nonmorphological

Nonmorphological is an adjective used in linguistics to describe phenomena, systems, or analyses that do not rely on morphology to encode grammatical information. In this sense, nonmorphological approaches emphasize word order, function words, particles, and other mechanisms that mark grammatical relations without inflection, derivation, or cliticization.

The term is often applied to isolating or analytic languages, which typically use little or no morphological marking. Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are commonly cited as analytic languages: grammatical roles such as tense, aspect, mood, definiteness, and case are indicated through word order and separate particles rather than bound morphemes. Nonmorphological descriptions can also be useful in studying specific constructions within more morphologically mixed languages, where the emphasis is on syntactic and lexical means of signaling meaning rather than on affixation or internal word structure.

Nonmorphological contrasts are frequently drawn with morphologically rich languages, which employ inflection, derivation, or agglutination to encode grammatical relations within words. These broad typological distinctions acknowledge that many languages exhibit varying degrees of morphology, with some features performing grammatical work that is not tied to internal word structure.

Limitations of the term include its often relative nature: almost all languages use some morphology, and what counts as nonmorphological can depend on theoretical perspective and scope. Nevertheless, the concept helps linguists describe languages or phenomena where syntax and independent grammatical markers take precedence over internal word modification.