Morphome (linguistics)

This article is about the abstract category in linguistics. For the biological concept, see Morphome. For the minimal unit of meaning in linguistics, see morpheme.

A morphome is a function in linguistics which is purely morphological or has an irreducibly morphological component. The term is particularly used by Martin Maiden[1] following Mark Aronoff's identification of morphomic functions and the morphomic level—a level of linguistic structure intermediate between and independent of phonology and syntax. In distinguishing this additional level, Aronoff makes the empirical claim that all mappings from the morphosyntactic level to the level of phonological realisation pass through the intermediate morphomic level.[2]

  1. ^ Maiden, Martin (2004). "Morphological autonomy and diachrony". Yearbook of Morphology (2004): 137–175.
  2. ^ Aronoff, Mark (1994). Morphology by Itself. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 9780585344256.