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absent is called the "unmarked", or "weak", or "negative" member, and is commonly designated by the symbol
- (minus).
For instance, the voiced and devoiced consonants form a privative opposition [b, d, g-p, t, k]. The
differential feature of the opposition is "voice". This feature is present in the voiced consonants, so their set
forms the marked member of the opposition. The devoiced consonants, lacking the feature, form the unmarked
member of the opposition. To stress the marking quality of "voice" for the opposition in questions, the
devoiced consonants may be referred to as "non-voiced".
The gradual opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not by the
presence or absence of a feature, but by the degree of it.
For instance, the front vowels [i; -1 - e - ae] form a quarternary gradual opposition, since they are
differentiated by the degree of their openness (their length, as is known, is also relevant, as well as some other
individualizing properties, but these factors do not spoil the gradual opposition as such).
The equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive pair or group in which fhe members are distinguished
by different positive features.
For instance, the phonemes [m] and [b], both bilabial consonants, form an equipollent opposition, [m] being
sonorous nazalized, [b] being plosive.
We have noted above that any opposition can be reformulated in privative terms. Indeed, any positive
feature distinguishing an oppositionally characterized lingual element is absent in the oppositionally correlated
element, so that considered from the point of view of this feature alone, the opposition, by definition, becomes
privative. This reformulation is especially helpful on an advanced stage of oppositional study of a given
microsystem, because it enables us to characterize the elements of the system by the corresponding strings
("bundles") of values of their oppositional featuring ("bundles of differential features"), each feature being
represented by the values + or-.
For instance, [p] is distinguished from [b] as voiceless (voice-), from [t] as bilabial (labialization +), from
[m] as non-nazalized (nasalization-), etc. The descriptive advantages of this kind of characterization are self-
evident.
Unlike phonemes which are monolateral lingual elements, words as units of morphology are bilateral;
therefore morphological oppositions must reflect both the plane of expression (form) and the plane of content
(meaning).
The most important type of opposition in morphology, the same as in phonology, is the binary privative
opposition.
The privative morphological opposition is based on a morphological differential feature which is present in
its strong (marked) member and absent in its weak (unmarked) member. In another kind of wording, this
differential feature may be said to mark one of the members of the opposition positively (the strong member),
and the other one negatively (the weak member). The featuring in question serves as the immediate means of
expressing a grammatical meaning.
For instance, the expression of the verbal present and past tenses is based on a privative opposition the
differential feature of which is the dental suffix -(e)d. This suffix, rendering the meaning of the past tense,
marks the past form of the verb positively (we worked), and the present form negatively (we work).
The meanings differentiated by the oppositions of signemic units (signemic oppositions) are referred to as
"semantic features", or "semes".
For instance, the nounal form cats expresses the seme of plurality, as opposed to the form cat which
expresses, by contrast, the seme of singularity. The two forms constitute a privative opposition in which the
plural is the marked member. In order to stress the negative marking of the singular, it can be referred to as
"non-plural".
It should be noted that the designation of the weak members of privative morphological oppositions by the
"non-" terms is significant not only from the point of view of the plane of expression, but also from the point of
view of the plane of content. It is connected with the fact that the meaning of the weak member of the privative
opposition is more general and abstract as compared with the meaning of the strong member, which is,
respectively, more particular and concrete. Due to this difference in meaning, the weak member is used in a
wider range of contexts than the strong member. For instance, the present tense form of the verb, as different
from the past tense, is used to render meanings much broader than those directly implied by the corresponding
time-plane as such. Cf:
The sun rises in the East. To err is human. They don't speak French in this part of the country. Etc.
Equipollent oppositions in the system of English morphology constitute a minor type and are mostly