Morphophoneme
Morphophoneme ( morpho-phoneme; short: morphoneme ) was introduced as a term by Nikolai Sergejewitsch Trubetzkoy to represent the regular alternation between the forms ( signifiants ) of allomorphs that represent one and the same morpheme .
An example of a morphophoneme can be found in the German word “Kind” with the regular alternation between the allomorphs [kınt] and [kınd] -, which consists in the fact that, due to the hardening of the final voices, voiceless [t] (“child”), before vowel but voiced [d] ("child") is chosen. For this change, a suitable capital letter was later inserted as a symbol in the phonological representation of the word, so that the form / kınD / stands for both allomorphs.
Troubetzkoy, whose contribution dealt with the phenomenon using the Slavic languages and provided a separate language description level for morphophonology or morphonology , would have chosen the notation “t: d” for the morphophoneme for cases like / kınD /.
literature
- NS Troubetzkoy: Sur la "Morphonologie". In: Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 1, 1929, 85-88. Also in: Josef Vachek (Compiler): A Prague School Reader in Linguistics. Indiana University Press, Bloomington / London 1964/1967. Pp. 183-186.
