nonmorphologically

Nonmorphologically is an adverb describing an action, process, or analysis carried out without involving morphological change to words or word forms. In linguistic context, it is used to contrast approaches that rely on inflection, derivation, or internal word structure with those that do not modify a word’s morphology, such as analytic or periphrastic constructions that express grammatical meaning through separate words or syntactic arrangements.

Etymology and scope: The term combines the prefix non- with morphologically, which relates to morphology—the study of the form and structure of words. While not a common umbrella term in everyday linguistics, nonmorphologically appears in discussions that explicitly separate analyses or processes based on whether they alter lexical form. It is more likely to be encountered in descriptive accounts, comparative linguistics, or computational analyses where researchers describe methods as relying on word forms (morphological) or not relying on them (nonmorphological).

Usage and examples: In practice, describing a construction as nonmorphological often refers to periphrasis or analytic expressions that convey tense, aspect, mood, or number without inflectional changes to the verb itself. For instance, in some languages, future intention is expressed with auxiliary words rather than verb affixes, an approach that can be termed nonmorphological in contrast to highly inflected systems. In language technology, nonmorphological analyses may rely on syntax, word order, or semantic cues rather than morphological parsing.

Other domains: The term can also appear in biology or data science to distinguish analyses that use morphological traits from those based on genetic or non-morphological data; in such contexts, nonmorphologically would describe methods that do not depend on morphological characteristics.

See also: morphology, analytical language, periphrasis, affixation, computational linguistics.