What is Morphology (linguistics)?
'''Morphology''' is part of [[linguistics]]. It looks at the way words are put together using small pieces called '''morphemes'''. A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that has meaning. Different languages have different morphemes and have different rules for how morphemes are combined. == Free and bound morphemes == [[Word]]<nowiki/>s are the smallest pieces of a sentence. Some words only have one [[morpheme]]. For example the [[English language|English]] words ''thank,'' ''dog,'' and ''slow'' are all words made up of only one morpheme. A morpheme that can stand alone as a word is called a ''free morpheme''.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/internalstructure/freemorphemes/ | title=Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes &#124; VLearn }}</ref> Words can also be made up of more than one morpheme. English speakers know that one can add the plural(more than one) morpheme, ''-s,'' to the end of ''dog,'' and create the word ''dogs''. The new word combines the meanings of the two morphemes, so the meaning of the new word, ''dogs'' is ''more than one dog.'' ''Dog'' is a free morpheme, but the plural morpheme ''-s'' is not. It must attach to a word (no native English speaker would use ''-s'' as a stand alone word). Morphemes which must be attached to a word are called ''bound morphemes''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/morph.over.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-04-11 |archive-date=2015-02-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216044839/http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/morph.over.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Morphemes attached to the front of a word are called ''prefixes''. Those attached to the end are called ''suffixes''. Some morphemes can attach in the middle of a word and are called ''infixes''. (example?) == Inflectional and derivational morphemes == There are two types of bound morphemes: derivational and inflectional. Inflectional morphemes give a listener or reader information about how the word is used in a sentence.