Б. С. Хаймович, Б. И. Роговская теоретическая грамматика английского языка

§ 24. The structure of a lexeme is defined by the opposeme it contains. The lexeme represented by the word long, for instance, contains the opposeme of but one category, the 'degrees of comparison'. Its structure, therefore, is, so to say, of one dimension: long — longer — longest. The lexeme represented by the word boy contains opposemes of two cat­egories, 'number' and 'case'. As a result, its structure is a two-dimension one:

Each category is represented here by two opposemes. In English there are no lexemes of three-dimension structure. If the infinitive were regarded as a separate lexeme, it could be a model of this kind:

To be being led and to have been being led are rarely used (see John Millington-Ward. Pecularities in English. L., 1957, p. 250)
Here each category is represented by four opposemes.
The structure of an English verb lexeme containing oppo­semes of seven categories is so complicated that it is next to impossible to present it on paper.

§ 25. All the words of a lexeme, both synthetic and ana­lytical, are, as defined (§ 19), united by the same lexical meanings.

Historically the analytical words have developed from combinations of two (or more) words. But the lexical meaning of only one word has been preserved, so that instead of be­longing to two (or more) different lexemes the combination functions as a word of one lexeme.
We cannot agree with A. I. Smirnitsky that is and has in the analytical words is written, has written contain some weak lexical meanings. If it were so, writes — is written, writes — has written could not be regarded as grammatical opposemes, or as words of the same lexeme: they would differ lexically.

§ 26. Analytical words are closely connected with synthet­ic ones.

a) The very existence of analytical words depends on their correlation with synthetic words of the same lexeme. This makes all the difference between the analytical word is written and the combination is afraid. The opposeme writes — is written stamps is written as a word of the same lexeme to which the synthetic word writes belongs. Is afraid, am afraid, are afraid, was afraid, etc. have no synthetic opposites. Hence they are not analytical words, but combinations of words.
b) Analytical words comprise synthetic words. Thus, the analytical form has prepared consists of two synthetic forms: has (cf. had) and prepared (cf. prepare).
Hence it is clear that synthetic words play a very important role in the language.

§ 27. The means employed in English to distinguish the words of a lexeme are similar to those used to distinguish the stems of different lexemes. The chief of them are: affixation, sound interchange and suppletivity.

The words play and plays are related by affixation: the word plays differs from the word play in having the affix, more exactly suffix, -s added to the stem of the lexeme. The stems speak- and speaker- are also related by affixation.
The words foot and feet are related by sound interchange, more exactly by vowel interchange (or internal inflection, see § 11). The stems full- and fill- are also related by vowel interchange. The stems speech- and speak- are related by con­sonant interchange. Different stems may contain the same root, e. g. compose, dispose, oppose, propose. Usually, however, there are different roots in different stems, e. g. replace, discover, forgive. But it is unusual for words of the same lexeme to have different roots, e. g. / — me, go — went. This unusual phenomenon is called suppletivity.

§ 28. As shown by A. I. Smirnitsky, words derived from different roots may be recognized as suppletive only under the following conditions:

1) When they are identical as to their lexical meaning.
2) When they mutually complement one another, having no parallel opposemes. For example, better has no other oppo­site of the positive degree but good and good has no opposite of the comparative degree but better.
3) When other lexemes of the same class build up a given opposeme without suppletivity, i. e. from one root. Thus, we recognize the words go — went as suppletive because they express exactly the same grammatical meanings as the oppo­semes come — came, work — worked, finish — finished, etc.
Of these conditions only the first two seem indispensable. The words am and is, for example, are suppletive in Modern English in spite of the fact that other verb lexemes do not build up the given opposeme (of person) without suppletivity.

§ 29. The above-mentioned criteria serve to prove the identity of lexical morphemes in spite of their difference in form. The same criteria can be used to prove the identity of any morphemes.

H. Gleason writes: "Two elements can be considered as the same morpheme if (1) they have some common range of meaning, and (2) they are in complementary distribution...".
By means of these criteria it is possible to prove, for instance, the identity of the 'plural' morphemes -s (in cows) and -en (in oxen):
1. They are identical as to their grammatical meaning.
2. They complement each other or, in other words, their distribution is complementary: they are not used with the same lexical morpheme. The word ox has no other 'plural' opposite but oxen (not oxes, for instance) and the word cow has no 'plural' opposite but cows (not cowen) ².
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² Though there exists the obsolete and dialectal plural kine. Charles F. Hockett (Language. Vol. 23, No. 4, Oct. Dec. 1947) suggests to replace 'complementary distribution' by 'non-contrastive distribution', i. e. two elements may be in partial complementation, and in those environ­ments in which both occur, they are in free alternation. "Thus the unaspi­rated [t] of stick and the aspirated [t'] of tick are both found as utterance-final and in other positions: He's in the skit may end with [t] and [t']. hoof and hoove /s/ and /z/ are in non-contrastive distribution: hoofs and hooves do not differ in meaning"... "The plural of brother 'fellow lodge­or church-member of the male sex' is either brothers or brethren in free alternation."

§ 30. We have already spoken (§§ 14, 15, 18) about lexico-grammatical morphemes and their functions as stem-building elements. Now we are to see their role in building up classes of words.

A lexico-grammatical morpheme like -er or -ize resembles a lexical morpheme in being common to all the words of a lexeme. Сотр. teacher, teacher's, teachers, teachers'; realize, realizes, realized, will realize, has realized, is realized, etc.
But it resembles a grammatical morpheme in being common to many different lexemes. Сотр. teacher, worker, leader, writer, reader, realize, nationalize, individualize, naturalize, industrialize, etc.
Hence we may draw the following conclusions:
1) The words of a lexeme are united not only by a lexical morpheme functioning as its root, but also by its lexico-gram­matical morphemes functioning as its stem-building elements. In short, it is the stem that unites words into a lexeme. To lay stress on the content we may say that a lexeme is a group of words united by the same lexical and lexico-grammatical meanings. Though the words person, personal, personality, personify, personification have the same lexical morpheme, they belong to different lexemes owing to their lexico-grammat­ical morphemes.
2) Lexico-grammatical morphemes unite lexemes into groups possessing common lexico-grammatical properties.

§ 31. Let us compare the following columns of words:

teach — teacher
work — worker
lead — leader
write — writer
read — reader
real — realize
national — nationalize
individual — individualize
natural — naturalize
industrial — industrialize

The words of column 1 and those of column 2 belong to different classes of lexemes. The same is true of the words of the last two columns.

These classes differ not only in their lexico-grammatical meanings (morphemes), but in some grammatical properties as well: different opposemes, paradigms, etc. Such classes of lexemes have been called parts of speech for over 2000 years. Therefore we dare not change the name. But we must remember that classes of units exist only in the system of a language. In speech we come across combinations of individual represent­atives of various classes.
Parts of speech are the largest word-classes that may contain endless numbers of word-groups such as lexemes or grammemes.
It is certainly easier to survey a limited number of parts of speech than an ocean of lexemes or grammemes. Therefore it has been a long-standing tradition to study the properties of words within the framework of parts of speach. The chapter headings of a book on morphology are usually the names of the parts of speech. We shall adhere to the tradition and after a chapter on the general criteria for dividing English words into parts of speech we shall analyse them one by one.