THE ROLE OF MORPHONOLOGICAL POSITION IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE MORPHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ADJECTIVAL DERIVATIVES

Abstract

The present paper is devoted to the examination of the adjectival derivational process from the point of view of morphonology. Although considerable amount of research has been devoted to the notion ‘position’ on different linguistic levels, few attempts have been made to investigate the role of morphonological position in the analysis of the morphonological structure of the adjectival derivatives. The major task of this research is to study the morphological positions inherent in the adjectival word formation, by synchronous description of morphological transformations. In general, this analysis explains the concept of a morphological position as a mechanism for choosing the type of external transformation of wordformation morphemes. A morphonological position is explained through interaction of two rules: principles of location and operation of lower-level units (phonemes in morphonemes and submorphemes, morphonemes and submorphemes in morphemes) in terms of higher one with the principles of their adaptation to the morphemic structure of words during word-formation. It has been established that morphonological position is formed by a derivational affix, a generating base and the direction of motivation. The data clarify the relationship between them. It was established that there are seven morphonological positions. They are determined by morphonological transformations of quantitative or qualitative nature. The morphonological positions are the following: palatalization and depalatalization of consonant phonemes, alternation of vowel phonemes, truncation of the stem, and enlargement of the derivational suffix, accentual and ambivalent positions. This investigation shows that in a derivative act a combination of morphological positions is possible: one position creates conditions for another. We advocate further research on the comparative analysis of morphological transformations peculiar to derivatives derived from adjectives in the process of word building in Polish, English and the Ukrainian languages.