morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, a null morpheme or zero morpheme is a

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

that has no phonetic form. In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It is a concept useful for analysis, by contrasting null morphemes with alternatives that do have some phonetic realization. The null morpheme is represented as either the figure zero (''0'') or the

empty set In mathematics, the empty set or void set is the unique Set (mathematics), set having no Element (mathematics), elements; its size or cardinality (count of elements in a set) is 0, zero. Some axiomatic set theories ensure that the empty set exi ...

symbol ∅. In most languages, it is the

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

es that are realized as null morphemes, indicating that the derived form does not differ from the

stem Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

. For example, plural form ''sheep'' can be analyzed as combination of ''sheep'' with added null affix for the plural. The process of adding a null affix is called ''null affixation'', ''null derivation'' or ''zero derivation''. The concept was first used by the 4th century BCE

Sanskrit grammarian Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

from ancient India,

Pāṇini (; , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India during the mid-1st millennium BCE, dated variously by most scholars between the 6th–5th and 4th century BCE. The historical facts of his life ar ...

, in his

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

In English

Inflection

The existence of a null morpheme in a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

can also be theorized by contrast with other forms of the same word showing alternative morphemes. For example, the singular number of English

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s is shown by a null morpheme that contrasts with the plural morpheme ''-s''. * ''cat'' = ''cat'' + ''-∅'' = ROOT ("cat") + SINGULAR * ''cats'' = ''cat'' + ''-s'' = ROOT ("cat") + PLURAL In addition, there are some cases in English where a null morpheme indicates plurality in nouns that take on irregular plurals. * ''sheep'' = ''sheep'' + ''-∅'' = ROOT ("sheep") + SINGULAR * ''sheep'' = ''sheep'' + ''-∅'' = ROOT ("sheep") + PLURAL Also, a null morpheme marks the present tense of English

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

s in all forms but the third person singular: * ''(I) run'' = ''run'' + ''-∅'' = ROOT ("run") + PRESENT: Non-3rd-SINGULAR * ''(He) runs'' = ''run'' + ''-s'' = ROOT ("run") + PRESENT: 3rd-SINGULAR

Derivation

According to some linguists' view, English verbs such as ''to clean'', ''to slow'', ''to warm'' are converted from

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s by a null morpheme – in contrast to verbs such as ''to widen'' or ''to enable'' which are also converted from adjectives, but using non-null morphemes. Null derivation, also known as

conversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''The Convert'', a 2023 film produced by Jump Film & Television and Brouhaha Entertainment * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * ...

if the

word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

changes, is very common in

analytic language An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...

s such as English.

In other languages

In languages that show the above distinctions, it is quite common to employ null affixation to mark singular number, present tense and third persons. It is also frequent to find null affixation for the least- marked

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

s (the

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants ...

in nominative–accusative languages, and the

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case ( abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominativ ...

in ergative–absolutive languages). English is unusual in its marking of the third person singular with a non-zero morpheme, by contrast with a null morpheme for others. Another unusual usage of the null morpheme is the feminine genitive case plural in most Slavic languages, cf.

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

singular nominative ''женщин-а'' (''zhenshchin-a''), ''woman'', singular genitive ''женщин-ы'' (''zhenshchin-y''), ''woman's'' and plural genitive ''женщин-∅'' (''zhenshchin-∅''), ''women's''. In most languages of the world it is the affixes that are realized as null morphemes. But in some cases

roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusin ...

may also be realized as these. For instance, the Russian word вы-''∅''-ну-ть (''vynut, 'to take out') consists of one

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

(вы-), one zero root (''-∅-''), and two suffixes (-ну- and -ть).Russian Language Institute, question 210775
/ref> A basic radical element plus a null morpheme is not the same as an

uninflected word In linguistic morphology, an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological markers (inflection) such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or conjugation. If a word has an uninflected form, this is usually t ...

, though usage may make those equal in practice.

References

Note: All of the examples under the Inflection heading come from the same source. {{DEFAULTSORT:Null Morpheme

Morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

Zero (linguistics)

In English

Inflection

Derivation

In other languages

See also

References