What is the basis of difference in the world’s languages?
Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions.
Morphology, the study of forms, is the branch of linguistics that deals with the internal structure of complex words. The term was first used in linguistics by August Schleicher in 1859. Linguists distinguish between simple words, which can be analyzed into meaningful parts. The world’s languages differ greatly in the complexity of their morphology. Languages also differ in the devices that are used to form complex words and the functions that this complexity serves. The study of morphology is one of the oldest branches of linguistics. The oldest known linguistic work, Panini’s grammar of Sanskrit, consisted entirely of morphology, and the classical Greek, Latin, and Semitic grammarians also concerned themselves largely with morphology. In modern-day linguistics, which began in the 19th century, morphology is one of the core areas of grammar, along with phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics/pragmatics.