What is morphology?
Morphology studies the shape of words: the small parts they are built from and how they change.
The smallest meaningful part of a word is a morpheme. The word unhappiness has three: un- (not), happy (the root) and -ness (state).
There are two ways words change.
- Inflection changes the form but not the kind of word: dog → dogs, walk → walked. It shows a grammatical category such as number or tense.
- Derivation builds a new word: happy → happiness, teach → teacher. The part of speech often changes.
A grammatical category is a set of options a word must choose from, like number (one or many) or tense (past, present, future).
Parts of speech: content words and function words
Words are sorted into parts of speech by what they mean and how they behave.
Content words carry the main meaning and can change form:
- Noun names a person, place, thing or idea: girl, river, courage.
- Adjective describes a noun: big, red, kind.
- Pronoun stands in for a noun: she, they, this, who.
- Numeral tells how many or which one: three, third.
- Verb says what is done or is: run, think, be.
- Adverb says how, when or where: quickly, soon, here.
Function words (prepositions, conjunctions, particles) join words and do not change form.
The part of speech depends on the job in the sentence. Light is a noun in "turn on the light", an adjective in "a light bag" and a verb in "light the lamp".
The noun: class, gender, number and case
Classes. A common noun names a kind (city); a proper noun names one thing (Delhi, Kiran). A concrete noun can be touched (stone); an abstract noun cannot (freedom). A collective noun names a group (team).
Number. Singular is one; plural is more than one. Most English nouns add -s (dog, dogs). Some are irregular: child, children; mouse, mice. Some are uncountable: water, advice.
Gender. In many languages every noun has a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine or neuter, and it affects the words around it. In Hindi, लड़का अच्छा है but लड़की अच्छी है. In English only pronouns show it (he, she, it). Some nouns suit both: teacher, doctor, student (common gender). Today many languages also prefer one neutral form for jobs instead of separate male and female names.
Case and declension. Case shows the noun's role: the doer (subject), the receiver (object), the owner (possessive), the person addressed (vocative). English shows few cases (the dog's bone). Languages such as Hindi, Russian or German change the ending. The pattern of endings a group of nouns follows is called a declension.
Indeclinable nouns never change: many words borrowed from other languages keep one form in languages that otherwise use case endings.
Adjective, pronoun and numeral
Adjective classes. A qualitative adjective says what something is like (soft, tall) and can have degrees. A relative adjective says what it is made of or belongs to (wooden, yearly) and has no degrees. A possessive adjective shows owner (my, her).
Degrees of comparison.
- Positive: tall
- Comparative: taller (than)
- Superlative: tallest
Short adjectives add -er and -est; long ones use more and most (more beautiful, most beautiful). A few are irregular: good, better, best.
Agreement. In many languages the adjective copies the gender, number and case of its noun (Hindi: बड़ा लड़का, बड़ी लड़की).
Substantivised adjectives. An adjective can work as a noun: the poor, the sick, the young.
Pronouns include personal (I, you), possessive (mine), demonstrative (this, that), interrogative (who, what), relative (which), reflexive (herself) and indefinite (someone).
Numerals. Cardinal numerals count (one, two). Ordinal numerals give order (first, second). In languages with agreement, the numeral decides the form of the noun: in Hindi, एक किताब but दो किताबें; in Russian a noun after 2 to 4 differs from one after 5.
The verb: tense, aspect, mood and voice
A verb has several grammatical categories at once.
Tense places the action in time: past (ran), present (runs), future (will run).
Aspect shows how the action is seen. A completed (perfective) action is finished: I have written. An ongoing (imperfective) action is in progress or repeated: I am writing, I write daily. Some languages (Russian, Ukrainian) have a separate verb for each, such as писати and написати.
Mood shows the speaker's attitude: indicative (a fact: He comes), imperative (a command: Come!) and subjunctive or conditional (a wish or condition: If he came...).
Voice. In the active voice the subject does the action (Ravi kicked the ball). In the passive voice the subject receives it (The ball was kicked by Ravi).
Person and number. The verb often agrees with its subject: I run, she runs.
Non-finite forms are verb forms that do not show person: the infinitive (to run), the participle (a running tap, a broken glass) and the adverbial participle or gerund-like form (Running home, he fell). A participle works like an adjective; an adverbial participle works like an adverb.
Irregular verbs break the usual pattern: go, went, gone.
The adverb
An adverb adds information to a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It does not change for gender or number.
Classes by meaning:
- manner (how): slowly, well
- time (when): now, yesterday
- place (where): here, away
- degree (how much): very, quite
- frequency (how often): always, rarely
Many manner adverbs come from adjectives by adding -ly (quick → quickly).
Degrees. Manner adverbs have degrees too: fast, faster, fastest; carefully, more carefully, most carefully.
Beware: fast and hard are the same in the adjective and adverb. "A fast car" (adjective) and "he runs fast" (adverb).
Try it: sort the words yourself
- Write a sentence of 8 to 10 words about your day.
- Underline each word with a different colour: noun, verb, adjective, adverb.
- Change the sentence to another time (yesterday or tomorrow). Which words changed? Only the verb? Other words?
- Change one noun to its plural. What else must change?
- Do the same in your own language and notice which categories it has that English does not.
Key formulas and definitions
- Key term: morpheme = smallest meaningful part of a word (un + happy + ness)
- Key term: inflection = form change inside one word class; derivation = a new word is built
- Parts of speech: noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral, verb, adverb (content); preposition, conjunction, particle (function)
- Noun categories: class, gender, number, case
- Adjective and adverb: positive → comparative → superlative (tall, taller, tallest)
- Verb categories: person, number, tense, aspect, mood, voice
- Rule: the job (part of speech) is set by the sentence, not by the word alone
Worked examples
1. Name the part of speech of each word: "The brave girl quickly climbed."
The = article/determiner, brave = adjective, girl = noun, quickly = adverb, climbed = verb (past tense).
2. Write the three degrees of: good, careful, little.
good, better, best (irregular). careful, more careful, most careful (long adjective). little, less, least (irregular).
3. Identify the tense and voice: "The letters were posted yesterday."
Tense: past (were posted). Voice: passive, because the letters (subject) receive the action. Active form: "Someone posted the letters yesterday."
4. Is "light" a noun, adjective or verb in each? (a) Turn on the light. (b) She carried a light bag. (c) Light the lamp.
(a) noun, (b) adjective, (c) verb. The sentence decides the part of speech.
5. Classify these adverbs by meaning: here, rarely, very, softly, tomorrow.
here = place; rarely = frequency; very = degree; softly = manner; tomorrow = time.
6. In "Smiling, Meera opened the door", what is "smiling" and what does it do?
It is an adverbial participle (a verb form that works like an adverb): it tells how Meera opened the door. It does not show person or tense on its own.
Common mistakes
- Deciding the part of speech from the word alone. Always check its job in the sentence.
- Adding -er and more together ("more taller"). Use one of them only.
- Mixing inflection and derivation. teacher is derived from teach; teaches is an inflected form.
- Forgetting agreement. In many languages the adjective must match the noun's gender, number and case.
- Treating a participle as the main verb. "The broken glass" has no main verb; broken is an adjective-like word.