The term ‘grammar’ is used in a number of different senses – the grammar of a language may be understood to be a full description of the form and meaning of the sentences of the language or else it may cover only certain, variously delimited, parts of such a description. Here we shall use it in one of these narrower senses, embracing syntax and morphology. Syntax is concerned with the way words combine to form sentences, while morphology is concerned with the form of words. We will launch without delay into a discussion of basic concepts in syntax and morphology, returning in §8 to the distinction between grammar in this sense and various other components of a full description and to the basis for dividing grammar into syntactic and morphological subcomponents. The only terms that we shall need to anticipate are ‘phonology’ and ‘semantics’: phonology deals with the sound system, with the pronunciation of words and sentences, semantics deals with meaning.

Words and lexemes

Syntax deals with combinations of words, we have said, morphology with the form of words. But again the term ‘word’ has been used in a variety of senses.