- André Martinet, Neutralisation et archiphonème, TCLP 6.46–57, Prague 1936. For a concise account of the difference between the Praguian and Bloomfleldian traditions, see C. F. Hockett, Manual of Phonology (International Journal of American Linguistics 21, N°. 4, Part I), p. 164.
- The system of morphemic analysis used here is that of the Bloomfleldian school; for a lucid discussion of its criteria and a recent definition of such terms as « morph », « morpheme » and « morpheme alternant » in the spirit of this school, see Floyd G. Lounsbury, Oneida Verb Morphology, Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 48, pp. 11–13 (1953).
- Conceivably one could maintain that these morphemes occurred elsewhere e. g., in the forms (fasc)is-m and (fasc)is-t. Investigation of further data would reveal that a more adequate division is fasc-ism and fasc-isl.
- Irrelevant for the present discussion are such problems as whether the division into morphs should be abert-ura or aber-tura, or even aber-tur-a.
- This example is cited, in another connection, by D. L. Bolinger, “Rime, Assonance, and Morpheme Analysis”, Word 6.121 (1950).
- The fact that a form contrast parallels a meaning contrast somewhere in the system does not imply that the contrast need be posited throughout the system. The most obvious example is perhaps the contrast between first and second porson in the English verb system, which exists only in the verb be: I am, you are. On this basis, one is not justified in establishing homonymous forms for, e. g., talk in I talk, you talk. Similarly, some Spanish adjectives are inflected for gender, e. g., rojo roja ‘red’. This does not justify establishing two forms because of the two meanings (masculine and feminine) of adjectives like azul ‘blue’.
- The term has been used with a somewhat different meaning by Martin S. Ruipérez, “The Neutralization of Morphological Oppositions as Illustrated by the Neutral Aspect of the Present Indicative in Classical Greek”, Word 9.241–255. Ruipérez handles morphology in a more traditional sense, as the study of aflixes, particularly inflectional ones. Moreover, since Ruipérez deals with morphemes as units of content (which would be represented by “formants” on the plane of expression), his application of the terms “neutralization” and “archimorpheme” is necessarily different from ours. Whether the two approaches to grammatical analysis are reconcilable, or at least how they are to be described with precision in each other's terms, are matters for future investigation.
- See the discussion by Zelig S. Harris, “Distributional Structure”, Word 10.146–162 (1954) on the relation between distribution and meaning. In the present context it would be erroneous to say the meaning of morphs A (aber-) is complementary to the sum of the meanings of morphs A (aber-) and B (aper-); rather the meaning of C is equal to the sum of the meanings of A and B.
- Bernard Bloch, “English Verb Inflection”, Language 23.399–418 (1947). It was Bloch who pointed out the possible application of the archimorpheme to this type of problem.
- Eugene A. Nida, “The Identification of Morphemes”, Language 24.414–441 (1948).
- A similar problem is discussed by Samuel E. Martin, Morphophonemics of standard colloquial Japanese, Language Dissertation N°. 47, supplement to Volume 28.3(1952). By a device which he terms an internal isogloss, he divides the lexicon into two classes, S (for Sino-Japanese) and Y (for Yamato, or native Japanese); ‘each morph… may be placed clearly in one of the two classes’. (24). Presumably, in English read- and leg- (and probably eat- and ed-) belong to different classes.
- See Bloch's suggestion that a morpheme may be defined as a class of semantically similar and non-contrastive morphs in “Linguistic Structure and Linguistic Analysis”, Report of the fourth annual round table meeting on linguistics and language teaching, ed. Archibald A. Hill, Monograph Series on languages and linguistics, No. 4, Institute of Languages and Linguistics, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (1954).
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