Morphology
/mɔːrˈfɒlədʒi/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe study of the forms and structure of words or living things.
Extra definitions
nounThe forms and structures of words.
Sentence Examples
Morphology explains how prefixes change meaning.
The course covers English morphology.
Plant morphology varies between species.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
None
Antonyms:
None
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from German Morphologie. By surface analysis, morpho- + -logy.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
“There are many ways to show that word structure is different from phrase and sentence structure. We will mention two here. First, free constituent order in syntax is common cross-linguistically; many languages lack fixed order of the kind that one finds in English. In morphology, on the other hand, order is always fixed. There is no such thing as free morpheme order. Even languages with wildly free word order, such as the Pama-Nyungan (Australian) language Warlpiri (Simpson 1991), have a fixed order of morphemes…”
— 2001, Yehuda Falk, “Lexical-Functional Grammar”, in CSLI Publications, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2024, retrieved 21 Feb 2014:
“There are essentially two criteria: (1) adaptability to the derivational structures of the morphology and (2) consideration for what cognitive psychologists and cognitive linguists call “base-level categorization.””
— 2006, “Ithkuil Q & A”, in The Conlanger's Library, archived from the original on 14 Jan 2025, page 3:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
____ explains how prefixes change meaning.