Morphology

Morphology is the study of word formation. The analysis of word formation, and the positing of generative rules to govern word formation, held a central role in the Indian tradition. At least in...

Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of linguistic sound in its physical aspects, articulatory and auditory/acoustic. Already by an early period, the phonetic analysis of Sanskrit had reached an advanced stag...

Phonology

Phonology is the study of the (abstract) sound systems underlying the physical (articulatory and acoustic) aspects of speech. Phonology plays a central role in Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī, which...

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning beyond the literal meaning of words and their composition into phrases and clauses, encompassing in very broad terms much of the ‘use’ of language in the real...

Semantics

Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions, and more specifically the study of the literal meaning of linguistic expressions (in contrast with pragmatics, the study of the u...

Syntax

The field of syntactic study focuses on the rules and principles governing the possible surface and abstract functional relations between words (and in non-lexicalist theories, parts of words) i...