Morphosyntax
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The pages in this section are designed as linnguistic exercises in morpheme identification and typological comparison. The goal is to provide data sets which illustrate how radically different languages have radically different solutions to the common problems of word order, tense, pronouns, and pluralization, just to name a few. We came up with a uniform set of sentences in English and then worked with our language contributors to come up with example sentences. The information is by no means exhaustive and there may even be disagreement among individual speakers about which expressions are the best matches for the English meanings. For more details, consult the Credits and Resources section. Click on the underlined text to hear audio clips. |
Morphology is the study of morphemes, the smallest units of language that carry meaning. Syntax is the study of the rules and categories that underlie sentence formation. Many linguists use the word morphosyntax to capture the fact that morphemes often have sentence-level functions. For example, a morpheme can indicate whether a form functions as a subject or an object in a sentence. A different kind of morpheme can indicate which noun an adjective is modifying. All of this is part of a language's grammar. Speakers can be fluent in their languages and have very little awareness of how all the individual pieces of their language work grammatically to make coherent speech. Nevertheless this knowledge is acquired and mastered at a very early age. On the opposite side of this picture, the linguist can have a very astute awareness of how all the pieces of a particular language fit together, without necessarily being able to speak the language. Here we try to strike a compromise between these language production and language analysis skills. Amidst the morphological break-downs, you'll find audio clips to listen to and some interactive exercises to test your knowledge.
A. The Many Ways to Open a Door
- Russian
- Bemba
- Samoan
B. Boy Meets Dog
C. How Many Words Does It Take to Say
D. The World of Pronouns
- Russian
- Bemba
- Samoan
E. Girls and Bicycles
- Russian
- Bemba
- Samoan
F. Even More Bicycles