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1. Morphemes, Morphs, and Allomorphs
If we assume that the most basic unit of meaning is the word, what do we
say about parts of words like un-, which has a fixed meaning? In all the words in
the column A, un- means the same thing – “not.”
Column A
Un – desirable
Un – likely
Un – inspired
Un – believable
Un – countable
Undesirable means “not desirable,” “unlikely” means “not likely,” and so on.
All the words in column A consists of at least two meaningful units: “un +
desirable, un + likely, un + inspired”, and so on.
Words have internal structure, which is rule-governed. “Uneaten”,
“undamaged”, and “ungrammatical” are words in English. The study of the
internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words as formed, is called
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