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Morph
(redirected from morphs)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
morph [mȯrf]
(genetics)
An individual variant in a polymorphic population.

Morph 

the minimal meaningful part of an utterance; a specific representation of a morpheme in a text; one of the variants of a morpheme with nonidentical elements, as in the Russian alternation:

(1) /nos/it’

(2) /nes/ti

(3) /nash/ivat’ [The above three infinitives all contain a morpheme having the basic meaning of “to carry” or “to wear.” Their meaning and usage differs according to their mode of action (in Russian, sposob deistviia; in German, Aktionsart).}

The choice of a morph depends upon its phonological or morphological environment and is subject either to the rules of complementary distribution, as in English plural formants /-s/, /-z/, and /-Iz/, or to the rule of free variation, as in Russian bel/oi/ sten/oi/bel/oiu/ sten/oiu/ (instrumental singular of belaia stena, “white wall“). The morphs of a single morpheme are known as its allomorphs.



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Nearly 200 Morphs drew an even larger crowd of human onlookers at the Tate Modern gallery on London's South Bank.
Members of Mr Hart's family came to see the rows of Morphs and judge a competition on the best effort.
On the website, for example, there are morphs of a leading politician, whose volatile expression quickly changes into a chattering chimpanzee; an infant's face morphing into his grandfather's, and Elvis is actually transformed into a "hound dog.
 
 
 
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