Morphology

Morphology studies the internal structure of words — how morphemes combine to form words and express grammatical and lexical meaning.

Scope

It covers inflection and derivation, word formation, morphological typology, and the relation of morphology to phonology and syntax.

Core questions

• What are the building blocks of words?
• How are new words formed?
• How do languages express grammatical relations morphologically?
• How does morphology interact with syntax and phonology?

Key concepts

• Morpheme
• Inflection and derivation
• Word formation
• Allomorphy
• Morphological typology
• Lexeme

Key theories

Word structure

Matthews systematized the theory of word structure, morphemes, and inflection.

Generative word formation

Aronoff developed a generative theory of derivational word formation and the lexeme.

History

Morphology, central to nineteenth-century comparative philology, was revived as a distinct field with structuralist and then generative theories of word structure (Matthews, Aronoff).

Debates

Morpheme-based versus word-based morphology

Whether words are built from morphemes or analysed as whole lexemes with patterns.

Key figures

• P. H. Matthews
• Mark Aronoff

Seminal works

• matthews-1974
• aronoff-1976

Frequently asked questions

What is a morpheme?

The smallest meaningful unit of language (e.g., 'un-', 'break', '-able' in 'unbreakable').