null morpheme

In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix.

In most languages of the world it is the affixes that are realized as null morphemes.

The null morpheme is represented as either the figure zero (0) or the empty set symbol Ø.

A basic radical element plus a null morpheme is not the same as an uninflected word, though usage may make those equal in practice.

Also, a null morpheme marks the present tense of verbs in all forms but the third person singular:

A zero marker is a null morpheme being used as linguistic marker, see:

Some linguists consider that when a word's syntactic category is changed without any change of form, a null morpheme is being affixed.

The -Ø- classifier is the absence of a prefix, which is usually indicated by a null morpheme.

In the same way, English verbs are inflected for person and tense even if the morphology showing those categories is realized as null morphemes.

Present-past indicative: The present-past indicative is marked by a null morpheme.

The existence of a null morpheme in a word can also be theorized by contrast with other forms of the same word showing alternate morphemes.

In addition, there are some cases in English where a null morpheme indicates plurality in nouns that take on irregular plurals.

For example, the singular number of English nouns is shown by a null morpheme that contrasts with the plural morpheme -s.

A covert feature is different from a null morpheme, such as the English singular, which is marked by the absence of a morpheme that occurs elsewhere.

According to some linguists' view, it is also a null morpheme that turns some English adjectives into verbs of the kind of to clean, to slow, to warm.

The verb ra-ndi 'throw', for instance, surfaces as la-ndi when inflected for third-person singular subjects (he/she/it), which are realised by invisible, or null morphemes.

Some linguists object to the notion of a null morpheme, arguing that it sets up an unverifiable distinction between a "null" or "zero" element, and nothing at all.

In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null affix (an empty string of phonological segments).

It is also called a zero morpheme; the process of adding a null morpheme is called null affixation, null derivation or zero derivation.

An example of this is the conjugation of English verbs, which has become almost unchanging today (see also null morpheme), thus contrasting sharply for example with Latin, where one verb has dozens of forms, each one expressing a different aspect.

In morpheme-based morphology, the term null allomorph or zero allomorph is sometimes used to refer to some kind of null morpheme for which there are also contexts in which the underlying morpheme is manifested in the surface structure.

For example, the verb meaning "she/he/they is/are crying" has the following morphological composition: Ø-Ø-cha where both the imperfective modal prefix and the third person subject prefix are phonologically null morphemes and the verb stem is -cha.

In languages that show the above distinctions, it is quite common to employ null affixation (not) to mark singular number, present tense and third persons (English is unusual in its marking of the third person singular with a non-zero morpheme, by contrast with a null morpheme for others).

In the strict sense, among English nouns only mass nouns (such as sand, information, or equipment) are truly uninflected, since they have only one form that does not change; count nouns are always inflected for number, even if the singular inflection is shown by an "invisible" affix (the null morpheme).