The allomorphs of a morpheme are in complementary distriubtion or free variation, that is, in noncontrastive distribution. The allomorphs /-s/ and /-z/ of {noun pl.}, for example, are in complementary distribution. /-s/ occurs after voiceless sounds as in caps /kæps/, and /-z/ occurs after voiced sounds as in cabs /kæbz/.This is from A Linguistic History of English by Robert A. Peters (thanks, Mom!), a book I'm sure that nobody but me would bother reading unless required to.
Anybody want to join in? I don't like 'tagging' people, so if you want to participate, please leave a comment.
Look forward to seeing what you guys are reading!
1 comment:
I'll play along, but the closest book doesn't have 123 pages (plus it's a cookbook, so probably doesn't count) so I'm grabbing the second closest book. The Demon Haunted World, by Carl Sagan.
"Such a cast of mind, such a climate of absolute confidence that knowledge should be rewarded with torture and death were unlikely to help those accused of witchcraft.
Burning witches is a feature that Western civilization the has, with occasional political exceptions, declined since the sixteenth century. In the last judicial execution of witches in England, a woman and her nine year old daughter were hanged."
Hm. Cheerful stuff. I'll post it up on my blog later, gotta go eat dinner now. Fun meme!
Post a Comment