Allomorph

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 of phonological variations for specific morphemes.

Allomorphy in English suffixes English has several morphemes that vary in sound but not in meaning. Examples include the past tense and the plural morphemes. For example, in English, a past tense morpheme is -ed. It occurs in several allomorphs depending on its phonological environment, assimilating voicing of the previous segment or inserting a schwa when following an alveolar stop: as /d/ or /d/ in verbs whose stem ends with the alveolar stops /t/ or /d/, such as 'hunted' /hntd/ or 'banded' /bndd/ as /t/ in verbs whose stem ends with voiceless phonemes other than /t/, such as 'fished' /ft/ as /d/ in verbs whose stem ends voiced phonemes other than /d/, such as 'buzzed' /bzd/ Notice the "other than" restrictions above. This is a common fact about allomorphy: if the allomorphy conditions are ordered from most restrictive (in this case, after an alveolar stop) to least restrictive, then the first matching case usually "wins". Thus, the above conditions could be re-written as follows: as /d/ or /d/ when the stem ends with the alveolar stops /t/ or /d/ as /t/ when the stem ends with voiceless phonemes as /d/ elsewhere The fact that the /t/ allomorph does not appear after stem-final /t/, despite the fact that the latter is voiceless, is then explained by the fact that /d/ appears in that environment, together with the fact that the environments are ordered. Likewise, the fact that the /d/ allomorph does not appear after stem-final /d/ is because the earlier clause for the /d/ allomorph takes priority; and the fact that the /d/ allomorph does not appear after stem-final voiceless phonemes is because the preceding clause for the /t/ takes priority. Irregular past tense forms, such as "broke" or "was/ were", can be seen as still more specific cases (since they are confined to certain lexical items, like the verb "break"), which therefore take priority over the general cases listed above.

An allomorph is a different phonological version of a morpheme. This occurs when the surface detail of the morpheme is different, but the deeper meaning remains the same. This commonly occurs when the letters performing the same function, such as plurality or time, produce a different sound or use different letters. Examples of plural allomorphs include the difference between pots and taxes. The studying of allomorphs is part of the studying ofmorphology in linguistics. A morpheme is a basic unit of representing meaning in a language. These meanings can be either lexical, in that they provide information, or structural. Intolerant, for example, has three morphemes: in-toler-ant. All three elements of intolerant are lexical morphemes. Toler is the root stem indicating the ability to endure or embrace something. The in morpheme means that there is no tolerance and the ant at the end indicates someone who is intolerant. There are several types of morpheme. Free morphemes can exist as a word in their own right. An example of this is the break in unbreakable. On the other hand, morphemes such as toler in tolerant are bound morphemes because they cannot exist unless modified by other morphemes. The allomorph is a bound morpheme that only occurs in order to modify a stem word.