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Marker (linguistics)
 
 
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For other meanings, see the disambiguation page Marker
Marker

Marker may refer to* Marker , a television film starring Link Baker and Sonja Bennett* Marker , an Action movie with Steven Seagal* Marker , a company specializing in bindings...


In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, a marker is a free or bound morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 that indicates the grammatical function
Grammatical function

In linguistics, grammatical functions or refer to syntactic relationships between parts of speech such as subject , object , adjunct, complement ....
 of the marked word or sentence. In analytic languages and agglutinative language
Agglutinative language

An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphology point of view....
s, markers are generally easily distinguished. In fusional language
Fusional language

A fusional language is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment....
s and polysynthetic language
Polysynthetic language

Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes.Not all languages can be easily classified as being completely polysynthetic....
s, this is often not the case. In the Latin word amo, "I love", for instance, the suffix -o marks indicative mood, active voice, first person, singular, present tense.






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For other meanings, see the disambiguation page Marker
Marker

Marker may refer to* Marker , a television film starring Link Baker and Sonja Bennett* Marker , an Action movie with Steven Seagal* Marker , a company specializing in bindings...


In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, a marker is a free or bound morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 that indicates the grammatical function
Grammatical function

In linguistics, grammatical functions or refer to syntactic relationships between parts of speech such as subject , object , adjunct, complement ....
 of the marked word or sentence. In analytic languages and agglutinative language
Agglutinative language

An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphology point of view....
s, markers are generally easily distinguished. In fusional language
Fusional language

A fusional language is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment....
s and polysynthetic language
Polysynthetic language

Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes.Not all languages can be easily classified as being completely polysynthetic....
s, this is often not the case. In the Latin word amo, "I love", for instance, the suffix -o marks indicative mood, active voice, first person, singular, present tense. Latin is a highly fusional language.

Markers should be distinguished from the linguistic concept of markedness
Markedness

Markedness is a Linguistics concept that developed out of the Prague School. A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form....
. An unmarked form is the basic "neutral" form of word, typically used as its dictionary lemma
Lemma (linguistics)

In linguistics a lemma has two distinct interpretations:# morphology / lexicography: the canonical form or citation form of a set of forms ; e.g....
, such as – in English – for nouns the singular (e.g. cat versus cats), and for verbs the infinitive (e.g. to eat versus eats, ate and eaten). Unmarked forms (like the nominative case
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
 in certain languages) tend to be less likely to have markers, but this is not true for all languages (compare Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
). Conversely, a marked form may happen to have a zero affix
Zero (linguistics)

A zero, in linguistics, is a constituent needed in an analysis but not realized in speech. This implies that there is a lack of an element where a theory would expect one....
, like the genitive
Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
 plural of some nouns in Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
.

Examples

  • English
    English language

    English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
    : the suffix -s in dogs is a plural marker
    Grammatical number

    In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
    .
  • Latin
    Latin

    Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
    : the suffix -is in flaminis is a case marker, specifically a genitive marker
    Genitive case

    In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
    .
  • Spanish
    Spanish language

    Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
    : the word hay in hay muchos libros en la biblioteca is an existential marker
    Copula

    In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . Although it might not itself express an action or condition, it serves to equate the subject with the predicate....
    .
  • Japanese
    Japanese language

    IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
    : the Japanese particle ? (ga) in ???????????[Jon ga riidaa desu.] 'John is the leader.' is a subject marker
    Subject (grammar)

    The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
    .
  • Korean
    Korean language

    Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....
    : the Korean particle ?/? (eun, neun) is a topic marker
    Topic-prominent language

    A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax so that Sentence s have a topic-comment structure, in which the topic is the thing being talked about and the comment is what is said about the topic....
    , also known as a contrast particle.


See also


Related topics

  • Affix
    Affix

    An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
  • Lexeme
    Lexeme

    A lexeme is an abstract Unit of Morphology Semantic analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word....
  • Morpheme
    Morpheme

    In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
  • Markedness
    Markedness

    Markedness is a Linguistics concept that developed out of the Prague School. A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form....
  • Lemma (linguistics)
    Lemma (linguistics)

    In linguistics a lemma has two distinct interpretations:# morphology / lexicography: the canonical form or citation form of a set of forms ; e.g....
  • Null morpheme
    Null morpheme

    In Morphology #Morpheme-based_morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonology null affix . In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix....
  • Uninflected word
    Uninflected word

    In the context of morphology , an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological marker s such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or grammatical conjugation....


Types of marking

  • Dependent-marking language
    Dependent-marking language

    A dependent-marking language is one where the Marker s showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the Syntax#Dependency grammars or Grammatical modifier, rather than the Head of the phrase in question....
  • Head-marking language
    Head-marking language

    A head-marking language is one where the grammar marks showing relations between different Constituent of a phrase tend to be placed on the Head of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents....
  • Double-marking language
    Double-marking language

    A double-marking language is one where the grammar marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents....
  • Zero-marking language
    Zero-marking language

    A zero-marking language is one where there tend to be no marker on either the dependents or grammatical modifier or the head or sentence nucleus showing the relationship between different constituents of a phrase....