formbezogene

Formbezogene, or form-related, is a term used in linguistics to describe features that are defined by the form of a word rather than by its meaning. It refers to morphosyntactic attributes and variations that arise from inflection, conjugation, or declension, and that help establish grammatical relationships in phrases and sentences.

In linguistic descriptions, formbezogene Merkmale include categories such as Kasus (case), Numerus (number), Genus (gender) for nouns and adjectives, as well as Tempus (tense), Modus (mood), and Person for verbs. Orthographic and phonological variants that accompany these forms can also be considered formbezogene. The key distinction is between formbezogene (form-related) versus inhaltbezogene (content-related or semantic) features, with the latter pertaining to meaning rather than shape or form.

Applications of the concept appear across grammar descriptions, typological studies, and computational linguistics. In grammars, formbezogene information explains how words morph to fit syntactic roles. In corpora and natural language processing, formbezogene Merkmale are encoded as morphological tags to enable parsing, lemmatization, and syntactic analysis, especially in highly inflected languages.

Examples from German illustrate the idea: noun forms change with case and number (der Hund, des Hundes, dem Hund, die Hunde), and adjectives show different endings depending on the form of the article, reflecting formbezogene agreement. The term is primarily used in linguistic theory and documentation, rather than in everyday language, to distinguish the role of word form from lexical meaning.