LIN203H1 Lecture 6: lec6.pdf
Document Summary
But we have also seen many patterns of regular allomorphy . E. g. , the morpheme in- appears as im- before any base beginning with a bilabial. When a morpheme has regular allomorphy, it usually has a basic form, Thus: in- is the basic allomorph; im-, il-, and ir- are derived. which other allomorphs can be said to be derived from. the basic allomorph appears by default when it"s not in those contexts. Im-, il-, ir- appear only before bilabials, l, and r (respectively); in- appears in all other environments. into one of the derived allomorphs. Regular allomorphy can be thought of as a rule that converts the basic allomorph. We can write these rules using the following symbolic notation: On the right side, the underscore __ shows where the morpheme appears: Thus in ir / __r means in becomes ir when it appears before r . The same pattern of allomorphy affects the prefix con-:
