ALLOMORPHY

As we know that morphemes have invariable realizations. In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes. However, this is exactly the kind of situation we find with many morphemes, be they bound or free. To know Allomorph clearly, please look the example below: a. the indefinite article a [a] table [a] knife [a] chair [an] apple [an] organization [an] idea

b. In English the plural suffix has three pronunciations: /s/ after nouns ending in a voiceless consonant (cats /kats/ ) /z/ after nouns ending in a voiced consonant (dogs /dogz/ ) /iz/ after nouns ending in a vowel ( horses /horsiz/ ) c. Allomorphy is also rather frequent in English derivation, and both bases and affixes can be affected by it, such as: Explain explanation explanatory maintain maintenance courage courageous

From the example above, we can take conclusion that Such different morphs representing the same morpheme are called allomorphs, and the phenomenon that different morphs realize one and the same morpheme is known as allomorphy. On a more abstract level, we can say that it is the sound structure that conditions the distribution of the allomorphs, i.e. determines which allomorph has to be used in a given linguistic context. This is called phonological conditioning. We will shortly see that there are also other kinds of conditioning factors involved in allomorphy.

a. The allomorphy of adjectival -al/-ar cause+al = causal inflection+al = inflectional distribution+al = distributional pole+al = polar nodule+al = nodular cellule+al =cellular

Obviously, all derivatives ending in -ar are based on words ending in [l], whereas the derivatives ending in -al are based on words ending in sounds other than [l]. We could thus say that our suffix surfaces as -ar after [l], and as -al in all other cases. This is a case of the phonological conditioning of a suffix, with the final segment of the base triggering a dissimilation of the final sound of the suffix. The opposite process, assimilation can also be observed, for example with the regular English past tense ending, which is realized as [d] after voiced sounds (vowed, pinned) and [t] after unvoiced sounds (kissed, kicked). Conversely, the insertion of [a] with words ending in [t] and [d] (mended, attempted) can be analyzed as a case of dissimilation. Such a state of affairs, where one variant (-ar) is exclusively found in one environment, whereas the other variant (-al) is exclusively found in a different environment, is called complementary distribution. Complementary distribution is always an argument for the postulation of a two-level analysis with an underlying and a surface level. On the underlying level, there is one element from which the elements on the second level, the surface level, can be systematically derived (e.g. by phonological rules). The idea of complementary distribution is not only used in science, but also in everyday reasoning. For example, in the famous novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, both men are the surface realizations of one underlying schizophrenic personality, with one realization appearing by night, the other by daylight. Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hide are complementarily distributed, in morphological terms they could be said to be allomorphs of the same morpheme. In the case of the above suffix an analysis makes sense that assumes an underlying form /l/, which surfaces as [r] after base-final [l] and as [l] in all other cases. This is formalized in (b):

b. A morpho-phonological rule /al/ = [ar] | [l]# ___ /al/ = [al] elsewhere (read: the underlying phonological form /al/is phonetically realized as [ar] after base-final [l], and is realized as [al] elsewhere) Such predictable changes in the realization of a morpheme are called morphophonological alternations.