LESSON ONE

WHAT IS
MORPHOSYNTAX?

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE
L3S5
 Plan of the lesson :
0. Introduction

1. Defining morphosyntax

2. The relationship between morphology and syntax

3. What is the study of morphosyntax?

 Introduction
• The study of language, linguistics, has been developing into a
science since the first grammatical descriptions of Sanskrit
language in India more than 2000 years ago by Panini.

• Now, modern linguistics is a science that concerns itself with

all aspects of language, examining it from all of the theoretical
viewpoints.
ASPECTS AND DOMAINS OF MODERN LINGUISTICS
 Introduction
• In the late 2Oth century, a number of studies have ackowledged the
existence of a branch of linguistics referred to as morphosyntax,

• a discipline that covers the relationship between syntax and

morphology and

• It is capable of explaining why a word is included in a particular

grammatical category.
So, what is morphosyntax?
 1.Defining morphosynta
x
• Some specialists consider Morphosyntax an area inside of
morphology devoted to the study of certain morphological
elements which are intimately related to syntax.

• Others prefer to work with morphology and syntax together.

• They consider that the two cannot be studied isolated, and
that many morphological processes influence syntactic
structures and vice versa.
 1.Defining morphosynt
ax
• According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, 4th Edition, morphosyntax includes :

• The study of grammatical categories or linguistic units that

have both morphological and syntactic properties.

• The set of rules that govern linguistic units whose properties

are definable by both morphological and syntactic criteria.
 1.Defining morphosynt
ax
• Other definitions are the following:
• The study of the interaction of morphology and syntax.

• Morphology and syntax regarded as an interlinked unit.

• The study of the morphological and syntactic properties of linguistic or

grammatical units.

• The rules that determine the relation between one linguistic form and
another, defined by morphological and syntactic criteria.
 1.Defining morphosynt
ax
• Morphology concerns ‘morphemes’ – units of sound that carry
meaning.

• Syntax concerns the hierarchical structure of words in a sentence.

• Morphosyntax moves on beyond morphology and concerns the

structure of morphemes and how they can be represented
hierarchically, just like words are in syntax.
 1.Defining morphosynt
ax
• For example, let us consider these two words, Cat and Cats.

1. ‘Cat’, has the meaning ‘feline pet mammal’. That’s one

morpheme.

2. In ‘Cats’, ‘s’ carries the meaning of ‘plural’, so we have

two morphemes.
 1.Defining morphosynt
ax
• Another two words, Mouse and Mice.

• They do share the sounds /m/ and /s/,

• but the plural morpheme is inside.

• However, the word Mice still consists of 2 morphemes:

• Mouse + Plural.

• In this case the plural form is historical, involving changing the vowel,
but it’s still there!
2.The relationship between morphology and
syntax
• In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed,
and their relationship to other words in the same language.

• It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems,

root words, affixes.

• Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and stress and the
ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning
(morphophonology).

• Morphology differs from lexicology, which is the study of words and

how they make up a language's vocabulary.
 2.The relationship between morphology and
syntax
• Thus, morphology is about the study of the internal structure of words
•
• while Syntax is about sentence/phrase structure, that is, the way in
which words are put together to form phrases and sentences.

• Morphosyntax is both. Probably what the non-linguist calls Grammar!

• It is a more formal term for grammar in a linguistic sense.

• Why combine morphology and syntax? Because grammatical

constructions involve both.
2.The relationship between morphology and
syntax
• An example is the English Numeral Modification construction:
• one tree
• two tree-s
• three tree-s etc.

• The Numeral Modification construction involves both:

1. Syntax —the order of numeral and noun (the relative position of

numeral and noun) —and

2. Morphology —the form of the noun (the inflection of the noun for
number.)
2.The relationship between morphology and
syntax
• Of course, some constructions in languages seem to involve “only syntax” :

• order and grouping of words like in bamankan (yiri kelen, yiri fila, yiri saba)

• or in Songhay (turi foo, turi hinka, turi hinza).

• Other constructions seem to involve “only morphology” : the inflectional forms

of words, for example:

• one tree, two trees, three trees, or

• work, works, worker, workers, working.
2.The relationship between morphology and
syntax

• If, for example, a language inflects its nouns for number and
case, all nouns will obligatorily express these categories.

• Both the syntactic theory of Kayne (1994) and Chomsky (1995),

and the morphological theory of Halle and Marantz (1993) are
recent proposals that have influenced the way in which we
view the relation between syntax and morphology.
So, what is morphosyntax as a
discipline of language study?
 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
• The morphosyntax of a language involves studying the
rules of how the following linguistic units are
constructed:
1. Sentence
2. Clause
3. Phrase
4. Word
5. Morpheme
 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
• These units are arranged in a hierarchy in two ways:
• The first way is:
1. Sentence
2. Clause
3. Phrase
4. Word
5. Morpheme

• The second way is:

1. Morpheme
2. Word
3. Phrase
4. Clause
5. Sentence
 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
The units are arranged in a hierarchy in two ways:

1) a higher unit must be broken into the units immediately

below it.

2) the lower unit is the constituent of the higher unit

immediately above it.
 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
1. A sentence can be broken into clauses,

2. a clause can be broken into phrases,

3. a phrase can be broken into words,

4. a word can be broken into morphemes.

 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
1. Morphemes are the constituents of a word.

2. Words are the constituents of a phrase.

3. Phrases are the constituents of a clause.

4. Clauses are the constituents of a sentence.

 4. What is the study of
morphosyntax?
•So, if the term refers to the combination
of morphology and syntax,
morphosyntax is therefore the internal
structure of utterances, both above the
word level and below it.
This semester, we will discuss the two lower ranks:
1. morphemes (inflectional morphosyntax) and
2. words (lexical morphosyntax).

The following semester will be about the next ranks,

that is, the phrase, the clause and the sentence.
See you next lesson

Thank you