In Russian, there is a special section called word formation, which addresses the issue of how new words are created. Today it is the most complex and inconsistent, since philologists make new discoveries in this area every year. In total, 87% of words in Russian appeared due to word formation, and only 13% of the roots of them are unique. New parts of speech can be formed with the help of affixes (prefixes and suffixes), and their form can be changed with the help of inflections (endings).
Briefly about word formation
This science began to exist as an independent only in the second half of the twentieth century. The first attempts to do this were made by Grigory Osipovich Vinokur, who first distinguished synchronous and diachronic word formation. Modern scientists are interested in the second aspect, which considers the creation of new words with the help of significant parts - prefixes, suffixes. Inflection is a less significant morpheme, therefore in the Russian language there are words that have no ending.
What is a morpheme?
There are certain units of change in word formation. In this science, the morpheme is the minimum significant part of any member of the sentence. In the Russian language there are words that do not have an ending, prefix or suffix, but they cannot exist without a root, which is their main part. New proposal members are formed by adding affixes. These include prefixes, suffixes, interfixes and postfixes.
The ending serves to form a new form of the word; therefore, it is the least significant morpheme. It is not surprising that in many members of the proposal it may be absent altogether. It will be easy for you to find out for yourself in which words there are no endings, since they cannot be changed by numbers, times and cases.
To word-building morphemes it is customary to include prefixes and suffixes. They testify to some specific features that are not observed in the initial form of the word.
What can an ending express?
This morpheme is not involved in word formation, but only helps in creating new forms of words. The lexical meaning does not change when the ending changes. In Russian, inflection expresses the following grammatical meanings:
- Gender, number, case - in nouns, adjectives, participles, pronouns, numerals. For example: music, vibrant, glowing, you, fifty family.
- A person, a number - in verbs in the present tense and future. For example: think, hear.
- Gender, number - in verbs in the past tense. For example: flew in, redid.
- Case - in pronouns and numerals. For example: you, forty-two.
When wondering which words have no endings, you should pay attention to the immutable parts of speech, such as adverbs, interjections, as well as conjunctions, particles, prepositions.
Morphemes. Part 1: Root
Each word in any language of the world has a specific meaning. The root is the core of a noun, adjective, verb or other part of speech and carries conceptual meaning. The exceptions are conjunctions, prepositions and some interjections, which serve to connect the members of the sentence. Basically, all words with a root and an ending form the basis of a sentence. These are nouns, adjectives and verbs. However, an exception can be found in any rule - so did linguists, compilers of the word-building dictionary.
Until recently, it was believed that the Russian language has a unique verb in which there is no root. "Take out" is used only with prefixes, it has a perfect look and the first conjugation. After completing a morphemic analysis, you can identify that "you" is the prefix, and "well" and "t" are suffixes. Thus, the verb has lost its historical root - philologist and linguist Boris Unbegaun wrote in his writings that this word is "remarkable by the complete disappearance of the root." Nevertheless, the words “take out” and “take out”, strangely enough, are at the same time root-words. In the Russian language there are words that have no ending, but have the main morphemes.
Visual examples of the base and root
Root | This morpheme is the most important in any word. There are cases when members of a sentence consist of two or more roots that are connected using interfixes (five-sided, one-story). Words that are close in meaning are called cognate. |
The foundation | This morpheme is a complete word without an interfix, formative suffix, postfix; words with no endings make up the full basis. |
In Russian, there are about 3 thousand unique roots. In Dahl's largest dictionary, there are over 200 thousand words, from which we can conclude that most of them are of the same root.
Morphemes. Part 2: Word Base and End
Zero endings are present only in certain forms of sentence members. It depends on gender, case, number - on nouns and adjectives, on time - on verbs. Zero endings can be traced in possessive adjectives with the suffix –i, such as “girlish,” “maternal,” and “hare.” This morpheme is absent in nouns in the genitive case in the plural (beauties, forces, hair), as well as in the nominative case in the feminine 3 declensions (mouse, daughter, rye) and masculine 2 declensions (boy, table, pencil case). Morphemic analysis graphically highlights an empty rectangle after the base. Verbs in the past tense also have no endings in the singular masculine (painted, played, looked) and short adjectives in a similar form (beautiful, funny, attentive).
The foundation is present in all parts of speech. In all words, the morpheme consists of affixes and root. The ending and formative suffixes are not included in its composition. The framework expresses the lexical meaning of the sentence members. Immutable words have no endings, so they are part of the whole framework.
Illustrative Affixes
This term is used to call morphemes, standing before or in front of the root.
Console | It is put before the root and serves to form new words. Can join nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles and participles. |
Suffix | These morphemes serve for the formation of new nouns (brother - brother), adjectives (skin - leather), verbs (deed - do), and are also present in some other parts of the sentence. |
Postfix | In Russian, there are several postfixes: - sya, which indicates the reflexivity of the verb (engage); - those inherent to verbs in the imperative form (do); - either, - something and - that which indicates uncertainty (anyone, something, someday); - ka, which is a call to action (let's go); - the same, indicating perfection (did the same). |
Interfix | In school, interfixes are called connecting vowels, thanks to which one of two or more words can be obtained. - o (gas pipeline); - and (hex); - e (blue-green); - ex (four-story); - uh (two-tier). |
Ending | The morpheme is usually found after the root or suffix. If you want to know which words have no endings, try changing them by case, gender or number. In some parts of speech, this is not possible. |
Thus, scientists distinguish 7 postfixes, 5 interfixes, 50 prefixes and countless suffixes.
Zero ending and words without ending in Russian
This morpheme expresses gender, case, person, number of members of a sentence. In immutable words it is absent. Such are the service parts of speech - prepositions (by, in view of, about, despite, c), particles (not, come on, hardly even), unions (yes, and, because, because, because). There are few of them in Russian, but it is impossible to do without them in modern speech.
Interchangeable words that express human emotions (eh, cheers), imitate sounds (meow, chik-chirik, woof) or are used in speech for the purpose of greeting or goodbye (hello, goodbye) are also accepted as immutable words.
Words that came into the Russian language from foreign ones also cannot be changed in cases and other parameters. These are the nouns of the female (ivashi), masculine (coffee) and middle (coat) childbirth. Today, the number of these words is growing due to the interaction of Russian culture with others.
In adverbs (far, good) and some immutable adjectives (bezh, khaki, marengo), inflection is also absent. However, zero-term words should not be confused with these parts of speech. In nouns 1 and 2 of the declension of the genitive plural, inflection is not distinguished during parsing (saucers, armies). Also, the ending is zero for qualitative and relative adjectives.
How to do morphemic analysis
A large number of word-building dictionaries greatly simplify the definition of parts of a word. However, given the rapid development of areas of the Russian language, all types of analysis must be done independently, since in the manuals you run the risk of stumbling on outdated data. Using morphemic analysis, you can parse the words with a prefix, root, ending and suffix. Following the sequence of actions will provide you with a qualitative analysis.
To begin with, you should determine the part of speech in order to identify the possibility of its change by persons, numbers, childbirth and other criteria. Find the ending (if any), followed by the base, root, and then all affixes.
How to do word-formation analysis
The purpose of this type of analysis is to find out the way in which part of speech is formed. The first step is to find the original basis and test it for performance. Next, select the starting word. After that, you can highlight the basis of the parsed word, and then the affixes. So you can identify the word, which is the source and find out which words do not have the ending of those that you need to parse by morphemes. Knowing this simple algorithm, a schoolchild, student or novice philologist will be able to easily master the most complex humanitarian science.