Allomorphs of the inflectional morphemes in PDE (adapted from Schmid 2011: 61)

MORPHEME PHONOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED

HS Kornexl: Structural Change (WS 2013/14)

MORPHOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED

plural of nouns: {S}

allomorphs /z/ /s/ /Iz/ /z/ /s/ /Iz/

environment: stem ending in vowel or voiced consonant1 unvoiced consonant2 sibilant: /z/, /s/, /Z/, /S/, //, //

examples bees, bags, bells bats, backs, lips roses, kisses, matches, bridges sisters, Bettys, Janes, dogs Jacks, cats Mrs Daviss, Georges Socrates, Dickens, brothers, the girls

forms replacive allomorph5 /@n/ foreign plurals (polysyllabic Greek names ending in /z/

examples sheep, deer, fish men, women, geese, mice oxen, children, brethren alumni, formulae,curricula, criteria Socrates, Xerxes

vowel or voiced consonant1 unvoiced consonant2 sibilant: /z/, /s/, /Z/, /S/, //, // with historical names; in genitive plural 3rd p.sg.pres. of verbs cf. plural of nouns present participle /IN/ no allomorphs past tense {D1} /d/ vowel or voiced consonant3 past participle {D2} unvoiced consonant4 /t/ alveolar plosives /d/, /t/ /Id/ genitive {S} comparative {er} superlative {est} ordinal numbers
1 5 6 7

suppletion cried, stored, loved, walked, kissed, wrapped sounded, hunted replacive allomorph6 /@n/7 suppletion suppletion suppletion suppletion

is cut, hit, put sang/sung; fought, fought risen, spoken, taken, was, were, went better, worse best, worst first, second, third

/@/ /Ist/, /@st/ /T/

no phonologically conditioned allomorphs no phonologically conditioned allomorphs no phonologically conditioned allomorphs

except voiced sibilants; 2 except unvoiced sibilants; 3 except /d/; 4 except /t/ from a diachronic perspective: umlaut plurals through i-umlaut/i-mutation from a diachronic perspective: strong verbs, forming their past tenses through ablaut (vowel gradation) usually in combination with ablaut

ablaut: The morphological variation of a root vowel in Germanic and other Indo-European languages; = gradation n. 11. Occurring esp. in Germanic strong verbs, as English sing, sang, sung, and distinguished from variation arising from assimilation to a succeeding vowel sound (umlaut n. a). umlaut: A change in the sound of a vowel produced by partial assimilation to an adjacent sound (usually that of a vowel or semivowel in the following syllable); = mutation n. 5c. OED3 online, s.vv. [accessed 25 October 2013] Schmid, Hans-Jrg (2011), English morphology and word-formation: An introduction, Berlin: Erich Schmidt.