Allomorph

Allomorph (also Morphemalternante ) is a term in linguistics and refers to meaningless or functionally identical or similar variants of a morpheme. It is different from the morph in that its membership was found to be a particular morpheme, it is classified. The finding, to which a morpheme allomorph heard is due to its similar or identical form on the one hand and on the other hand its the same grammatical function or similar or the same meaning. Gold and güld ( in güld - s) are therefore two different morphs that realize one and the same morpheme; so that they also provide 2 allomorphs of this morpheme represents only in inflection are counted by many authors including those allomorphs to a morpheme, which have large differences in shape, as is the German plural nouns (see below) the case. So are the allomorphs - s (Auto -s) and it ( child - he ) completely different shape, but one and the same morpheme are considered by many due to their same grammatical function as realizations.

Examples of allomorphs in English

- From Personalflexion of verbs:

The morpheme " 3 Person singular present indicative " has the German weak verbs in the two allomorphs -et ( in: calc -et ) and t (in: go -t).

- From Pluralflexion of nouns:

• Fish - Fish ( plural allomorph: -e)
• Carrier - carrier - Ø ( plural allomorph: Nullallomorph )
• Father - fathers ( plural allomorph: umlaut )
• Forest - Wäld - he ( plural allomorph: umlaut er)
• Voice - voice -n ( plural allomorph: - s)
• Child - child - he ( plural allomorph - he )
• Video - Video -s ( plural allomorph: -s)
• Mouse - Mäus -e ( plural allomorph: umlaut e)
• Woman - woman - s ( plural allomorph: - s)

The plural different lexemes is thus formed with different allomorphs. The significance of these variants, namely that these mark the plural, is always the same. In various manifestations of the same grammatical function is sometimes spoken of a grammatical allomorph. A proposal for the treatment of the rules for the choice of allomorphs can be found in Wegener ( 1995).

For the choice of allomorphs

In the choice of allomorphs different rules apply:

If you want to use the word in the plural subject about, you have the choice between - ta ( themes ) and - s ( topics ); at point you can choose between - ta ( commas) and -s ( commas ). In such cases, often in foreign words, so the allomorphs can be selected partly free: they are in free variation with each other.

In the vast majority of nouns that end in vowel, such as " video ", only -s admitted as a possible Pluralallomorph; the final sound of the word thus determines the choice of allomorph. These cases are therefore determined phonetically (phonetic / phonetically conditioned ). Here also belongs the above-mentioned case of the verb inflection, where between -t and- et must be selected for the third person singular: regn -et and go -t.

For most nouns, however, neither free nor phonetic variation determination applies: the choice of he - at child or -e in fish is fixed; another Pluralallomorph is not permitted. There are also no phonetic ( phonetic ) feature in the area, that would determine the choice. In such cases one has to deal with morphological determination (morphological conditionality ), which means nothing else than that the choice of allomorph depends on the particular word.

Phonetic determination and morphological determination are summarized under the umbrella term complementary distribution.