} Every word contains either some member of some class out of columns 3 or 4, or else some
begins therefore with any
A word
member
of
of
column
2.
Limitations of the diagram. Diagrams of this type are adequate for

representing most of the relevant facts brought out in chapters 16, 18.
Morphemes
pheme
words
or
morpheme
classes
those that substitute one for the other

classes,
which occur one above the other are (e.g. -k for -u). Morphemes or morpermitted by the diagram can be
of concurrence:
i.e.
between which a
line
drawn, have between them the relation

in
there are
which both
of
them occur
(e.g.
mn
with
-i in
mni 'from me'; Hi
of
When the morpheme of column 6 is 'pa.st', these three morphemes column 7 have alternants (suffixed): -ti 'you', -t T, zero 'he'. Zero is marked by an asterisk. ' Each morpheme is included under the first column in which it apappears: e.g. S is included in column 2.
with
-t
355
T only in presence of RP'", in Hi ktbt 'which I wrote'). Morphemes

by a
line
or classes which are never connected
permitted in the diagram
are mutually exclusive;
i.e.
they never occur together within the domain
covered by the diagram
(e.g. fi
and
-t
'V, or
the mutual substitutes).

or class
If
the line cannot reach a certain
morpheme
without going
through some other one Q, then P never occurs without the occurrence of Q (e.g. P" never occurs without R; though R occurs without P"). If
the line cannot reach from one
morpheme
or class
to another
with-
out going through a third C, then
AB
never occurs without

of the
(e.g.
P"
never occurs with
-ti
'you' without the
accompaniment
-t
feminine or
masculine morpheme; though P" occurs with
without the feminine

or masculine
or masculine morphemes, and P" occurs with the feminine
morphemes and without

the
-ti
'you' or zero '3rd person'
if
m- precedes
P\
order of the
The time
tions
morphemes
from
or classes in the utterance can usualleft
ly be indicated
by
their order
to right in the diagram. Situa-
may
is
arise,
however, in which that order cannot be represented.
Such
the case
when
the relative order

or P"; k-t-b
is
in the staggering of
R and P"
can only indicate
before or after
and P" and P".
a-
not simply sequential,
e.g.
in ktab 'book'; here
we
Such also
rence
is the case when there are among morphemes which are not
special restrictions
upon concur-
contiguous. Since special restricit is
tions involve special horizontal bars in the chart,
usually convenient
to have the
two
classes involved placed right next to each other.
Thus
column 7 should be next to column 8 because one of its members {-t T) does not occur with column 8 whereas the others do. Column 6, in turn, should be next to column 7 because only the two bottom members of column 6 occur always and only with the members of column 7. We might
further want to put column 6 next to
of
column 3, because the prepositions column 3 occur before m + P" but not before P' alone. However, column 6 has to come next to column 5, because the two bottom members of column 6 occur only with P" while 7n- occurs with both P" and P". And column 5 has to come next to column 4 because R occurs always and only
with column
to 3
5.
Since
5,
we have reason
place
it
to put the 6-7-8 sequence both next
and next to
we
after 5
3
and indicate the
special restrictions
between column 6 and column
m-
until
quire
it reaches column 3. more horizontal bars.
by projecting the bar at the bottom of Other arrangements of columns would reof
Departures
in the
diagram from the order
morphemes
in
the utter-
ance occur also when morphemes which are subst itutable for each other
356
of
occur in different relative positions within the utterance. Thus two of the
members
column 6 occur before columns

I- is
4-5, while the third occurs
after them. Similarly the prefix
substitutable for the suffixes of colis
umns
and
10-12.
Some
indication of order
given in the diagram above by
placing a hyphen after each (prefix)

S",
and before each
(suffix)
morpheme which occurs before R morpheme which occurs after them.

indicate the
in
The vertical substitution columns in the diagram generally

chapters 17-18:
e.g. for
grammatical categories" noticed as components or construction types
the Moroccan word, the categories of tense (past
and imperfective, column 6),'^ person (subjective and possessive-objective, columns 7, 10), gender (columns 8, 11), number (columns 9, 12),
definiteness (column 10, including the
1-).
The domain
its
of
each category
is
indicated by the horizontal bars in
neighboring columns: tense occurs only with P"; gender with S", P",
'first
P" except when n

those
person' adjoins.
Generalizations about the categories can be

e.g.
made from
in
the diagram:
members
of categories
which are usually zero
phonemic form
are third person, masculine
among
the genders, singular
among
the
numbers.^'
Categories relevant to position in the whole utterance,
classes of chapter 16,
i.e.
the position
may
also be correlated with the vertical columns
" This result is obtained because the utterances of the languages have been subdivided into their smallest parts necessary for substitutability and restrictions on occurrence. For instance, Moroccan n- 'I will' and -/ 'I did', and t- 'you will' and -ti 'you did' are divided into {n\ 'I as subject',
{t\
'you as subject',
{
Iprefixationj
'imperfective',
{suffixationj
with the statement that the members of {n) are n next to {preand so for the other morphemes. fixation and t next to suffixation '^ In order to exclude the m- of column 6 we say that the tense category consists of the members of column 6 which occur only with P". In some Semitic languages the m- of column 6 when next to P" indicates
'past',
}
; |
present tense as well as nominalizer.
" The diagram also shows, for example, that one element (or more, if concurrences with neighbors are used for differentiation) can be voided (in the manner of the Appendix to 18.2) for each of columns 4-9, but not from all together (since absence of elements over 4-9 occurs near the top), and not from columns 1-3 and 10-2 (where absence of element is one of the choices). It also shows that one element can be defined for zero segment in each column, although not all these zeros would be useful in the general statement. Columns 11 and 12 have zeros in addition to absence of segment or element: when column 10 is filled we take zeros following it as indicating the masculine and singular components; when no form from column 10 occurs, then zeros following are taken as absence of any element (marked by the empty corner of the diagram).
if
357
we keep
track of such horizontal concurrences as are necessary for
these correlations. E.g. columns 4-6 together with

the position classes
ing
A'',
V,
of
are in a position class
S of column 2, yield Moroccan Arabic.'"* All sequences containA; all those containing P" without m- from
columns
taining
5-6'* are in position class V; all the remaining sequences, con-j-
P", or else P", or
S",
or zero
from columns 5-6 are
in posi-
tion class
A'^.'*
Finally, a
member
(not zero) of
column
3,
plus anything
that follows
it
(which will always be N), adds up to ^.
Since the diagram uses only two dimensions, vertical and horizontal,
a third dimension in depth could be utilized to indicate restrictions
among variant members of the morphemes recognized in the diagram. The various members of a morpheme listed in the diagram would be
placed one beneath the other in depth,
all
occupying the spot

If
of their
morpheme
column
in the
two dimensional diagram.
the
morpheme
{
\n}
}
in
7 has the
umn
6 occurs,
member n when the morpheme and the member when {suffixation)

t
prefixation
occurs,
of col-
we can
dein
fine directions in
depth along which our utterance-making

line goes
line
can go,
such a way that when our

in
from
prefixation
in
column 6
line
to {n\
column 7
However,
it
will
reach the nit
member
of {n\,
-t
from
{suffixation) to [n]
it
will reach
the
and when the member of {n).
comes
may
be desirable to make more limited use of the third
dimension to indicate those concurrences which cannot be expressed by

the rules of these diagrams (as will be seen below). '^
In some cases the intersections of restrictions are such as cannot be

expressed by the rules for the two-dimensional diagram. E.g.
substitutable for columns 10-12
I-
'the' is
when
*S",
P", or
mP"
occur in the se/-
quence, but not otherwise. It
is
impossible to include
in
If
column 10
l-
and yet indicate that

to
it
occurs only with these sequences.

it
we placed
directly next to the sequences with which
occurs,
we would be unable
I- is
show that when

'^
'=
it
occurs,
columns 10-12 do not. Since
mutually
Cf. the
Appendix to
all
16.22.
Equivalently:
sequences containing a
morpheme
of
column
7.
Sequences like^z'o 'in me' may thus be described as consisting of ^ from column 3, zero from column 5, -i from column 10, and are mutually substitutable (in the terms of chapter 16) withyi dari 'in my house' which consists of fi, dar from column 4-5, and -i. " No gain in representation can be obtained by manipulating the external boundaries of the diagram. Since the area of the diagram represents the universe of discourse for this representation, no differences can be derived from varying the shape of the area as a whole, but only from varying the deployment of symbols and lines within the area.
'
358
12,
exclusive both with (.-ohimn 7 ami witli cohimns 10

it
we would
it
place
across
all
these columns,
if
if
that were possible.

/-
The
relations involved
here can be expressed

N", P",
we put
in
column 10 but connect
with
mP" by
a direction (in the third dimension, or otherwise outside
the previous diagram lines) which carries our utterance-making line

across the otherwise unpermitted horizontal bars. (In the diagram above,
the special direction for
I-
must, of course,
lie
within the scope of twoI- is
dimensional representation; this specially permitted direction for

dotted
line.)
the
Alternatively,
we can simply
repeat the
members
of col-
umns
10-12, so that they will occur both at the top and the bottom of the
I-
columns while
occurs in the middle. This would satisfy the actual rela-
tions, but at the cost of putting
some morphemes twice within a column.

