Null morpheme
Nullmorphem is a term of grammar, especially the morphology that deals with the meaningful components of words, morphemes, is concerned. The word ( you ) "go -st ", for example, consists of two morphemes, which are included here in the form of "go " and " st ". A Nullmorphem carries a meaning analogous to the suffix "- st ", marked this meaning but not by phonetic elements, but rather by the lack of sound material ( in contrast with related forms, which are clearly marked ). To illustrate Serve the inflection paradigm of the noun " man " in the singular, which can be analyzed as follows:
This raises the following problem: the morpheme " genitive singular " is realized by " it "; the morpheme " dative singular " with " e" or not at all. In the dative singular words are an allomorph " e" or a Nullallomorph " Ø ". For nominative singular there as well as for accusative singular lack a shape. To be able to represent the entire paradigm completely morphologically, grab as many linguists to be the last resort, that they accept a Nullmorphem for this case, which is the same as the Nullallomorph with " Ø " listed. Morphologically, the paradigm will look like this:
Thus, it is shown that the grammatical functions " nominative singular " and " accusative singular " are indeed present, but in form - will not be realized - morphologically.
On the status of Nullmorphems
The Nullmorphem is therefore a morpheme is realized either orally or in writing. This contradicts the fact that morphemes are defined as character; that is, a morpheme is a unit that combines a term side ( signifiant ) and a meaning or grammatical function ( signifie ) in itself. A Nullmorphem is now a unit that is indeed understood as a sign, but has no expression page. So it is a grammatical morpheme, a theoretical construct that, in order to preserve the classification of morphological description and thus to simplify the description, it is assumed as an empty place at the end of Grundmorphems, linguistically but not expressed. The grammatical function of Nullmorphems results from the semantic opposition between the word form with Nullmorphem and the other word forms of the same paradigm, in which stand in place of the Nullmorphems flexion or Wortbildungsmorpheme.
Differentiation from Nullallomorph
One must clearly distinguish Nullmorpheme of Nullallomorphen that always appeal to only one variant of a morpheme, but which still has other written or oral realized allomorphs. A Nullmorphem is a morpheme whose only allomorph Ø. This difference is often neglected.
Problem of the concept Nullmorphem
While adopting a Nullallomorphs widely considered unproblematic, the adoption of a Nullmorphems is controversial. Rather than put a Nullmorphem, it is often considered more appropriate to adopt a labeling by the absence of a morpheme. So one can say, for example, that the singular of a noun is expressed by the absence of a plural morpheme, which makes more sense in this case, as a Nullmorphem to be set at the end of the singular form. As a further objection to the use of Nullmorphemen Bergholtz / Mugdan argue that in languages that allow longer chains of affixes, a vast amount of Nullmorphemen would have to be accepted.
Helpful Nullmorpheme can also be conjugated to illustrate vacancies in the inflection paradigm. Also in the word formation come Nullmorpheme used.
Nullmorpheme in German
In German, you can see the adoption of a Nullmorphems description of technical reasons in a specific case quite justify, as has been shown above, already the example of " man ":
The Flexionsschema ( paradigm ) for example, the masculine nouns in German - here you have to exclude nominalized adjectives - has no ending in the nominative case: "the state ", in the genitive in many cases - it: " the state". Now, if one wants to represent the various morphological case, one can say that the genitive ( "of the sea -s" ), it is etc. realized by the allomorphs -s; In contrast, however, the nominative is represented by only one allomorph, namely Ø: "the state - Ø ". In this way one can describe the entire paradigm systematically morphologically. This consideration can be applied analogously to all other inflectional paradigms.
It should be limited in the adoption of Nullmorphemen but to those cases in which a inflectional morphological forms existing in opposition to such forms of words that have a unique grammatical function, but without providing the necessary se expression page. Without such a restriction, you can assign a word like hat an arbitrarily complex morphological structure of a realized and unrealized any number of morphemes, just Nullmorphemen; one must only meanings for the many Nullmorpheme that one has recognized to come up.
Nullmorpheme in Romance languages
The same principle can also provide in the Romance languages Nullmorpheme:
In French, for example, the present be compared with the past tense expressed by a Nullmorphem:
In Spanish, you can start a Nullmorphem example Flexionsschema in the present tense:
The third person singular is over -s,- mos, -is and -n expressed by Ø. ( The first person singular shows a typical inflecting languages complex morpheme. )
Also in the word formation Nullmorpheme can be accepted in Spanish:
In the first case, the derivational suffix in the formation of the corresponding noun - miento, in the second case would be the suffix- Ø, the so-called zero derivation. ( The A in the second case is a theme vowel, a pure form element. )