INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - MORPHO-PHONEMICS
Phonology is regarded as the foundation for other branches of linguistics. Morpheme, a minimal distinctive unit of meaning, constitutes of nothing but a set of phoneme(s), a minimal unit of sound. The phonemes tend to behave interestingly when they get combined to produce a morpheme or other longer units such as syllables, words, phrases and sentences. Their combine (phonological) effect often crosses over so called boundaries in several subtle and visible ways. Sometimes the effect could be synchronic and sometimes it may be diachronic in nature. These effects may be regular or completely sporadic in their occurrences. In the discipline of morphophonemics, we study as to how morphological and phonological factors affect each other usually at morpheme boundaries involving separate phonemes. Morphophonemic properties of English or any other language for that matter are of great importance in order to analyze other linguistic properties of that language.
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - MORPHO-PHONEMICS