is
We
seek to avoid this, since the whole point of the diagram
to state
geometrically the interrelations of each

rather than to have a
morpheme with each
other one,
morpheme appear
in various sequences.'*
This difficulty
will occur in general
whenever we have three mor-
or classes, each pair of which has some privilege of occurrence in common. In this case, P" and P" have in common, as against prepositions (the morphemes of column 3), the occurrence with columns 4, 8, and 9; P" and prepositions have in common, as against P", their non-occurrence Avith 1-; and P" and prepositions have in common, as against P", their
phemes
occurrence with these prepositions (since prepositions occur alone or
with P",
?P^',
but not with P").
If
we
try to place, on contiguous hori-
zontal areas, those pairs which have a privilege of occurrence in com-
mon, so that both should occur on one

not satisfy (on plane surfaces)
all
side of the horizontal bar,
we canin
three pairs simultaneously.
There are also other concurrences which cannot easily be indicated

these diagrams.
Thus the m- of column 6 occurs with every member of P" but with only certain members of P". This fact could be indicated if the members of P" and P" had been listed individually in the diagram. Diagrams which deal entirely with the individual morphemes are possible, especially when they are restricted to particular small parts of utterances.'^
fact that column 11 in effect repeats column 8, and 12 repeats a different matter: the morphemes in these columns may actually occur twice in a word, in the different concurrences and orders
'*
The
column
9, is
indicated by these columns. Nevertheless, we may seek to indicate even such recurrences with only one occurrence of the morpheme in the diagram. '^ A diagram of the word in Delaware is given in Z. S. Harris, Structural Restatements II, International Journal of American Linguistics
In some constructions or types of utterance, part of the sequence
359
may
be repeated once or several times. Such repetition
may be
indicated by
some
additional
mark
in the diagram. In the

its
diagram above, the upper
part of columns 4-6, with
necessary selection from columns 8-9,

all
may
I.e.
be repeated, with secondary stress on

every sequence with
>S",
except
its last
occurrence.
P", or mP", contains between
its
column
and
column 4 zero
S", i2P",
lar.
or
mR P",
or niRP" plus feminine or masculine

is
more secondary-stressed sequences consisting of and plural or singu-
In the chart this
marked by the double

lines is repeatable,
vertical line: the material

all
between double vertical

but the
last occurrence
It is possible to
with secondary stress on
(which has primary stress).
contain
after
members
of
say that column 10, and for that matter column 7, S",^** and that the occurrences of columns 10-12
is
columns 4-6 plus 8-9
simply a special case of the repetition
of
4-G
A word containing P" plus column 10 would then parallel a P'' word plus a new S" word indicating the object; and a word containing P" plus column 7 would parallel a P" word plus a new
plus 8-9 recognized above.
(preceding)
S"
word indicating the

of
subject.
of
However, eliminations
of S"
columns 10-12 and
column
would leave
us with a large number of special features involving these
and not indicated in the diagram. E.g. these would never occur without an accompanying S", P", or P" and would have no main or secondary stress beyond that of their neighbor. They would, in short, not constitute minimum utterances, and the diagram
would thus cease to represent
the
all
new members new members of S"
minimum
utterances and only these.
Furthermore, there would be such special restrictions as the fact that
morphemes
indicating
'I'
in
columns
7, 10,
11 following
them; and the morphemic variants included
do not have columns 8 or in columns 10-
12 are not identical with those of columns 7-9.
Certain contours and long components will often be found to cover
all
sequences indicated by a diagram, or a particular number of columns in
13.175-86 (1947). For an application to Bengali verb suffixes, see C. A. Ferguson, Chart of the Bengali verb. Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 65.54 5 (1945). Cf. also the chart for Japanese inflection in M. Yokoyama, The Inflection of 8th Century Japanese (Language Dissertation No. 45) 46-7, with the reformulation in H. M. Hoonigswald, Studies in Linguistics 8.79-81 (1950) and 9.23 (1951). Floyd Lounsbury has also prepared a
chart of Iroquoian.
^
And
that the
of
morphemes
10.
of
column
7 are variant
members
of the
morphemes
column
360
it.
in respect to the
These can be described as automatic

be stated as
its
diagram, and
may
to
phonologic definition or characteristic. In the case
Moroccan Arabic word, every sequence extending from column 1 column 12 (with any number of zeros and any number of repetitions) is the domain of one main stress contour; and every repeated sequence of columns 4-6 and 8-9 is the domain of a secondary stress contour. Every sequence containing within it exactly one stretch from columns 4
of the
to
9^^ is the domain of the a contour.^^ These contours can be indicated by adding columns which contain them (and through which every utterance-making line must pass), e.g. a
column
3
containing
'
for the stress contour,
and a column 4a containing
for the shwa contour. This parallels the inclusion of the contour class
in
formulae such as those of
19.2.
" I.e. every sequence from columns 1 to 12 excluding repetitions, or every repetition of columns 4-6, 8-9. " Whereby a occurs before every CC (CCV or CC3 or CC#).
20.
SURVEY
indicated a
20.1.
Summary
of the Results
The preceding chapters have

yielding results which lead
number
of operations
which
can be carried out successively on the crude data

occur in the corpus.
20.11.
of the flow of speech, of
up to a compact statement
what utterances
Phonology
flow of sounds recognized by the ear, or the succession of vibra-
The
ments
This
is
tions recorded on
(3),
some instrument,
is
represented by a succession of seg(6, 10).
which
in
may
be divided into simultaneous components

as to obtain successive (segmental)
is
done
such a
way
and simulof the
taneous (suprasegmental) parts each one of which

others
(4, 5) in its
independent
occurrence within utterances (over a relatively short
stretch of speech). Utterances or parts of
them
are considered equivalent
to each other
if
they are repetitions of each other; they are distinct from

(4).'
each other if they are explicitly not repetitions

tinct
Parts which are not disall
from each other are then grouped into classes in such a way that
of a particular class either substitute freely for
the
members
each other
in
stated environments (4) or are complementary in environment to each
other (7-9)
are in
(i.e.
When the grouping is such that the distinctions between classes

phonemes
(7).
one-one correspondence with the distinctions between contrasting
distinct) segments, the classes are called

of a
When
each
member
phoneme
is
which extend, at least
in
broken up into simultaneous portions some of some environments, over more than one pho-
neme length
is
(10), the classes
may
be called components; each phoneme

of
then definable as a unique combination
components. Cases
(i.e.,
may arise
dif-
in
which two non-contrasting segment sequences
in a given environ-
ment, two phonemically identical sequences) are represented by two

ferent
component-combination sequences; we then say that these two
component-combination sequences are (phonemically) equivalent. In
Utterances and part.s of utterances which do not occur in the same environment cannot be directly tested in order to see if they are or are not repetitions of each other (cf. 4.31). Even where the test is possible we may have an ambiguous result, in the case of features which appear in some repetitions of an utterance and not in others; these are the intermittently present distinctions of the Appendix to 4.3.
361
362
terms of these phonemes and components we can identify what sound

sequences occur in the corpus and, to a large extent, what sound se-
quences do not occur

20.12.
(11).
Morpholofiy
(not necessarily contiguous) of
of
The sequences
phonemes
or of
com-
new segments (12) each of which is uniquely identifiable in terms of phonemes (or components). 2 This is done in such a way that each of these parts is indeponents which represent the flow
speech are
divided into
now
pendent
of the others in its
occurrence over a stretch of any length
(covering the whole utterance).
The
criteria for
determining independof parts
ence are selected in such a

tical or
way
as to yield a
number
having iden-
analogous distributions. These parts (morphemic segments or
alternants), or rather the occurrences of such parts in stated environ-
ments, are then grouped into classes (called morphemes) in such a

that
all
way
the
members
of a particular
morpheme
either substitute freely
complementary in environment (13). The interphonemes or components in corresponding sections of the variant members of each morpheme can then constitute a class called a morphophoneme (14).^ We may therefore say that each morpheme is composed directly of a
for each other or are
change
of
sequence
of
of
morphophonemes, each
of
which
in turn
is
a class consisting
one or more complementary phonemes or components. Each mordistinctions
pheme has only one morphophonemic constituency but the

"^
I.e. the addition of any one of these segments in an utterance can in the last analysis be described as the addition or subtraction (or arrange-
ment) of a sequence of phonemes or components. 'Thus, in the morpheme {nnypj consisting of knife, knive- we may speak of four morphophonemes: /n/ whose definition is always the phoneme n/, /a whose definition is always the phoneme 'a/, /y,' whose definition is always the phoneme /y/, /f/ whose definition is the phoneme /v/ before \-s\ 'plural', and the phoneme f/ otherwise. Alternatively, we may say that the phonemes which replace each other in variant members of a morpheme are grouped into a class; e.g. the /f/ and /v/ of knife, knive, are grouped into a class f whose members are /v/
'
otherwise. Phonemes, intermittently present distinctions, and morphophonemes are thus all defined as classes of corresponding .segments, but under different conditions: phonemes are classes of corresponding segments in stretches of speech which are equivalent by the test of chapter 4; intermittently present features are classes of substitutable segments in many repetitions of an utterance: and morphophonemes are classes of corresponding .segments in stretches of speech which are equivalent in their morphemic composition.
before
\-s\ 'plural', /f
SURVEY
between sounds are
distinctions
in general only in
363
between morphophonemes
identical
sequences
different
may represent
one-many correspondence with the two distinct morphophonemic segment (or phoneme) sequences such
: ;
ly
of
morphophonemic sequences are phonemically equivalent. It may be noted here that the morphemes are not distinguished directon the basis of their meanings or meaning differences, but by the result distributional operations upon the data of linguistics (this data includ-
ing the meaning-like distinction between utterances which are not repetitions of each other). In this sense, the
morphemes may be regarded
either
as expressions of the limitations of distribution of phonemes, or (what
ultimately amounts to the
same
thing) as elements selected in such a
way
that
when utterances
are described in terms of them,
many
utter-
ances are seen to have similar structure.
The morphemes
class
(15).
is
are grouped into
morpheme
classes, or classes of
morof a
phemes-in-environments, such that the distribution of one

similar to the distribution of
member
any other member
of that class
These morpheme classes and any sequences
Avhich are substitutable for
of morpheme classes them within the utterance (16), are now
grouped into larger classes (called position or resultant classes)
in
such a
way
that
all
the
morpheme sequences
(including sequences of one mor-
pheme)
in a position class substitute freely for
each other in those posi-
tions in the utterance within which that class occurs. All subsidiary restrictions
upon occurrence, by virtue
of
which particular members
of
one
class or sub-class occur only with particular
members out
of another, are
stated in a series of equations.

i.e.
The
final
resultant classes for the corpus,
the most inclusive position classes, serve as the elements for a com-
pact statement of the structure of utterances.

