morfológi

Morphology, known in Hungarian as morfológia, is the study of form and structure. The term comes from Greek morphe meaning form and logos meaning study. It is used across disciplines to describe how forms are built, organized, and change over time, from linguistic words to biological organisms.

In linguistics, morphology analyzes how words are formed from smaller meaningful units called morphemes. It covers inflection, derivation, and compounding. Morphology explains how languages express tense, number, mood, and other grammatical categories, and how new words are created. Morphemes include roots and affixes, and the study considers allomorphy, the variant forms a morpheme can take. Morphology interacts with phonology and syntax and underpins many applications in natural language processing and language acquisition research.

In biology, morphology describes the external form and internal structure of organisms. It ranges from the shape of organs to the overall body plan and is central to taxonomy and comparative anatomy. Morphogenesis is the developmental process that generates form during growth and development. Morphometrics uses quantitative methods to measure form, often employing imaging and 3D data to compare species or developmental stages.

Morphology also informs other fields such as paleontology, botany, and anthropology, where form provides clues about function, evolution, and classification. The term is often contrasted with physiology, which focuses on function, and genetics, which explains the genetic basis of form.