LEARNER'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR 2004 by Masaya Oba

1-1 [Morpheme: One Meaning and Two Forms]
In any language there are two worlds: the world of meaning and the world of form. We transform what we mean into the forms of sounds and letters. For example, in spoken English, the combination of the four sounds /d/-/e/-/s/-/k/ means a piece of furniture on which we place books to read and paper to write on.
When sounds are combined in a certain number and in a certain order to have meaning like this /desk/, we call the sound combination a morpheme. In written English, the sound combination /desk/ is expressed by four letters, "d"-"e"-"s"-"k". Thus, English has two kinds of forms to express meaning. To sum up:

      (1) a. Meaning: {}
          b-1. Form(Sounds): /desk/
          b-2. Form(Letters): "desk"

1-2 [Vowels and Consonants]
     How many sounds does English have? Most linguists say that there are 12 vowels such as /a/,/e/,/i/, etc. and 24 consonants such as /p/,/t/,/b/, etc. These amount to 36 altogether.
     Mathematically all the possible combinations of these sounds are 36+36x35+36x35x34+...+36x35x34x33x32x31x30x29x28x27x26x25x24x23x22x21x 20x19x18x17x16x15x14x13x12x11x10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1. Moreover, if you are allowed to repeat a sound, the number of possible combinations becomes infinite.
     Fortunately not all combinations have meaning. The morpheme /desk/ is made up of four sounds. However, if one of these four sounds is lacking or they are arranged differently, there is no morpheme at all.

   (2) a.  */d/-/e/
       b.  */d/-/e/-/s/
       c.  */d/-/e/-/k/-/s/
       d.  */k/-/e/-/s/-/d/
    (The sign * means "nonsensical or ungrammatical".)

Besides, not all morphemes are commonly used in daily conversation. A two-year old, for instance, is said to use about 300, a four-year old about 1,500, and an adult about 20,000 to 50,000.

1-3 [Stress and Pitch]
Often a morpheme only consists of sounds; vowels and consonants. But sometimes other factors are involved. Stress and pitch can be important factors in making a morpheme. Look at the following.

   (3) a. INcrease(N)
       b. inCREAse(V)
   (4) a. Happy?
       b. Happy!

In (3a) and (3b), the same letter combination "increase" has two different meanings according to the two different stress positions. Similarly in (4a) and (4b), the pitch difference produces a difference in meaning. Important here is that stress and pitch can also be an essential member of a morpheme.

1-4 [Sounds and Letters]
English has 36 sounds and 26 letters. The letters are written in two ways: capital letters and small letters.

   (5) a. Capital Letters: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,
                           U,V,W,X,Y,Z
       b. Small Letters:   a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,
                           u,v,w,x,y,z

The difference of the number of sounds from the number of letters causes problems as in:

   (i) There is no letter for a certain sound.

     (6) * -- 
     (7) * -- 

  (ii) A letter corresponds to different sounds.
     (8) a. dot -- 
         b. to -- 
     (9) a. picnic -- 
         b. circle -- 

 (iii) There is no sound corresponding to a letter.
    (10) castle --  (//means no sound)
    (11) honest -- 

  (iv) A sound corresponds to different letters.
    (12) a. sun -- 
         b. son -- 
    (13) a. meet -- 
         b. meat --

Thus, the English language is now notorious for the difficulties of its sound-letter correspondence.