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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 ofphonological 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 [an] apple

[a] knife [an] organization

[a] chair [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 maintain courageexplanation maintenance courageousexplanatory

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 pole+al = polar

inflection+al = inflectional nodule+al = nodular

distribution+al = distributional cellule+al =cellular

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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 dissimilationof the final sound of the suffix. The opposite process, assimilationcan 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: theunderlying 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.