공형태에 대하여

Abstract

This thesis aims at reviewing the concept ‘empty morph’ or ‘empty morpheme’. Those who insist we need the concept did not propose the new method for morph analysis which can substitute the original version. They depend on the original method by which we analyse two or more language expressions when they have different meanings. They insist that phonological relatedness between phonetic forms can be conditions by which morphs are analysed. However we can analyse lots of empty morphemes from similar phonetic forms. The concept ‘phonological relatedness’ does not have limit for the degree of the relatedness of phonetic forms. Furthermore, if we want to compare two words and analyse a certain morph from them, they should have different meanings. Some suffixes which do not change meanings or syntactic categories suggest a problem for the concept ‘morpheme’ in that they cannot be morphemes because they do not have meanings. Some people suggest that those suffixes are empty morphemes. But they can be considered as just phonological units which add to the words. There are three ways by which words can change their phonological shapes. First words can change their consonant or vowel. Second, words can reduce their phonetic shape or delete their consonant or vowel. Third, words can expand their shape by adding some consonant or vowel. Those suffixes which do not change meanings or syntactic categories are just the phonetic units added to the words.