morphology

n. Morphology is a component of the grammar of a language by which morphemes are combined to create words. As such, the morphology of a language dictates the internal structure of words and how such structure is generated, by means of morphological rules. There are morphological rules that relate a word to alternate forms of that word by affi xing inflectional morphemes. For example, the verb walk is related to walking, walked, and walks, all different forms of the same verb. Other morphological rules serve to derive different words from existing words by affixing derivational morphemes or by combining free morphemes. For example, the verb walk is related to the noun walker by a derivational rule, and to the noun Walkman by a compounding rule. – EMF