It is possible,
however, to study other relations
among
the
morpheme
investiga-
classes
than those
of substitution within the utterance.
The
and sequences Avhich contain it leads hierarchy of inclusion levels and to the analysis of immediate conto a. stituents (16.5). The relations between one class and any other class which accompanies it in an utterance may be expressed by long comtion of the relations between a class
ponents of morphemes or of morpheme classes
(17).
And
the investi-
gation of substitution within stretches shorter than a whole utterance

leads to morphological constructions and hierarc^hies of increasingly
enclosing constructions (18).
While these investigations yield many

sought
in
of the results (raditionally
morphology and syntax, there are other

(e.g.
results of this nature
which are not explicitly presented here
determination of the various

364
forms and positions of the 'object' of the verb). Such further results can
be obtained by more detailed application and extension of the above
(e.g. after the manner of chapter 16, fn. 34). Compact statements as to what utterances occur in the corpus can now be made either in terms of the final resultants of 16 or in terms of the
methods
class relations of 16-8 (19).
20.13.
General
various operations, then, yield various sets of linguistic elements,
The
at various levels of analysis: phonologic segments, regularly
and
inter-
mittently present phonologic distinctions, phonemes, contours and pho-
nemic long components, morphophonemes, morphemic segments, morphemes, morpheme-occurrence and position (morpheme-sequence)
classes,
morphemic long components and
constructions.^
of
An
element at
of ele-
any
of these levels of
may
be defined as consisting
an arrangement
some other level, or as constituting together with other elements of its level some element of another level. Given the elements of a corpus at a particular level, we state what limitations there are on the random distribution- (within utterances of
ments
the corpus) of each element relative to each other element at that level.
For phonemic elements, the limitations are stated over a short range of a few elements before and after it and those simultaneous with it for
;
morphemic elements, the limitations are stated over the whole utterance or (as in 17 8) over any given part of it. The procedures of the preceding chapters do not attempt to state the limitations of distribution of any
elements over stretches of speech longer than one utterance (2.32).
Each
stretch of speech in the corpus
is
now completely and compactly

of the levels.
identifiable in
terms of the elements at any one
Except
where the elements at a particular level are stated to be otherwise, a one-one correspondence is maintained between spoken or heard speech
and
It
its
representation in terms of the elements at any level.*
may
be noted that there are not just two descriptive systems
of these sets of elements are relatively small, e.g. the list of their chief members; such sets are listed in grammatical descriptions of a language. Other sets are very large, e.g. the list of morphemes or of particular constructions (such as words); such sets are
Some
phonemes and
listed in a
'
morpheme
class list (15.51) or dictionary.
In general, the representation is in one-one correspondence with each occurrence of the represented speech. In the case of intermittently present distinctions, however, it is in one-one correspondence only with a set of repetitions of the represented speeches.
SURVEY
365
phonology and morphology but a rather indefinite number, some of these being phonologic and some morphologic. It is thus possible to extend the descriptive methods for the creation of additional systems having other terms of reference. For example, investigations in stylistics and
in
culture-language correlations
parallel to the
may
be carried out by setting up sysover stretches longer
tems
morphologic ones but based on the distribution of

etc.)
elements (morpheme classes, sentence types,
than one utterance.

20.2.
Survey of the Operations

in 2.1,
As was seen
the relevance
the only over-all consideration which determines

is
of
an operation
that
it
deal with the occurrence of parts
of the flow of speech relative to each other.

in
Beyond
that, there
is
freedom
the choice of operations.^
20.21.
To State Regularities or To Synthesize Utterances

is
There
guistics.
in general a choice of
purposes facing the investigator
in lin-
He may
seek
all
the regularities which can be found in any
stretch of speech, so as to
show
their interdependences (e.g. in order to

;
predict successfully features of the language as a whole)

just
or he
may
seek
enough information to enable anyone to construct utterances

(e.g. in
in the
language such as those constructed by native speakers

predict the utterances, or to teach a person
order to
how
to speak the language).
In the search for

seek
all
all
regularities in a language, the investigator

i.e.
would
of
correlations between linguistic forms,
between features
components would be set up in such a way as to represent all regular phonetic diff'erences, and the limitations upon their occurrence would be noted. Morphophonemes would be set up so as to represent all relations between morphemes and their variant members. Correlations would be made between morphemes, morsound
in
the flow of speech.
Phonemes
or
^ In determining the morphemes of a particular language, linguists use, in addition to distributional criteria, also (in varying degrees) criteria of meaning difference. In exact descriptive linguistic work, however, such considerations of meaning can only be used heuristically, as a
source of hints, and the determining criteria will always have to be stated in distributional terms (Appendix to 12.41). The methods presented in the preceding chapters offer distributional investigations as alternatives to meaning considerations. The chief means whereby such distributional operations can take the place of information about meaning is by taking ever larger environments of the element in question into consideration. Elements having different meanings (different correlation with social situations) apparently have in general different environments of other elements, if we go far enough afield and take enough occurrences.
366
STRUCTl HAL LINCUISTICS

classes,
morphemic components or constructions and the phonemes they contain, or the morphophonemic or other features common
phcme
to them. In addition to the equations leading to resultant position classes,
morphemic components and constructions would be discovered.
The
investigator might also seek correlations between linguistic elefeatures, e.g. various interrelations
ments and other
articulatory events, or social situations (meaning).
among acoustic or On this basis he would
obtain classifications and relations of phonemes; he would obtain such

facts as the
meaning
similarity
among English morphemes beginning
with
If
/si/.
on the other hand the investigator seeks only enough information

or
to enable one to construct utterances in the language, he will set up
phonemes (phonemic segments)

in
components only to the extent, and
the manner, necessary to distinguish contrasting utterances.
He
need
only determine the phonemic distinctions, and would not have to group
complementary segments together, or to state the distribution of each.' Morphemic segments would be determined, and the variant members of morphemes would be stated, but morphophonemic symbols to indicate
them would not be used except

tion.
if it is
desired to shorten the total descrip-
For that matter, but

of the
list of
for the
convenience of brevity and clarity, the

list
whole description
language could begin with a
of
morphemic
segments, or with a
morphemes, each with
its
varying phonemic-
segment constitutions
in various
environments. This would sidestep phoof
nemics and morphophonemics, and disregard the fact that parts
one
morpheme
are phonetically similar to parts of another.
Morphemes with
mean-
very similar distributions, members of the same sub-class, would not have
to be distinguished, even though they differ slightly or greatly in
ing
(e.g.
hu katav and katav
'he wrote' in the
Appendix to
17.33). Further-
more, the classification of morphemes and
morpheme sequences would

whole utterance
(as in 15-6)
have to be carried out only
in respect to the
the components and constructions of 17-8 would not have to be set up.
20.22.
The
Operations of Analysis over-all purpose of work
in descriptive linguistics is to obtain a of the stock of utterances in the corpus.
compact one-one representation
' For compactness of statement, the investigator would undoubtedly group the more obvious sets of complementary segments into phonemes, and determine the more important junctures. But finesse in this work would not be required, and the distributional limitations upon each phoneme would not have to be expressed.
SURVEY
Since the representation of an utterance or
its
367
parts
is
based on a comis
parison of utterances,
it is
really a representation of distinctions. It
this
representation of differences which gives us discrete combinatorial ele-
study
ments (each representing a minimal difference). A non-comparative of speech behavior would probably deal with complex continuous
changes, rather than with discrete elements.
The
basic operations are those of segmentation

is
Segmentation
carried out at limits determined
and classification. by the independence of

If
the resulting segments in terms of some particular criterion.

limited distribution in respect to Y, or
if
has a
the occurrence of A" depends
upon ment
(correlates completely with) the occurrence of a particular environ-
Z,
we may
therefore not have to recognize
as
an independent
used to group
segment
another.^
at the level
under
discussion."* Classification is
together elements which substitute for or are complementary to one
of environment over which independence of A' in respect examined may vary with our immediate purpose (e.g. shorter for determining phonemes, longer for determining morphemes). The handling of partial dependence may vary. In one case, when we seek a first approximation, we may set up partially independent segments as distinct elements. Later, we may return to the same segments and extract a common element which expresses the degree of dependence of one upon the other, having residual elements which express the degree of independence of the segments in respect to each other (e.g. in chapter 17). The criterion
*
The length
is
to
of independence thus determines not only the segmentation of our representation into successive or simultaneous portions, but also the setting up of abstract elements which can not be readily identified in terms of acoustic or physiological records but which express particular features of the complex relations among the segments or the other elements.
^ The class of elements then becomes a new element of our description, on the next higher level of inclusive representation. It is not necessary for the class members to be 'similar', i.e. for the class to be distinguished by any feature either than that in respect to which the class was set up. E.g. quite distinct segments may be grouped into the phoneme /t/; highly dissimilar morphemic segments are grouped into the morpheme \be\; and there is no formal similarity among the morpheme sequences which are included in the class N. However, it is sometimes convenient to consider one of the members to be the symbol of the new class; that member is then said to be primary (or the base) while the other members are derived from it by a set of environmentally (or otherwise) conditioned 'rules' or operations. For example, we may say that the phoneme /t/ is the member segment [t] plus various changes in various positions. Or we may say that the morphophoneme /f/ is the phoneme /f/ plus the change to voicing before |-.s} 'plural'. We can even say that the Semitic
position class A^ is the (void) morphemic component 8 'third person' plus various residues (for 'first person', for 'book', etc.) in various of its oc-
MH
Both
parts, but
of these operations are
performed upon an utterance or upon
its
always on the basis of some comparison between these andsome
e.g. morpheme segmentation is carried out before and What books came? but not in What box came? because of comparison with What book came? and so on. If we were analyzing a corpus without any interest in its relevance for the whole language, we could list
other utterances:
s
after
in
all
the environment of each tentative segment in
all
utterances of the
corpus, and on this basis decide the segmentation in each utterance.
Usually, however,
we
are interested in analyzing such a corpus as will
serve as a sample of the language. For this purpose
we bring
into our
corpus controlled material for comparison. Given What books came?
we
do not compare
it
with arbitrary other utterances, but search for ut-
terances which are partially similar, like
What book came? What maps

of
came? What books are you reading? Ideally, we seek a group

different utterances for comparison. In eliciting
minimally
such comparative ut-
terances from an informant, or from oneself, or from
some arranged
or
indexed body of material, we have an experimental situation in which

the linguist tests variations in the utterance stock in respect to a selected
utterance; the only danger being that the utterance stock
cially
may
be
artifi-
modified due to the experimentally asked question (as when an

it
informant accepts an utterance proposed by the linguist even though

is
a bit different from anything he would say on his
own
as a speaker of
the language).
Once we have a number of comparisons available as bases for setting up segmentations or classifications, we select those comparisons which apply to large numbers of elements, or to otherwise recognized groups of
elements, as noted in 12.233. This selection, of course, derives not from the
nature of the comparisons but from our purposes:
if
we want compact
same
statements about the combination of parts in the language, we prefer to

set
up
as elements those segments or classes which enter into the
currences. In all these cases, we could consider one member a as primary if we can state the conditions in which the other elements b, c, replace it (are derived from it). The choice of o is clearer if we can not reversibly derive o from b or c; i.e. if we can not state the exact conditions in which b is replaced by a. When no member of a class can be set up as primary, it may be possible to set up a theoretical base form from which each member can be derived (cf. in morphophonemics). In all these cases, however, whether we set up a primary member, or a theoretical base form, or a new class of the old members, we have essentially the same relation: a number of elements, classified together on some basis, into a new element which represents the occurrence of each of them.
SURVEY
combinations as do other segments or classes. The work
circular
:
369
is
thus naturally
we see from our controlled set
of partially similar utterances that

