morphophoneme

noun

mor·​pho·​phoneme

¦mȯ(r)fō+

: a class of phonemes that belong to the same morpheme (as the \-s, -z, -ə̇z\ plural suffix of kits, kids, kisses; \f, v\ in knife, knives)

also : an arbitrarily selected member of such a class as its representative in grammatical description (as the plural suffix -s or the f in \nīf\)

group together into one morphophoneme the phonemes which replace each other in corresponding parts of the various members of a morpheme

—Z. S. Harris

Word History

Etymology

morpho- (from morpheme) + phoneme

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