In.linguistics, morphology refers to the subfield concerned with word formation. Verb conjugations and constructions of words from smaller parts (named ‘morphemes’) are examples of the domain of morphology. Inguistuc morphology is very similar to syntax in that both modules are interested in constructing larger entities via smaller parts. Most modern morphology theories incorporate parts of morphology into syntax, as the line between constructing words and constructing sentences is extremely blurry at times. To avoid the formal problems these cause, most theories employ a reductive model (reductive in that those theories of morphology do not fully encapsulate the traditional, folk understanding of morphology).
The most common (generative) framework for morphology employed today is Distributed Morphology (DM) first created by Morris Halle and Alec Marantz. DM, as the name implies, divides morphology into two parts: the syntactic part and the “surface” part.
DM uses a Y-model to model the modules of language: first, syntax creates the tree structure output, and then this output is sent to two different “form”s: the Phonological Form (PF) and the Logical Form (LF). Morphology is divided between syntax and PF, and only the parts in PF are labeled “morphology”. Therefore, PF has morphology and phonology as modules within it, while LF only has semantics. PF is interested in turning the tree structure into the utterance, while LF is interested in ascribing the tree structure meaning.
It is important to note that this Y-model has a module called “morphology”, but this is not the morphology we know of (the traditional morphology aforementioned); it is a much weaker version of morphology. This is because the structural parts of morphology has been given to syntax, while the surface-affecting properties has been labeled as ‘morphology’.
Last revised on August 4, 2026 at 11:52:29. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.