[J]
certain elements (such as the walk, talk, -ed of 12.233, or the joining of
and
[1]
of [plley] play into
one segment) could be subject to further clas-
sification
and general statements, whereas other elements (such as the

;
/as/ of notice) could not
we then presume that
this will
be the case for
the rest of the corpus, and so set up the former as elements.
As a
result of these operations,
we not only obtain
initial
elements,
but are also able to define new sets of elements as classes or combinations
(sequences, etc.) of old ones.'" While the successive classifications are
based on differences
in occurrence, these differences are
expressed in the
these classes
particular definitions of each class,
and the
relations
among
can then be investigated without regard to the differences in their definitions.
This
:
is
possible because of the stratification of the successive classi-
fications the
unique properties
of
one element or another at a particular
level are neither eliminated nor disregarded; they are

in the definition of the next higher set of elements,"
merely embodied
and need not be
taken into account unless we wish to deal with the elements at the particular level first mentioned.
Each element
is
defined
by the
relations
among elements
at the next lower level.
This leads ultimately to sets of few elements having complex definitions but as nearly as possible
random occurrence in respect to each
other.
'" In the operations of the preceding chapters each new class or combination of elements is treated as a new set of elements, at a 'higher' or more inclusive level than the elements of which it is composed. The whole material of our corpus can be re-identified in terms of the new elements. This method, however, is not essential we could consider all our procedures as stating relations among our original phonologic (and morphemic) segments, and keep those segments as our sole element.s through to the end. The successive setting up of new elements was used only for convenience, since we then express in the definition of each set of elements all the relevant relations among all the previously defined elements. A frequently useful technique in expressing these relations in the form of definitions of a riew level of elements, is to indicate what is the minimum domain 6f that level of elements, defined as the domain containing a certain property and not containing any smaller domains which themselves have that property.
:
" From phonologic segment up to resultant position classes with the highest inclusion numbers. An important factor in the compact statement of relation among elements is the specification of the domain over which the relation occurs. Within the domain, we state not only the occurring together or the substitution of elements but also their relative order, and any variation in these which depends upon the outer environment.

370
8TIUCTUHAL LINtJUISTICS
many elements having simple definitions but We obtain elements having many and
of zero,
rophu'ing the original sets of
complexly restricted distribution.

varied
members
(e.g.
the sequences in a resultant position class, or the
segments included
in a
phoneme); these members may consist
omission or interchange of segments, or conversely no element (absence element) may be used to And although unit length is
of
represent a particular occurring segment.
established for both
phonemes and mor-
phemes, there are cases

are represented
in
which elements or their members extend over
several integral unit lengths,'^
i.e. cases in which sequences of segments by a sequence of elements, without an explicit representation being determined between each individual segment and each in-
dividual element.'^
We may
indeed say that our representations are
in
theory not of unit
lengths, but of arbitrarily long portions of the utterance. Rather than
say that segment
[p*"]
is
represented by
phoneme
in
is
environment
[#
V\, as in park,
we can say
[p'']
that the stretch [#p''a]
represented by
/#pa/. The
is
correlation of
all
with
'p /
may
then be derived by com-
paring and indexing
these representations of stretches. If
now /#pl/
is [p]
used for [#pl] (play) we need not hesitate because the segment
[p*"],
not
since the correlation
is
not between
[p**]
and p/ but between the
whole stretch and the phonemic sequence.

Since each element
level,
is
identified relatively to the other elements at its
and
in
terms
of particular
elements
at a
lower level, our elements
are merely symbols of particular conjunctions of relations: particular

privileges of occurrence
is
and particular
relations to all other elements. It
therefore possible to consider the symbols as representing not the par-
ticular observable elements
which occupy an environment but rather

its
the environment
itself,
and
relation to other environments occupied
'^ When the segments represented by an element are successive, it is conventional to let their position in the stretch of speech determine the position and domain of their representation along the line of writing. When they are simultaneous, long, or discontinuous, special conventions are made in order to set the position and domain of their representation relative to the other elements. Such problems are also involved in the case of zero segments, void elements, and the like.
'' As was seen in the Appendix to 18.2 (esp. fn. 20) both zero segments (including junctures) and void elements are representations of sequences of segments, as are also phonemic and morphemic components and, if we will, the resultant classes of chapter 16. The only status that the .symbol |-en| has in the representation XVbV-en for / have cut is what can be extracted from the difference in the XVb\'-en representation of / have cut and the X\' representation of / ait.
SURVEY
by the element which occupies
environment
relations, or of
it.
371
therefore speak of inter-
We may
occupyings of positions, as being our funda-
mental elements.
Various techniques of discovery
tions,
may
be used
in
applying these opera-
and they may be used over and over again. One of the most important is the attempt to find regularities and parallel or intersecting patterning
class in
among
some
our elements,
'''
so that,
e.g., if
an element
if it is
is
similar to a
characteristic feature,
we
test to see
similar to that
class in all features
and so a member
of the class.
is
Another method that has yielded new results

operations from one operand to another.
If
the generalization of
the classification of comple-
it
mentary variants when applied to phonemic segments yields phonemes, can be applied to morphemic segments to yield morphemes. If the
of a sequence of contiguous phonemes establishes it as a morpheme, we can also set up any sequence of non-contiguous phonemes or any interchange of phonemes as a morpheme so long as it is equally independent of the other morphemes. If morphemes which substitute for each other are considered equivalent from the point of view of the ut-
independence
terance, so are
morpheme sequences which

is
substitute for them. In
all
these cases the operation

special case of a
not changed, but the old operand becomes a
new and larger class of operands. many cases it is at first impossible to obtain the desired results completely. The operation may then be carried out first in a simplified form,
In
or on a selected set of operands,
and the approximation obtained from
these
first
results
may
then be corrected or extended by repeated cariy-
ing out of the operation.'^
The utUity
of these operations
is
compromised, however,
if
any
results
are recognized other than those obtained

tions. If the operations
ter, e.g.
by means
of the stated opera-
do not
is
suffice for a decision in a particular
mator
how
a sequence
to be divided, then either a
new operation
definition has to be
cided, or else
added by application of which the matter will be dethe results have to be stated in such a way that the alternaSapir,
'''
E.g.-
Edward
Sound patterns
in
language, Lang. 1.37 51
(1925). '^ Cf. the Appendix to 4.5. In this way unit segments were first established in phonology and morphology; and then the more detailed application of the same criteria which had been used in setting up the unit segments later enables us to recognize segments of more than unit longt h. Analogously, morphemes consisting of the omission of a mora can only bo recognized after we have set up the other morphemes and are able to compare their distribution, cf. 12.3.
372
lives
among which
if
the operation cannot decide are immediately equiva-
lent. E.g.
there
is
/
no basis
b,
for assigning the [p] after /s/ to
/p/ or to
/b/, then
/s
and
should be equivalent marks in the environment

in
/.
(The issue can, however, be decided
terms
all
of
components, bebut have
cause the voicelessness component extends over

in
contiguous consonants
a morpheme.) Similarly,
for placing the
if
we analyze was
as {be}
+
it
{-ed},
no basis
boundary, we do not place
arbitrarily, but
recognize no phonemic correlation for the alternants of {be} and {-ed}

in
each other's environment, but only for the sequence of them together,
is
which
/waz/.
The
ing
considerations of discovery furnish one of the reasons for avoidin of

in
any classification of forms on the basis of meaning. Similarities meaning may or may not serve as useful signposts in the course investigation, and some test of social situation may be unavoidable
determining morphemes, but the methods presented here could not
use of any classes
other
of,
make
say,
morphemes which
are not differentiated from
morphemes by any common
distinction ex'cept meaning.'*
20.3.
Description of the Language Structure

in a particular
Although our whole investigation has been

terances,
corpus of ut-
we may
consider this corpus to be an adequate sample of the
language from which the corpus was taken. With this assumption, the
methods
of descriptive linguistics enable us to
say that certain sequences
of certain
elements occur in the utterances of the language. This does not
mean
that other sequences of these elements, or other elements, do not
occur; they
may have
occurred without entering into our records, or they
may have
not yet occurred in any utterance of the language, only to oc-
cur the next day. Aside from this, however,

that certain sequences almost never occur;
testing, or
we may also be able to say we may know this from direct
from the
fact that the
sequence goes counter to the most gen-
eral regularities of our corpus.
The work of analysis leads right up to the statements which enable anyone to synthesize or predict utterances in the language. These statements form a deductive system with axiomatically defined
initial
'* The classifications and other operations are always based on relevant (distributional) relations the expression of which leads to a simplification at some point in the final statement. The operations are not intended to classify elements merely for cataloguing convenience (as in the alphabetic ordering in the dictionary), or for convention, or for assignment of
names
to
phenomena
or groups of elements.
SURVEY
elements and with theorems concerning the relations
final
373
among them. The
theorems would indicate the structure

in
of the utterances of the \kn-
guage
terms
of the
preceding parts of the system.

