Morphology

MORPHOLOGY is the description of morphemes in a systematic way.  A morpheme the minimum unit of meaning in a word. There are two types of morphemes: stem morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Because Latin is an inflected language, the endings of Latin words change in order to indicate syntactic function.  

For example:

bulletNouns and adjectives have declensions.  The endings of those words determine case, number and gender.
bulletVerbs have conjugations.  The endings of verbs determine person, number, tense, voice and mood.
bulletThose words that are indeclinable do not change their endings to indicate syntactic function.  Instead, knowledge of Part of Speech is necessary in order to determine syntactic function. 

Other General Topics

Part of Speech
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Agreement

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Main Index

General Principles
Sentence Structure
Morphology
Skeleton Types
Verbs
Case Usage
Adverbs
Infinitives
Gerunds
Gerundives
Dependent Clauses
Connection
The Book

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Last Updated March 18, 2003

Questions, comments and corrections should be sent to Brian K. Harvey, Kent State University