allomorph

　 　

WordNet

1. any of several different crystalline forms of the same chemical compound; "calcium carbonate occurs in the allomorphs calcite and aragonite"
2. a variant phonological representation of a morpheme; "the final sounds of `bets and `beds and `horses and `oxen are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme"
3. pertaining to allomorphs

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2015/11/09 21:52:39」(JST)

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For other uses, see Pseudomorph.

In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme, that is, when a unit of meaning varies 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 /əd/ or /ɪd/ in verbs whose stem ends with the alveolar stops /t/ or /d/, such as 'hunted' /hʌntɪd/ or 'banded' /bændɪd/
• as /t/ in verbs whose stem ends with voiceless phonemes other than /t/, such as 'fished' /fɪʃt/
• as /d/ in verbs whose stem ends with voiced phonemes other than /d/, such as 'buzzed' /bʌzd/

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 /əd/ or /ɪd/ 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 /əd/ 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 /əd/ 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, such as the verb "break"), which therefore take priority over the general cases listed above.

Stem allomorphy

Allomorphy can also exist in stems or roots, as in Classical Sanskrit:

Vāk (voice)

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	/vaːk/	/vaːt͡ʃ-as/
Genitive	/vaːt͡ʃ-as/	/vaːt͡ʃ-aːm/
Instrumental	/vaːt͡ʃ-aː/	/vaːɡ-bʱis/
Locative	/vaːt͡ʃ-i/	/vaːk-ʂi/

There are three allomorphs of the stem: /vaːk/, /vaːt͡ʃ/ and /vaːɡ/. The allomorphs are conditioned by the particular case-marking suffixes.

The form of the stem /vaːk/, found in the nominative singular and locative plural, is the etymological form of the morpheme. Pre-Indic palatalization of velars resulted in the variant form /vaːt͡ʃ/, which was initially phonologically conditioned. This conditioning can still be seen in the Locative Singular form, where the /t͡ʃ/ is followed by the high front vowel /i/.

But subsequent merging of /e/ and /o/ into /a/ made the alternation unpredictable on phonetic grounds in the Genitive case (both Singular and Plural), as well as the Nominative Plural and Instrumental Singular. Hence, this allomorphy was no longer directly relatable to phonological processes.

Phonological conditioning also accounts for the /vaːɡ/ form found in the Instrumental Plural, where the /ɡ/ assimilates in voicing to the following /bʱ/.

History

The term was originally used to describe variations in chemical structure. It was first applied to language (in writing) in 1948, by Fatih Şat and Sibel Merve in Language XXIV.

See also

• Null allomorph
• Alternation (linguistics)
• Allophone
• Consonant mutation
• Grassmann's Law

References

• Jeffers, Robert J. and Lehiste, Ilse (1979). Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics. MIT Press. 

• Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2011) An Introduction to Language (9th edition), Wadsworth, Cengage Learning: Boston, USA, pp. 268-272.

English Journal

• Restructuring the crystalline cellulose hydrogen bond network enhances its depolymerization rate.

• Chundawat SP, Bellesia G, Uppugundla N, da Costa Sousa L, Gao D, Cheh AM, Agarwal UP, Bianchetti CM, Phillips GN Jr, Langan P, Balan V, Gnanakaran S, Dale BE.SourceBiomass Conversion Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA. chundawa@msu.edu
• Journal of the American Chemical Society.J Am Chem Soc.2011 Jul 27;133(29):11163-74. Epub 2011 Jul 5.
• Conversion of lignocellulose to biofuels is partly inefficient due to the deleterious impact of cellulose crystallinity on enzymatic saccharification. We demonstrate how the synergistic activity of cellulases was enhanced by altering the hydrogen bond network within crystalline cellulose fibrils. We
• PMID 21661764

• The crystalline phase of cellulose changes under developmental control in a marine chordate.

• Nakashima K, Nishino A, Horikawa Y, Hirose E, Sugiyama J, Satoh N.SourceMarine Genomics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Promotion Corporation, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa 904-0412, Japan. keisuke@oist.jp
• Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS.Cell Mol Life Sci.2011 May;68(9):1623-31. Epub 2010 Oct 24.
• The native form of cellulose is a fibrillar composite of two crystalline phases, the triclinic I(α) and monoclinic I(β) allomorphs. Allomorph ratios are species-specific, and this gives rise to natural structural variations in cellulose crystals. However, the mechanisms contributing to crystal for
• PMID 20972815

• Granule structure and distribution of allomorphs in C-type high-amylose rice starch granule modified by antisense RNA inhibition of starch branching enzyme.

• Wei C, Qin F, Zhou W, Yu H, Xu B, Chen C, Zhu L, Wang Y, Gu M, Liu Q.SourceCollege of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China.
• Journal of agricultural and food chemistry.J Agric Food Chem.2010 Nov 24;58(22):11946-54. Epub 2010 Oct 29.
• C-type starch, which is a combination of both A-type and B-type crystal starch, is usually found in legumes and rhizomes. We have developed a high-amylose transgenic line of rice (TRS) by antisense RNA inhibition of starch branching enzymes. The starch in the endosperm of this TRS was identified as
• PMID 21033746

Japanese Journal

• 日本語における動詞の現在形と過去形のアクセントの違い

• 山口 京子
• 音声研究 14(3), 1-10, 2010-12
• NAID 40018723786

• <Articles> Vowel Weakening in Tocharian A Preterite Participles and Abstract Nouns

• Kim Ronald I.
• 京都大学言語学研究 26, 1-30, 2007-12-25
• … As for abstract nouns, the most common suffix -une has spread at the expense of its allomorph -one, so that the weakening in forms like yáÌtlune ‘being able, ability’ < …
• NAID 120000890888

• 対話コーパスKOSIGNにみられる共起関係に関する基礎検討

• 寺内 美奈,長嶋 祐二
• 電子情報通信学会技術研究報告. TL, 思考と言語 102(254), 97-102, 2002-07-22
• 筆者らは指文字を除く総語彙1,096単語より構成される手話単語データベースKOSIGN Ver.2を基にしたネイティブスピーカとコーダによる日本手話対話例文データベースの撮影を行った.対話例文コーパス収集の目的は,形態素辞書,同型異義語辞書,異型同義語辞書,用例辞書などの電子化辞書の構築である.また,対話における語の屈折,同化現象,非手指動作の文法機能の解析,認知機構の解析も進めている.現在までの …
• NAID 110003314593

Related Links

• Allomorph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when an unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific ...

• What is an allomorph? - SIL International

5 Jan 2004 ... An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments.

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