of presenting this system,
There
may
be various ways
which con-
stitutes the description of the language structure.
The system can be

which occur at
presented most baldly in an ordered set of statements defining the ele-
ments
at each successive level or stating the sequences
that level. '^ Compactness, inspectability, and clarity of structure
be gained at various points by the use of symbols for

ber,
class, variable
may mem-
and
relation, or
Other types
of presentation
by the construction of geometric models (diagrams). which have frequently been used have dehistorical
pended ultimately on moving-parts models such as machines or

sciences. In using such models, the linguistic presentation
for example, of base
would speak,
forms
(e.g. in
morphophonemics, where the observed

affixes
forms are obtained from the base form by applying a phonemic substitution), of derived
first in
forms
(e.g.
stems plus those
which are added
the descriptive order might be called derived stems), or processes

of another. In all these types of presentation,
which yield one form out
the elements are seen as having histories, so that the relation of an ele-
ment to sequences which contain

it is
it
becomes the history
of the
element as
subjected to various processes and extensions.'*
20.4. Correlations
Outside of Descriptive Linguistics
In addition to the setting up of a descriptive system for a particular
language and the noting of correlations

(e.g.
among the elements
of the
system
Appendices to
15.5, 18.4, etc.),
it is
also possible to note correlations
'' In such a presentation, complex relations between two elements a and b are treated essentially as follows: First a and b are defined each as some combination of simpler elements, say x, y, z (e.g. o = x -f- z, b = y -\- z). Then such relations are stated among x, y, and z as make X -f- z have that relation to ?/ -f- z that o had to 6. The new elements x, y, z, etc., in terms of which a and b are to be defined, are selected in such a way that simple relations among them (between x and y, between x and z, etc.) will equal the complex relations between a and b (i.e. between X -(- z and 7/ -(- z). '* In such presentations, a relation between two elements a and b is essentially the difference between two historical or otherwise derivational paths: that from ^ to a and that from A to b. A is set up as a base from which both a and b have, by different paths, been derived. Such presenta-
tions can also be considered as studying the variation of the morphemes (one at a time) in respect to the utterance, while the method used in the preceding chapters noted the variation of the utterances (or environments) in respect to a morpheme contained in them.
374
of
it,
between the system as a whole, or features

In the
place, since the
on the one hand and

stated not for a
data from outside the descriptive system on the other.

first
whole descriptive system
is
language as a whole (whose complete stock of utterances cannot be

listed),
but for a corpus containing a closed utterance stock, the

of
statisti-
cal
problem
how
this corpus
is
a sample of the language
is
dealt with
outside the scope of descriptive linguistics, and not
by
its
methods. This
includes such problems as those of the approximations used in setting
up morpheme
binations.
classes, or the productivity of particular
morpheme com-
One such
correlation
is
is
that between the descriptive systems of various
languages. It
possible to
compare the number

in each of
of
phonemic distinctions
necessary for each language in question, the kinds of limitations of distribution of the
phonemes
them, the amount and type of

of
variation among the member segments

cluding,
e.g.,
phonemes
or
morphemes
(in-
the types of morphophonemic relations), the relation be-
tween position
structions
classes and single morpheme classes, the types of conand the status they have in the system, and so on. Some features of the system are of special interest for such comparisons: e.g. the method of establishing the inclusion numbers for resultants (16.21) can be so standardized as to make it useful to compare the highest inclusion numbers reached by the resultants of various languages. Going beyond
such episodic comparisons, methods can be established whereby we can
compare similarly stated systems as a whole for various languages. Features of the descriptive system can also be correlated with data
relating to the elements which were not used in the present procedures.
One can
investigate the articulatory or acoustic interrelations

of
among
phonemic segments or phonemes, and the interrelations among morphemes, constructions, and the like.
meaning
There is also the important consideration of the frequency of elements and sequences, the difference between closed classes of elements (into which no new members enter) and open classes (for which no sample can be said to have gotten all the members in the language). A question of
some
interest
is
that of productivity of elements:
i.e.
given an extremely
large sample, with elements or classes A, B, C, etc., occurring with various members Xi, X2, etc. of class X, which elements out oi A, B, C
have a high probability
of occurring with
any new member X
of X,'^
'8
Assuming that A, B, and C did not occur with X

not have occurred in the sample at
all,
X may
or
may
in the sample. not have oc-
SURVEY
375
and which elements out oi A, B, C etc., do not? Those elements which have a high probability of occurring with any new X are called productive in respect to X.
Somewhat
guistics
different are the marginal questions of descriptive linfor
which can be decided
each descriptive system only after the

are, for
system has been worked out as a whole. Such
example, the
ele-
ments and sequences which do not
fit
into the patterned description of
the rest of the language, and which might be best considered as being
parts of another dialect (or quoted material from another language)
rather than the one
we
are describing; this
may
be the case even
if
the
re-
deviant material came from the same informant as did the other.
lated problem
etc.,
is
that oi gestural utterances like English

fit
Hmm,
tsk tsk,
which
may
neither into the phonology nor into the morphology
of the
language description.
Finally, there are possible correlations

of a
between the descriptive system
language and investigations

it
in other disciplines.
The whole system

and
diffusion
or features of
may
correlate with features of the change
of language, the formal techniques of the verbal arts, the relation of na-
tive speakers to language material, the processes of language learning,
the relation of speech to other

guistics to other sciences.
human
actions, or the relation of lin-
Such correlation depends upon investigations
which
utilize
both descriptive linguistics and such other disciplines as

psychology and sociology,
diachronic (historical) and geographic linguistics (dialect geography),

literary criticism, linguistic
logic, etc.
The
present operations of descriptive linguistics as most narrowly understood
make a methodological
added
will
whole, and cannot by themselves yield these
results,
although they can serve the further investigations which
obtain them.
curred in the language at the time the sample was taken. The productivity of an element may correlate with the types of class membership it has. In English, for example, where a great many morphemes occur in both A'^ and classes (o book, to book, a take, to take), or are members of
one and occur in sequences equalling the other (lionize NNv = V, preachment VVn = A^), the Nv and Vn classes (including the zero members of each as in to book, a take) are productive. That is, given a member of iV which has not yet been recorded in ]' position, or which has just come to be used in the language, there is a good chance of its occurring in V position either with an accompanying A^?; or without it (i.e. with the zero member of Nv). This may happen, though more rarely, even with the members of iV which have a paired hut different member in ]'; e.g. to shoot, a shot, but also a young shoot.
376
20.3:
Appendix to
In one of
of a
A Grammar
of Lists
its
simplest forms of presentation, a synchronic description

lists.
language can consist essentially of a number of

of
possible ar-
rangement
such
lists is
given below.
1.
1.
Segment'Phoneme
The segment
fied
List
2.
identi-
When
the
listed
it
occurs in
3.
Is a
mutually com-
below
environments
plementary member
of the following
below
pho-
neme
The column
tours,
3 for
phonemes would
list all
junctures,
phonemic concomcontour
phonemic components.
In the latter cases, the length of the

1,
ponent would be stated in column

or
whereas the domain
of the
component would be described

It
is,
in
column
2.
of course, possible to reverse this
list
and have
of each
it
arranged by
phonemes, stating which segments are members
phoneme.
2.
1.
Phoneme
ponent)
Distribution List
(or
The following phoneme
com-
2.
does not occur in the following
environments.
Aside from these restrictions, every phoneme or component occurs in every sequence or combination, within a relatively short interval. If the restrictions are very great, this list may give the freedoms of occurrence
rather than the limitations.
3.
1.
Automatic Morphophonemic
List
the
3.
Every morpheme
which contains the
following phoneme or
2.
has
(instead)
when
the
it
occurs in
en-
following
or
phoneme
se-
following
phonemic
vironments.
phonemic sequence
quence
when
it is
not in the
of col. 3
environment
The cases where the environment of column 3 is differentiated by a phoneme (i.e. any morpheme containing that phoneme) may be distinguished from the cases where the environment is a particular morpheme
(or just a
few of the morphemes containing a particular phoneme).
SURVEY
4.
1.
377
Non-automatic Morphophonemic List

In the
lowing
fol2.
the following pho-
3.
is
replaced
fol-
4.
neme or phonemic
of
by the
when the morpheme

occurs in
group
sequence
the
(which
lowing pho-
morphemes
morphemes contain when not

in
neme
or
the
follow-
phonemic
sequence
ing environ-
the
environ-
ments.
ment
Here, too, we
of col. 4)
may
distinguish the cases where the environment of col-
umn
is
differentiated
fiom the other environments
in
which the unit

of
occurs by
5.
some
particular
phoneme, or by one or a group
morphemes.
Alternative
Instead of the two
Morphophonemic Symbol List lists 3-4, we may make one list

when
the
it
of
morphophonemic
a mutually com-
symbols.
The following phoneme or phonemic

sequence
occurs in
en-
3.
is
following
plementary member
of the following
vironments
mor-
phophonemes or sequence of morphophonemes.
The phonemes
in in
listed in
columns
and 2
of list 3,
and
similarly those
columns 2 and 3
of list 4,
would simply be placed one under the other
in of
all
column 1 above, and listed as members of the same morphophonemc column 3 above. The utility of the list would demand that all members one morphophonemc be placed next to each other in column 1, just as
segment members
in
column
of list
1.
fn. 3 as
constituting
of one phoneme would be placed next to each other The interchange of phonemes which is described in a morphophoneme, appears here as the set of suc-
cessive
phonemes listed in column 1 whose environments in column 2 are complementary. As in the case of lists 3-4 which this list replaces, so here
too
we may separate the

is
column 2
cases where the determining environment phonemic from those where it is particular morphemes.
of
more important distinction in column 2 appears from the fact that the cases which would have been listed in list 3 will have column 2 of list 5 identical with their column 3 in list 3, while the cases which would have
been
listed in list 4 will
1
have column 2
of list 5 equal to the
sum
of col-
umn
and column 4
all
in list 4.
That
is, if
the interchange of
phonemes
oc-
curs not in
the
we must
state in
morphemes which have the phoneme in question, then column 2 of list 5 what the morphemes must be for the
interchange to take place.
378
6.
1.
Classified
Morpheme
2.
List
(or
3.
Tho
ing
follow-
has
iilontical
unci has this
4.
in
these cn-
mor-
equivalent) envi-
alternant
vironments.
phome
ronments with
Qxery
other
of the
member
following class
variant
Columns 3 and 4 will be filled only for those morphemes which have members not represented by lists 3-4 or list 5, i.e. variants which
are so different phonemically, or unique, that there was no point in describing
them
as interchanges of corresponding phonemes.
Morphemes
which have no alternants (beyond their single phonemic form), or w'hose

variants have been described in
lists
3-4 or
list
5 will occupy only col3-4, the units in

list
umns
will
list 5.
and
2. If list
5 has been used instead of

i.e.
lists
be written morphophonemically,
with any symbols required by

of the language. It
Column
2,
1 is
the
morpheme index
can also be
list
given separately with
its
variants (columns 3-4), while a second

classes of the language, with their
gives
(a
column
the
morpheme
1).
members
repetition of
7.
1.
column
Morpheme Sequence
The
following
List
se2. is
morpheme
substitutable for the following
quence
class (or sequence).
Substitutable mean.s "has the same environment, extending over complete utterances." This
it
list is
identical with the equations of chapter 16;

