This term is the combination of two words of Greek origin, morpho, which means form, and syntax, which means order. In this way, morphosyntax is the study of words and their different parts in the whole of a sentence.
Morphosyntax is part of linguistics and is the area that focuses on the set of elements and rules integrated into sentences.
Morphosyntactic analysis of a simple sentence
Any sentence, simple or compound, can be parsed morphologically and syntactically. Each of its elements is studied in its morphological dimension. Thus, in the simple sentence «Luis explained the story to his uncle», the following elements are presented: Luis is a noun, explained is a verb, “the” is a determiner, “story” is a noun, “a” is a preposition, “his” a determiner, and “uncle” a noun. If we carry out the syntactic analysis of the same sentence, the following can be seen: the verb explained is the nucleus of the predicate, Luis is the nucleus of the subject, the story is the direct object and his uncle is the indirect object. With these two examples we have the morphosyntactic analysis of a simple sentence.
Morphosyntax is the study of the forms and functions of words.
Each word has a certain form or morphology (for example, in the sentence » the girls study with their friends » the determiners, the nouns and the verb of the sentence are in their plural form). At the same time, words and their combinations have specific functions (subject function, predicate function, complement function, etc.).
If we talk about morphology, it should be noted that there are eight different categories of words: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and pronouns. If we refer to the syntax, we will try to analyze what functions each of the different categories of words fulfill, that is, what they are for.
Other parts of grammar
In addition to morphology and syntax, grammar has other parts, such as semantics, phonetics, phonology, or spelling.
– Semantics studies the meaning of words and their relationships (for example, synonymy, antonymy or polysemy).
– Phonetics studies how the sounds of words are pronounced, while phonology deals with the sound system of each language (for example, Spanish has five vowel phonemes and 19 consonant phonemes).
– Finally, spelling focuses on the rules that govern writing.
Photos: Fotolia – Alla72 / Lorelyn Medina
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