Content created: 2021-05-09
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Syntax is the set of rules describing the ways in which words are combined into sentences. (Cf: Morphology, the rules describing the structure of words.)
Morphology is the set rules describing the structure of words. (Cf.: Syntax.)
A morpheme is any of the individually meaningful parts of a word. For example: Un+interest+ing, agitate+ed, elephant+ine. Although many words are compounds of morphemes, not all are. For example, “bat” and “Mississippi” are both single-morpheme words.
Semantics is (1) The meaning of a word or expression. (2) The study of meaning.
A word is a sound or combination of sounds (or their representation in writing or their equivalent in gestures) communicating a meaning and consisting of one or more morphemes. “Devour,” “whether,” “Shakespeare,” “crabgrass,” “only,” and “seventeen” are words.
A phrase is a group of related words functioning as a single unit in a clause.
A common kind of phrase is a “prepositional phrase,” composed of a preposition and its object. For example:
See clause.
A clause is a group of related words including both a subject and a predicate and functioning as a single unit in a sentence but not constituting the entire sentence. Normally a sentence is made up of a main clause, to which one or more subordinate clauses may be added. For example:
When two or more clauses are included in the same sentence but none is subordinate, they are referred to as “coordinate clauses. For example: “She sang soprano and he sang baritone.” (coordinate clauses)
A sentence is grammatical unit that is syntactically independent and has an expressed or implied subject and a predicate containing at least one finite verb.