We call the study of words the morphology. The peculiarity of this field is to examine the structure, formation and classification of words. One of the elements analyzed in this area is the morpheme: smallest meaningful linguistic unit. Morphemes can be broken down into phonemes, which are the minimal units that have no grammatical or semantic meaning. Note:
/a/, /r/, /m/, /o/, /i/, /s/ etc. → phonemes that mean nothing in isolation.
[mar], [more], [ar] → combinations that have meanings.
With this in mind, we can confirm the meaning of morpheme: smallest indivisible part of the word that is related to the meaning – a typically semantic element. The morpheme's idea of meaning is abstract, but there is concreteness in this element as well. The materialization of these units takes place from physical representations. These shapes are called morphs: minimal representation of a morpheme.
Take note:
Morpheme: element responsible for the meaning.
Morph: element that graphically represents the morpheme.
When a morphem is represented by more than one morph, we have the linguistic phenomenon allomorphy.
Look at some examples of allomorphy:
→ Allomorphism in the prefix:
unfair / illegal: [in] ~ [i] → two forms for a meaning (something negative).
underwater / bury: [sub] ~ [only] → two forms for a meaning (something that is under the earth's surface).
→ root allomorphy
gold/gold: [our] ~ [aur] → two forms for a meaning (word gold).
hair / hair: [cabel] ~ [capil] → two forms for a meaning (word hair).
→ Allomorphy in the suffix
little bee / little activity: [inha] ~ [zinha] → two forms for a meaning that indicates something that is smaller.
big house / harvest: [arão] ~ [ace] → two forms for a meaning that indicates something that is big/bigger.
→ Allomorphy in thematic vowel
sea / seas: [Ø ] ~ [e] → the two forms are distinct, but do not change the definition of the word sea.
deserving / deserving: [i] ~ [e] → the two forms are distinct, but do not change the definition of the word to deserve.
→ Allomorphy in the verbal ending
I speak / am: [o] ~ [or] → two forms to indicate first person singular.
From the examples, we can notice that every morpheme is constituted of form and meaning, however, sometimes, the form will present itself with variations. This will make the morpheme not exactly the same, but its content/meaning will remain. A good example for this are the derivations of the word wine. The morph [wine], in some instances, becomes [come]. Regardless of the form, [wine] or [come], the meaning that the morpheme will have will be the same: it will refer to the word wine.
Note:
Variations of morphs in the word wine
In this case, therefore, we have the linguistic phenomenon allomorphy in activity: two morphs that indicate a single morpheme – two forms for a single meaning.
by Mariana Pacheco
Graduated in Letters
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/portugues/o-que-e-alomorfia.htm