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Componential Analysis of a Hebrew Paradigm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Zellig S. Harris
Zellig S. Harris*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The linguistic structure of an utterance is presumed to be fully stated by a list of the morphemes which constitute it, and by their order. The difference between two utterances is expressed by the difference in morphemic constituency between them. Frequently, however, we find that there is a set of morphemes in a language, such that each morpheme in the set is identified by its contrast with all the others in the set. Such morphemes are often arranged in paradigms, and the various crisscrossing relationships among the morphemes of the paradigm are often called categories. Thus there are such Latin morphemes as -us, -um, -ī, -ōs which are defined by their membership in a paradigm, and which are considered as expressing, within the paradigm, such categories as case and number.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 24 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1948 , pp. 87 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © 1948 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 It can be shown that they are identical in analytic status with all other morphemic ‘long components’, which can be set up for morphology in much the same way that phonemic long components are set up for phonology. Cf. Lang. 20.181–205 (1944).

2 If a vowel adjoins limed with no intervening juncture (i.e. within the same word) the preceding vowel is replaced by zero (limdu). Aside from that, if any phonemes (except the unstressed na) adjoin limed with no intervening juncture, the vowel of limed which is nearest to them is replaced by a. The forms are cited here in phonemic transcription, so that such segments as the ə between two initial consonants are not shown.

3 E.g. lo limádnu oto davar etmol ‘We didn't teach him a thing yesterday’, lo alamed oto davar maxar ‘I won't teach him a thing tomorrow.‘

4 Where N indicates a class of noun morphemes containing ani ‘I’, hu ‘he’, hamore haxadaš ‘the new teacher’, etc.

5 But only one of the two N positions can be occupied by any one of the group hi, hen, and N plus -a ‘feminine’. Before -u/t...na, both N positions are occupied by morphemes of this group.

6 And N occurring with 1 sometimes has the -a and sometimes does not.

7 N + -α may substitute for N without -a, e.g. habaxur in such environments as N və N (habaxur vəaxr sidru et ze ‘The fellow and my brother arranged it’, habaxura vəaxi sidru et ze 'The girl and my brother arranged it'); or in the N of VN = V (limádti et habaxur '1 taught the fellow', limádti et habaxura 'I taught the girl'); or in the second N of N sě PN = N (ze hamakom šel habaxur 'That's the fellow's place', ze hamakom šel habaxura ‘That's the girl's place‘); etc.