Explain how a morphological approach to identifying grammatical

categories is more accurate and scientific than the traditional definitions.

• Like other sciences, linguistics constructs theories and tests the validity of these theories against empirical evidence.

• Linguists for the most part study how people actually use language, whether or not that use matches what schoolbooks claim is the "correct" form of the language.

• Linguistics wants to explain things the way they actually are, not to change them according to some preconceived notion.

The Inuit language, for example, is one in which words are formed from strings of morphemes, the morphemes change little in the process of combination, and the morphemes cannot stand on their own -- they cannot be Inuit words themselves.

Analytic language depends mostly on word order for sentence structure and meaning.

Modern English is an example.

In synthetic languages, nouns change form according to number and case (the grammatical function of a noun, pronoun, adjective, or determiner). For instance, the ending on the noun changes, as well as the determiner, depending on the function of the word in a sentence.

Modern English has remnants of its synthetic stage: the final -s to indicate plurals, and changing forms of pronouns to indicate whether it's single or plural, and whether it serves as a subject, object, or possessive.

Russian, Latin, and German are examples.

They are called

open classes

(n., v., adj., adv.), or

free content morphemes, or

content words

Bound content morpheme,

also called

derivational

Yes, when the morpheme is root bound, or a bound content root morpheme

and

No, when it is a derivational morpheme, or a

bound content non-root morpheme

Yes, when it is a closed class function word, or

free function morpheme

pronoun, prep., determinant, conjunction

and

No, when it is an inflectional morpheme, or

bound functional morpheme

Allomorphs are different forms of the same morpheme, which can be different pronunciations or different spellings.

Example:  There are three allomorphs of the morpheme -s in English. Compare the sound of the -s in ‘cats', ‘dogs' and ‘foxes'

The prefix /in-/ has the allomorphs [il] and [ir]:

• [in] + responsible = irresponsible
• [in] + logical = illogical

Therefore, there must be a morphological rule which determines the prefix [il] + [ir] of the prefix /in-/

Organization of allophones such that no two allophones of the same phoneme occur in exactly the same environment