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Morphology vs Semantics - What's the difference?

morphology | semantics |

In linguistics terms the difference between morphology and semantics

is that morphology is the study of the internal structure of morphemes (words and their semantic building blocks) while semantics is a branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words.

As nouns the difference between morphology and semantics

is that morphology is a scientific study of form and structure, usually without regard to function. Especially while semantics is a branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words.

morphology

English

Noun

(wikipedia morphology)
  • (uncountable) A scientific study of form and structure, usually without regard to function. Especially:
  • # (linguistics) The study of the internal structure of morphemes (words and their semantic building blocks).
  • #* {{quote-web
  • , year = 2001 , author = Yehuda Falk , title = Lexical-Functional Grammar , site = CSLI Publications , url = http://www.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/pdf/1575863405.pdf , accessdate = 2014-02-25 }}
  • There are many ways to show that word structure is different from phrase and sentence structure. We will mention two here. First, free constituent order in syntax is common cross-linguistically; many languages lack fixed order of the kind that one finds in English. In morphology', on the other hand, order is always fixed. There is no such thing as free morpheme order. Even languages with wildly free word order, such as the Pama-Nyungan (Australian) language Warlpiri (Simpson 1991), have a fixed order of morphemes within the word. Second, syntactic and morphological patterns can differ within the same language. For example, note the difference in English in the positioning of head and complement between syntax and ' morphology .
  • # (biology) The study of the form and structure of animals and plants.
  • # (geology) The study of the structure of rocks and landforms.
  • (countable) The form and structure of something.
  • (countable) A description of the form and structure of something.
  • Derived terms

    * macromorphology * micromorphology * morphological * morphologist * morphosyntax

    semantics

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia semantics) (-)
  • (linguistics) A branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words.
  • Semantics is a foundation of lexicography.
  • The study of the relationship between words and their meanings.
  • * 2006 , Patrick Blackburn, Johan Bos, and Kristina Striegnitz, [http://www.learnprolognow.org/lpnpage.php?pagetype=html&pageid=lpn-htmlse32 Learn Prolog Now!] , section 8.1:
  • In fact, nowadays a lot is known about the semantics of natural languages, and it is surprisingly easy to build semantic representations which partially capture the meaning of sentences or even entire discourses.
  • The individual meanings of words, as opposed to the overall meaning of a passage.
  • The semantics of the terms used are debatable.
    The semantics of a single preposition is a dissertation in itself.

    Derived terms

    * algebraic semantics * axiomatic semantics * computational semantics * denotational semantics * formal semantics * lexical semantics * mathematical semantics * operational semantics * statistical semantics

    See also

    *