Phonologists examine such phonetic shifts to construct theories about linguistic sounds in one language that can be used in comparing linguistic systems. The analysis of sounds in different languages can be very useful for foreign language teachers. Morphology is the study of the structure of words. Morphologists study minimal units of meaning, called morphemes, and investigate the possible combinations of these units in a language to form words. The root, perfect , is transformed from an adjective into a noun by the addition of ion , made negative with im , and pluralized by s .
Syntax is the study of the structure of sentences.
Syntacticians describe how words combine into phrases and clauses and how these combine to form sentences. Syntacticians describe the rules for converting the first sentence into the second. Semantics is the study of meaning in language. The goal of semantic study is to explain how sequences of language are matched with their proper meanings and placed in certain environments by speakers of the language. Though grammatical, this sentence is largely meaningless in ordinary usage.