2.
ends up with a small number of resultant position classes in column
8.
1.
Component and Construction

The
following
List
3.
mor-
2.
having the following features,
occurs
under
the
phemic
component
following
stances.
circum-
or construction,
This
is
list
of the
more
frequent or characteristic elements of the lan-
guage which result from chapters 17-8. In

sential
9.
list,
many languages
it is
not an es-
unless
some
of its results figure in list 9.
Sentence List
The following sequences

This
is
of position classes or of constructions occur.
the
list
of utterance structures.
No
other statement about ut-
terances would then be required in descriptive linguistics except that
they are successions of sentences of the types listed here.
INDEX
Absence, 320 f., 323, 326, 336, 337, 339 ff., 356, 370; see also Zero Additive elements, 334 Adjusting previous results; see Approxiopen, 252; small, 251, 277; see also
General class
Class-cleavage, 249
Classification, 17, 33, 35, 56, 60 f., 65, 72, 77, 160 f., 212 f., 219, 225, 232, 246, 250, 256, 273, 307, 361 f., 366 ff.
mation Agreement, 165 ff., 182, 210, 289, 304 f., 318 AUophone, 66, 69, 87, 93, 120 f.; see also
Positional variant
Closure, 278
Clusters, 129, 131
f.,
137
ff.,
175
Alternants, 277; see also Morpheme alternants; Positional variant
Comparison, 26, 33 f., 36, 57, 163, 202, 236, 277, 367 f Complementary, 56, 59, 61 ff., 69 f., 72,
86, 93, 111, 131, 139, 148. 232, 234, 297, 302, 304, 313, 322, 340, 361 f., 366 f.
Alternative methods,
2, 6, 8, 26, 35, 63,
77,
80,
66 f., 70, 72, 77 f., 85, 94, 120, 162, 167 ff., 181, 194, 215 ff., 237, 239, 245 f., 249, 256, 258, 267, 273, 283,
286, 290, 298, 303, 307, 334, 365, 369, 371 f., 373, 377
197
ff.,
Component, 52
f., 116, 119, 126 f., 143 ff., 146 ff., 169, 212, 301 f., 321 ff., 328, 361; see also Long component
Approximation, 24, 27, 36 f., 40 f., 44, 60, 75, 77, 79 f., 158, 168, 170, 172, 17.5, 202, 216 ff., 222, 233, 236, 244 ff., 249 ff., 253 f., 269 f., 333, 340, 345, 371 Arabic morpheme-sequence equations, 285 ff., 329 Arabic word structure, 352 ff. Articulation, 4, 8, 17, 25 f., 32, 55, 64, 67, 92, 128, 143 Assimilation, 132, 210, 212 Automatic features, 83 f., 116f., 121 f.,
171, 175, 186, 217, 223, 306, 324, 337, 345, 352, 360; see also Dependent oc-
Component Compound,
list,
378
326, 328, 331
Concord, 167, 305 Conditions for substitution, 350 Conjugation, 306, 314 ff. Connected speech, 28, 99
Constituent, 280; constituent
see
also
Immediate
currence
Automatic morphophonemic
list,
376
Constructing utterances, 366 Construction, 278, 325 ff., 343 363 Construction juncture, 334 Construction level, 267 Construction list, 378
ff.,
3.52,
Base form, 226, 235, 308, 367 f., 373 Beginning, 327; see also Boundaries
Behavior, 4
f.,
18
f.,
22
Bilinguals, 10
Bound
forms,
161, 2.52, 261, 275, 295,
326 f., 329 Boundaries, 40, 8() ff., 87 ff., 130 f., 171, 174 f., 224, 234 f., 240, 330, 343 ff.; see also Junctures Boundary numerals, 267
Construction type, 327, 343 Continuous, 20, 25, 367 Contours, 45 ff., 49 ff., 82, 84 f., 87 f., 96, 120 f., 124, 126 f., 1,58, 169 f., 188, 192, 198, 204 f., 209 f., 223, 251, 261, 274, 281 f., 328, 330 f., 345 f., 352, 3.59 f. Contrast, .50, 57, 64 f., 72, 75, 77, 81, 90 ff., 135, 138 f., 185 f., 216; see also
Distinction
Co-occurrence, 52, 126
ff.,
165, 265, 270,
Broken sequences, 165;
sec also
Inter-
295, 300 ff., 327, 3.54 Co-occuring sets, 301 f., 312, 338
rupted utterances; Fractions

Case, 306
ff.
Corpus, 12
Category, 336, 356
f., 17, 1.50 ff., 198, 219, 244 247, 251 f., 2.53 ff., 268, 293, 299 309, 334, 361, 366, 368 f., 372
ff.,
ff.,
Chain of equations, 279 Charts; see diagrams

Class: closed, 251
;
large,
252
f.,
277, 303;
Covariancc: of meaning and distribution, 189; of phoneme and uiorpheme, 157, 195 f., 199; of phoneme ami .social situation, 188
379
380
19, 55, 172,
Culture and personality, 3, 187, 108, 253 ff., 347, 365
Enclosing constructions, 329
ff.,
332
End;
84,
Deductive system, 372
Boundaries Endocentric, 276

see
f.,
Dependent
occurrence,
12t)f., 161, 178, 182,
42 306
93,
English
;!-,
th; words, 268

f.,
f.,
289
ff.
Derived forms, 373

Descriptive order, 236
f.,
Environment, 15, 29 68 ff., 73 f., 77, 80,

ff.,
246
f.
283, 308
134
f.,
151, 156
f.,
34, 37, 42, 60 ff., 85, 91, 99 ff., 126 f., 162, 166, 171, 198,
Descriptive systems, 364

also Differentiating
232, 240, 265, 300 f., 335, 361; see also Distribution; Total environ-
208
ff.,
Diagnostic environment, 309, 339
f.;
see
environments
ff.,
Diagrams, 62 ff., 66, 69, 73 228, 259 f., 350 f., 352 ff.
Dialect, 9
f.,
153
ff.,
ment Environment symbols, 370 f Environmental range, 201 ff., 207, 213
243, 245, 249, 251, 257, 296
f.,
13, 98, 102, 199,
375
see
Equality, 283
also
Dictionary,
309,
347,
364;
Morpheme
stock
Equations, 263 336 f.

55,
ff.,
303, 309
f.,
312, 329,
Difference, 14, 21, 30, 36, 47, 56, 75, 159, 187, 196, 271 f., 320, 334, 365; of environment, 164, 191, 204, 208 ff., 310; see also Distinction; Minimal differ-
Equivalence, 14, 16, 18, 30
f.,
36
f.,
45
f.,
.57, 80, 185, 198, 235 262, 302, 349 f., 361, 363
f.,
246, 252,
ence; Variation
Differentiating elements, 302
f.,
Existence formula, 151, 349

Exocentric, 275
309
ff.,
340
f.
Differentiating environments, 60 f., 86, 98, 112 ff., 122, 194 f., 206, 208 ff., 217, 220 ff., 241, 249, 253, 256, 311, 315 ff.,
339 Dimension, 350, 357 f. Discontinuous sequences, 205, 210, 346
Expansion, 273 Expectation value, 188, 206 Experiment, 368 Extension, 127 f., 130 f., 137 308 ff see also Domain E.xtraction of feature, 48 ff., .53
;
.
ff.,
306,
166,
182
f.,
92 129, 132, 145, 167, 302, 306, 315

ff.,
f.,
ff.
Discrete parts, 20, 22, 25, 27, 34 f., 45, 159, 361, 367; see also Segmentation
Dissimilation, 132, 212
Facultative pause, 39
Foreign vocabulary, 115, 124, 137, 174,
346
33
Distinction
(non-equivalence),
f.,
Form-meaning
ff.,
correlation, 193
f.;
ff.
39
f.,
75
135,
138,
140,
234,
252,
Fractions: of phonemes, 27
tours,
of con-
361. ff.
88
for comparison, 38, 159, 162
f.,
Distribution,
7, 15 f., 61, 69 95, 135, 160, 171, 199 ff.,
ff.,
73 f., 91, 214 f., 277,
Frames
299
f.,
311
Free forms, 158, 160 329, 351 f.
252, 261, 326
f.,
Distributional relations, 5 ff., 15 f., 19 f., 49, 61, 189, 299, 372; see also Complementary; Contrast; Equivalence
Division,
15, 25, 88, 90, 92, 1.56, 158, 191, 224 f., 269, 279 f., 290, 303, 327, 329 f.; see also Segmentation
Free variant, 29 ff., 55, 65, 72, 99 ff.. Ill, 174 f., 185, 198, 200, 232, 320, 361
Freedom
162
f.,
of occurrence, 61, 63, 90, 111 ff., 125, 142, 199 f., 206, 312, 338 f.; see also Distribution
Domain,
15,
51,
,57,
130
f.,
133
f.,
166,
Frequency of occurrence, 247, 336, 344, 372, 374

Gender, 318
General
f.,
182 f., 205, 209 f., 222, 277, 282, 299, 302, 306, 310, 325 f., 328, 330 ff., 343, 345 ff., 3.50, 352, 356, 360, 369
321
f.
class,
248
f.,
251
ff.,
257, 262,
Duration, 26, 44, 55, 345
f.
264, 299, 302, 306, 312, 336
Element, 6
ff.,
14, 16
ff., !., f.,
72, 85, 93, 125, 133 163, 171 f., 198, 212
26, 33 ff., 56 ff., 147, 1.56, 158,
Generalization of operations, 371

