Introducing Morphology

This chapter begins with brief descriptions of the morphological systems that are found in five languages: Turkish, Mandarin Chinese, Samoan, Latin, and Nishnaabemwin. We go on to look at both traditional and contemporary ways of characterizing the morphological systems of languages. Students are introduced to the traditional characterization of languages as isolating, agglutinating, fusional, or polysynthetic, and we look at the ways in which this fourfold classification presents difficulties. We then consider more contemporary ways of comparing the morphology of the languages of the world such as the Indexes of Synthesis, Fusion, and Exponence. Students are also introduced to the notion of head- versus dependent-marking. The chapter ends with a brief consideration of genetic and areal tendencies in morphology and of typological change.