User:Sergiowallsergio/Allomorph

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In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. The term allomorph describes the realization of phonological variations for a specific morpheme. The different allomorphs that a morpheme can become are governed by morphophonemic rules. These phonological rules determine what phonetic form a morpheme will take based on the phonological or morphological context in which they appear.

English Allomorphy Sections
In English, the negative prefix in has three allomorphs: [in], [iŋ], and [im]. The phonetic form that the negative morpheme /in/ takes on is determined by the following morphological rules:


 * the negative morpheme /in/ becomes [in] when preceding an alveolar consonant (ex. intolerant /in'talərənt/)
 * the morpheme /in/ becomes [iŋ] when preceding a velar consonant (ex. incongruous /iŋ'kɔŋruəs/)
 * the morpheme /in/ becomes [im] when preceding a bilabial consonant (ex. improper /im'prapər/)

The plural morpheme for regular nouns in English, is typically realized by adding an s or es to the end of the noun. However, the plural morpheme actually has three different allomorphs: [s], [z], and [əz]. The specific pronunciation that a plural morpheme takes on is determined by the following morphological rules:


 * Assume that the basic form of the plural morpheme, /z/, is [z] (ex. bags /bægz/)
 * The morpheme /z/ becomes [əz] by inserting an [ə] before [z] when a noun ends in a sibilant (ex. buses /bʌsəz/)
 * Change the morpheme /z/ to a voiceless [s] when a noun ends in a voiceless sound (ex. caps /kæps/)

Citations from original article that need proper formatting

 * (Jeffers, Robert J.; Lehiste, Ilse (1979). Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics. MIT Press) (Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2011) An Introduction to Language (9th edition), Wadsworth, Cengage Learning: Boston, USA, pp. 268-272.)