Gesture, 18, 55, 158, 188, 375
219, 231,
2,52,
ff.
273, 309
ff.,
332
f.,
334
ff.,
363
f.,
367
Government, 299; see also Concord Grades of a feature, 48 f., 54, 98, 109
121,
f.,
Element
status;
status, 342; see also
Morphemic
368
345
of
lists,
Phonemic status
Grammar
Grouping
376
ff.
Eliciting, 12, 38, 102, 207, 247,

Ellipsis,
337
of complementaries, llOff., 207, 344
62
ff.,
INDEX
(vowel or consonant), 83, 96, 132, 175, 330, 345 f. Hebrew paradigm components, 314 ff.
381
49, 51, 53, 328, 359, 363
18,
Harmony
Long components,
125
ff.,
55,
302
ff.,
Long
Homonyms,
284, 296
f.
71,
190
ff.,
199, 201
f.,
257
f.,
stretches, 156 f., 234, 263, 299, 325, 330, 344, 352, 362, 364 f.
Many-one
Identical distribution, 262
f.,
correspondence,
214,
225,
300, 304,
362
Identical features, 326, 328
Identification, 14, 16 f., 20 f., 23 f., 56 f., 64, 76 f., 120, 142, 164, 185 f., 198, 206, 301 ff., 306, 308 ff., 319 ff., 332, 339, 349, 352, 362, 364, 369
229 ff., 236, 363 Matching, 38, 81, 127 ff., 132, 157, 181, 201 ff., 206, 245, 276, 312 f., 336; see
also Comparison Meaning, 2, 4, 7, 8, 19
52, 55, 58, 173, 186
f., ff.,
29, 31, 38, 45,
216
ff.,
251
f.,
271
f.,
Identity
of
alternation,
66,
lllff.,
347
f.,
277, 281, 289 363, 365, 372

of
f.,
f.,
311, 313, 336,

290, 302,
219
ff.,
226
ff.,
Members
306, 325,
see
morpheme
class,
f.,
Immediate constituents, 278

332, 363
305, 322
327, 338, 340
349
ff.,
Immediate environment, 290, 300; also Short environment

Implication, 283
Membership: in morpheme, phoneme, 63 ff., 66 ff., 69

110
f.
200; in 90 f.,
Merkmal,
148, 301
Inclusion, 267, 273, 275 ff., 278 ff., 283, 303, 309, 328, 330 ff., 345 f., 363, 369,
Metanalysis, 194
Minimal
difference, 34
f.,
42
ff.,
163, 196,
374 Incremental growth, 278 Independent occurrence, 21, 49, 51 f., 57, 86, 131, 135, 158 f., 160 f., 170, 177 f.,
193, 310, 361
f.
207, 368; see also Pairs
Minimum construction, 330 Minimum domain, 369 Minimum utterance, 121,

332, 351
f.,
327,
329
f.,
359
f. ff.,
279 Informants,
Infix,
Mora,
ff.,
165, 168
9, 11 226, 253, 368
29
ff.,
38, 97, 124,
Morpheme, 156
362
165, 212
f.,
240, 305,
ff.,
Intermittently present, 39 f., 80 ff., 116, 124, 174, 232, 281, 344 f., 361, 364 Interrupted utterances, 151, 158; see also Fractions
Intonation, 14 f., 22, 37, 46, 51, 57, 85, 87 f., 281 f., 289, 292, 328 f.
Jointly exhaustive, 251, 253
Morpheme alternants,
238
285 346
f.
134, 197
227
f.,
Morpheme
f.,
f.,
class,
ff.,
299 363
164, 174, 193, 243 ff., 309 f., 326, 332, 338,
Junctures, 18, 40, 70, 79 ff., 96, 120, 130, 138, 141 f., 174 ff., 224, 228, 230 f.,
240
ff.,
261, 328, 335, 344
f.
Length, 15, 27 f., 29 f., 35 f., 42 ff., 45, 50 ff., 54 f., 71, 79, 86, 127 f., 133, 157, 301 f., 325, 367; see also Long components; Long stretches; Unit length
Morpheme class list, 378 Morpheme-in-environment, 249 f., 257, 259 f., 271, 363 Morpheme-position class, 251, 363 Morpheme-sequence classes, 273 f., 363 Morpheme sequence list, 378 Morpheme stock, 252 f., 261, 333, 346 Morpheme variants, 77, 116, 165, see also Morpheme alternants
Morphemic component, 301 ff. Morphemic correlation, 23, 51
87
ff.,
168
f.;
Length
variability, 311
Letter; see
Symbol
f., 51, lllff., 115f., 14.5, 150, 1.56,
f.,
76,
92, 96, 111
ff.,
130, 159
Levels of definition, 369
Limitations of occurrence, 12, 48

54,
60,
70,
79,
90
Morphemic segments, 157 ff., 310, 362 Morphemic status, .50 ff., 57 f., 160 f.,
177 f., 180, 193, 213, 307 f., 313 Morpholexical variation, 197 Morphological criteria, 256 Morphological levels, 331
ff.,
132 ff., 137, ff., 171 f., 185 f., 197, 236, 243, 253 f., 262, 270, 275, 277, 300, 303 f., 309 ff., 341, 349 f., 355, 363, 367
125
Locus of
Logic,
difference, 34, 42,
46
ff.
3, 9, 16,
18
Logical product, 263
Morphology, 262, 299; see also Phonology and morphology Morphoi)honeme, 224 f., 362
382
list,
Morphophonemic symbol
Morphophonomirs,
Mutually exclusive,
112,
132, 134. 13<t, 14r), 211)
2.=)3,
377
120,
Partial ihdependence, 177

130,
f.,
337
118,
ff.,
Partial substitutability, 284
344, 346
f.
257, 296, 357
Partiallv identical distribution, 163, 172, 201 f.', 203 f., 243 ff., 248 f., 251, 257, 280, 300 f., 304, 337; see also Over-
Native, 13; see also Informant
lapping
Neighborhood,
359
15, 98, 161, 223,
308
Patterning, 162, 179, 181, 299, 311; see

also
Neighbors, 156, 159, 185, 193, 300, 335,
Symmetry
ff.,
Pau.se, 39, 80
88, 174
f.,
281
New
formations, 252, 255; see also Productivity
Perception, 273
Periodicity, 25, 83, 86
Non-automatic 377
morphophonemic
list,
Permutations, 48, Person, 319, 321
2.53, 2.55
Non-equivalence; see Distinction Non-fjccurrence, 22, 61 f., 64, 127

300, 342, 362
Phoneme,
110
ff.,
2.5,
34
f.,
43,
.57,
59
ff.,
72,
f., 140, 171, 184, 223, 235, 254, 267, 272, 282,
122
f.,
236, 361
ff.,
Phoneme Phoneme
classes, 68, 71, 79 98, 131, 146, 151
89, 92
f.,
Non-substitutability, 33
ff.,
47
f.,
72
distribution
list,
376
Noun, 306
Noun
phrase, 277, 287

;
Number,
316, 319, 321 f. of elements, 17, 22, .56 f., 59 f., 63 f., 67, 79, 91, 94, 125, 132, 144, 146, 197, 211, 219, 243, 249, 262, 274; of segments, 42 ff., 64, 158, 160, 274, 343
Phonemic analysis, 59, 62, 93, 110 ff. Phonemic component; see Component Phonemic constituency, 164, 171, 174,
198, 209
ff.,
219, 22.5
f.,
229, 232, 240,
342
Phonemic
164
ff.,
Numerals identifying morphemes, 252

Occurrence,
302, 322
also
14, 17, 19,
correlation, 157 ff., 161 f., 174, 184 ff., 210 ff., 233, 261, 305, 310 f., 317 f., 322, 342
42
f.,
48
f.,
f.,
56, 69,
72, 151, 157, 161, 202, 2.50

f.,
263, 275, 332, 336, 349, 365, 372; see
Dependent occurrence; Independent occurrence; Limitations of occurrence; Non-occurrence; Co-occurrence
Phonemic identification of morphemes; see Phonemic correlation Phonemic status, 56 ff., 84, 116, 135, 235 Phonemic stock, 31, 67, 94, 121 ff., 132,
136, 146
Phonetic data,
5, 47,
57
f.,
75
Omi.ssion, 320, 334
Phonetics; see Articulation; Sound waves
One-dimensional, 144
Phonological alternation, 197, 219

5,
One-one correspondence,
72,
16
fT.,
35, 62,
f.,
214 f., 225, 235 335 f., 339, 361, 364, 366 Onomatopoeia, 188 Operations of analysis, 26, 31, 34, 42
80
f.,
83, 85, 176,
Phonology and morphology,

88, 173
ff.,
3, 6, 8,
21
ff.,
195
f.,
361
f.'
Phrase, 325
Pitch; see
f.,
Tone
48, 53, 61, 69, 77, 82, 91, 96, 128, 158f., 160 f., 198, 204, 227 f., 247, 250, 263 f., 269, 279, 301, 304, 325 f., 335, 338, 363,
367
Order, 184 ff., 192, 198, 328, 3.55 f., 369; of procedures, 25, 32, 35, 42, 44, 51, 54, .56, 60, 89, 92 ff., 126 f., 135, 149, 172, 195 f., 204 ff., 233, 237, 263, 296 f.,
Position, 11, 15, 43, 48, 98, 120, 125, 135, 161, 172, 182, 185, 242, 281, 290 f., 300, 302 f., 309 ff., 316, 325, 332, 335 f., 342, 348
Position
356
f.,
class, 277, 363, 369
295
f.
ff.,
299,
305,
Position symbols, 370
299 f., 310, 325 f., 333, 366 Overlapping, 65, 70, 72, 251, 296 f., 299, 346
Pairs, 32, 34
Positional variant, 43, 122 f., 292, 322, 3.57
63
ff.,
lllff.,
2.58,
271,
Prediction, 13, 22, 53, 83, 152, 244, 2.54
f.,
372
Prefix, 161
f., 38 f., 41, 46 ff., 76, 79, 184 Paradigm, 299, 311, 314 ff. Partial dependence, 84 f., 88, 120, 125,
Primacy, 275, 307, 328, 367

Privileges of occurrence, 358, also Freedom of occurrence
370; see
f.,
135,
138
f.,
1.59,
167,
176,
183,
214,
338; see also Dependent occurrence

