What does morphology focus on in language?

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Morphology is a branch of linguistics that specifically studies the structure of words. It examines how words are formed and how they can be broken down into smaller units called morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units of language. This includes both the analysis of root forms, prefixes, and suffixes, as well as understanding how these components interact to create different meanings or grammatical forms. For instance, the word "unhappiness" can be analyzed into three morphemes: "un-" (a prefix meaning "not"), "happy" (a root word), and "-ness" (a suffix that turns an adjective into a noun).

While sounds of speech, word meanings, and the order of words in sentences are important aspects of language, they fall under areas such as phonetics, semantics, and syntax, respectively, rather than morphology. Morphology is distinct in its focus on how words are constructed and how their internal structures affect usage and meaning in language communication.

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