Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, any English speaker can see that the words dog, dogs and dog-catcher are closely related. English speakers can also recognize that these relations can be formulated as rules that can apply to many, many other pairs of words. Dog is to dogs just as cat is to cats, or encyclopedia is to encyclopedias; dog is to dog-catcher as dish is to dishwasher. The rule in the first case is plural formation; in the second case, a transitive verb and an noun playing the role of its object can form a word.

Related Topics:
Linguistics - Syntax - Transitive verb

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies such rules across as many languages as possible.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The term was coined by August Schleicher in 1859: Für die Lehre von der Wortform wähle ich das Wort "Morphologie" ("for the science of word formation, I choose the term 'morphology'", Mémoires Acad. Impériale 7/1/7, 35).

Related Topics:
August Schleicher - 1859

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~