Partial identity, 162, 181, 190, 211, 227,
Probability of occurrence, 40, 172, 187
374
Procedures,
1 ff.,
369
6, 8, 25, 29, 33,
45,
.52,
INDEX
57,
383
60
f.,
79
f.,
224,
245,
249,
90, 126, 150, 157, 199, 263, 301, 325, 349,
Selective succession, 350
361 ff.; see also Operations of analysis; Order, of procedures

Process, 373
Productivity, 10, 12, 194, 252, 253
Semantic categories, 348 Sentence, 14, 282, 350 ff. Sentence type, 351 Sentence type list, 378
Sequence, 11, 15, 23, 28, 34, 47 ff., 93 ff., 127, 132, 138, 157 ff., 223, 235 f., 262 ff., 300, 325, 351, 362; see also Successive segments
ff.,
374 f. Prosodemes, 45 Protective mechanisms, 235
Raised numerals, 266, 273, 303, 309 Random distribution, 364, 369
Range:
of distribution, 312; of positions, 277; of variation, 29, 32 f., 41, 191
Sequence-phonemicization, 53, 70 f., 83, 93 f., 135, 233 Sequence-representation, 334, 338, 370 Sequence resultant; see Resultant Short environments, 255 f., 300, 325, 364
Similarity of parts, 4
46, 163
f.,
Rank, 278
Reconsideration, 333; see also Approxi-
20, 25
f.,
29, 31,
mation
Recurrent arrangements, 325
Reduplication, 183, 197, 208, 211
Regularities, 365
f.
f.
Simultaneous elements, 47
92, 117
ff.,
f.,
125
ff.,
133
f.,
50 ff., 58, 143 f., 361
Social situation, 4, 13, 19, 29, 46, 55, 172 f., 185 ff., 198, 207, 253 ff.
Relational symbols, 135, 233 f., 240 f., 301, 311, 334, 338, 367, 369 f. Relations among elements; see Distributional relations
Sound,
8,
17, 19, 21, 25, 31,
143
ff.,
361
Sound
366
features, 7, 16 f., 45, 55, 60, 63 ff., 66, 94, 128 f., 132 f., 142 ff., 147 f., 175,
Relativity of definition, 5, 7, 146, 189, 246, 370; see also Relational symbols
Sound types, 98 Sound waves, 4 f., 16
Remnant;
Residue Repeatability, 265, 283 Repeated segments; see Agreement Repeated sequences, 358 f. Repetition, 20, 26, 29 ff., 37, 39 f., 46 f., 98, 198, 361 Resegmentation, 92, 96, 269 f., 303, 333 Residual occurrence, 158, 202
see
ff., 30 338 Speech, 4, 9, 16 ff., 20, 25 ff., 36 Spelling, 235 ff., 239 Stem, 161, 277 Stress, 46 ff., 82 f., 88, 119 ff., 124, 176, 327, 345 f.,
20, 25
Specificity of environment,
Structural types, 3
Style, 10
f.,
19,
198, 320, 346, 352, 365
Residue, 48 f., 51, 53 f., 56, 59, 131 ff., 136 ff., 140 f., 178, 301, 303, 309 f., 315 ff., 328, 340 f. Restriction; see Limitations of occurrence
Resultant, 267, 274
345, 364
ff.,
278
f.,
296, 303,
248 ff., 264, 277, 284, 298, 303 ff., 309 f., 312, 333 Sub-class memberships, 271 ff. Substitutability, 5, 20, 23, 26, 29 ff., 40 f.,
Sub-class,
48, 72, 81, 131, 159, 161 f., 180, 198, 202, 234, 247, 255, 263, 275, 279, 282 f., 300, 349 f., 361 ff.; .see also Non-substitutability
Sample, 12 ff., 27 374 Sandhi, 343
f.,
152,
244
f.,
368, 372,
Substitution class, 247, 330 Substitution frame, 162, 247

f.;
see also
Scope, 130; see also E.xtension Second-order domain, 331
Segment, 14 f., 21, 23, 25 ff., 29 ff., 42 f., 56, 59, 73 f., 90 f., 99 ff., 125, 335, 361, 362 Segmentation, 25 ff., 42 f., 90 ff., 158, 160, 177, 181, 183, 195 f., 274, 278 ff., 367 Segment-phoneme li.st, 376 Selection, 2, 214, 243, 274, 298 f., 303, 347 Selective substitution, 350
comparison Sub-systems, 346 f. Successive lengths, 330 f.

for
Frames
Successive segments, 21, 35, 42, 49 f., 54, 58, 87, 93, 128 f., 327, 361; see also Se-
quence
Suflix, 2.52
Superposed contours, 51, 55, 57 f. Suppletion, 197, 211, 220, 238 Suprasegmental, 49, 51 f., 136, 281
Syllabification, 82, 86, 120
f.,
361
384
Transfer between classes, 275
Transition, 87
f.
Symbols, 10, 14 f.. 18 f.. 23. 27. 33 .51 59 f., 61, 8.i, 9.5, 128. 136 f., 140, 1.51' 224 ff.. 22<)f., 240 ff.. 2.52. 263, 266' 309, 322, 338, 340. 3.50, 367. 370 Symmetry, 64 f., 66 ff., 70 ff., 81, 91 94 111 ff.. 160 ff., 164, 179 f., 199 f., 206 f. Syntactic analysis, 256, 281, 332 Syntactic equivalence, 302 Syntactic form-class, 262 Syntactic position, 290 Syntactic status, 262, 276 f., 291, 326 Syntax, 262, 299
Swahili noun classes, 182 ff., 194 f. Swahili phonemes, 97 ff. Swahili phonemic components, 136
Two-dimensional, 144, 154, 351, 357
f.
Unique complementaries, 207, 313 Unique distribution, 112 f., 200 ff

257, 269 f., 312 f. Unit length, 42 ff., 47,
.50, .56 f..
205
116, 128 ' 133 f., 136, 140 ff., 143, 146, 226, 301 f 310, 325, 328, 330 f., 370
,
Utterance, 6, 11 f., 14, 25 ff 55 1.56 158 ff., 278, 327, 332. 349, 361, '364 f!
Utterance formula, 351
Utterance status, 327, 330, 333; see also

ff.
Tabulating; see Diagrams
Syntactic status Utterance stock, 289, 366, 368 Utterance structure, 329 ff., 372
Variable, 349
f.
f.
Tagmeme,
211, 347
\'ariation, 39, 99, 110 f., 128 f., 370; of occurrence, 157; see also Free variant;
Taxemes, 184 Techniques of discovery, 371
Tempo, 83, 198 Tense, 306, 315 Test: of equivalence, 31 ff., 38 f., 173, 361; of patterning, 162 Testing frames, 264; see also Substitution
frames
Positional variant; Verb, 277, 306
Range
of variation
Verb phrase, 287 Voided elements,
181, 333, 337

ff.,
ff.
Time measurement, 44
Time-succession, 267, 350, 355
Word, 14
f.,
84,
86
ff.,
287, 325, 327
119 ff., 130, 281 346, 351 ff.
Tone, 45
ff.,
83, 92, 121, 143 51, 92, 145
ff.,
346
Zero, 47, 81
Tone languages,
Tonemes, 51
Total environment, 157

263, 300, 362
f.,
161, 171
2,56
96, 98, 116 f., 124, 129 f 146, 157, 159, 162, 166, 181, 213 ff., 228 f.. 235 237 ff., 247, 276, 289, 291, 303, 321 ff 327, 333, 334 ff., 340 ff., 3.56
f.,
137
f.,
140
ff.,
168,
175.
Zero length, 335
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Structural Linguistics
The purpose of this book

practice,
is
to organize the
whole
field
of
descriptive linguistics into a single
body of theory and

linguistic
presenting a
unitary
approach to
analysis.
"Harris
er
is
unquestionably
among the
best of us.
No clear-
proof
is
needed of
his genius, his incisive penetration his
into the
domain of formal problems,

Philology.
meticulous logic,
L.
than the book under review."
Paul
Garvin,
Romance
"Harris' contribution
[is]
epoch-marking."
Norman
A.
McQuowN,
Language.
ZELLiG
versity
s.
HARRIS
IS
piofessoK of linguistics at the Uni-
of Pennsylvania.
PHOENIX BOOK published by the
University of Chicago Press

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What is the purpose of the book?

What is the purpose of the book?

What techniques does the book present for linguistic analysis?

What techniques does the book present for linguistic analysis?

25 (16s net)

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Published 1951. Sixth Impression 1963.

The University of Chicago

for descriptive linguistics is intended

for students of linguistics

terested in the character of linguistics as a science.

For those who use

in research or teaching, the tech-

For those who are primarily interested

in the logic of distribulin-

which constitutes the basic method of structural

minimum of knowledge about language and linguistics has been

and 20 deal with the general character of

regrettably, not easy to read.

single reading should be

for a picture of the operations

of analysis discussed here are the product of linguists

throughout the world, to whose investiga-

meager references cited here are an inadequate guide. This

book owes most, however,

work and friendship

Edward Sapir and

Leonard Bloomfield, and particularly to the

cussions with C. F. Voegelin and

Preston, and Fred Lukoff.

N. Chomsky has given much-needed assistance with the manuscript.

Philadelphia January 1947

PREFACE FOR THE FOURTH IMPRESSION

now be obtained from

more constructions (which are adjoined next

of the center or of a construction); in addition, specified elements of

the center or of a construction

may be replaced by a suitable construction.

thus an elementarj' sentence; adjoined constructions are

in general modifiers. ]Most

Transformations: The basic approach of structural linguistics

various other factors. Cf.

PREFACE FOR THE FOURTH IMPRESSION

the limits of a sentence; the stringent demands of

procedures are not

differentiated tools, e.g.

a restricted sense substitutable (or positionally similar)

elements or classes of elements throughout a connected

are extensions of the

Criterion of Relevance: Distribution Schedule of Procedures

2.31. Dialect or Style

2.4. 2.5. 2.6.

the Segmentation of Single Utterances

To Establish Linguistic Equivalence Procedure: Grouping Substitutable Segments

Result: Equivalent and Non-equivalent Segments

Utterances and Distinct Elements

Appendix to Appendix to Appendix to

the Equivalence of Repetitions

Relations among Phonologic Elements

Purpose: Descriptively Equal Segment Lengths