MORPHOLOGICAL analysis of a sentence step by step

When we want to know in depth how words work within a phrase or sentence, we must carry out an analysis of them. When we do it, we are doing a morphological analysis. It is intended to know what each of the words are and what categories and subcategories they belong to.

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will see what it is and how the morphological analysis of a sentence. In addition, we have prepared some printable exercises with their solutions so that you can do the morphological analysis of different sentences and check if you have understood what was explained in class.

We must know that in Spanish they exist two types of analysis. One of them is the syntactic analysis and the other the morphological analysis which is the one that concerns us. So in order to learn how to do one correctly, we must first know what it is.

The morphological analysis is the one that helps us indicate to which grammatical category belongs each of the words that form a concrete sentence. That is, the sentences or phrases are made up of different words that acquire a complete meaning. The morphological analysis is going to be in charge of showing and pointing out which class each of the words and their subcategories belong to in order to classify them.

Therefore, when we want to perform a morphological analysis of a sentence we must know what types of words they can intervene in it.

Types of words in Spanish

The types of words that we can find in Spanish will help us to classify them in order to carry out a correct morphological analysis. Thus, we can find the following:

• Conjunctions: they are used when we want to join different sentences or words. These can be of different types: coordinating and subordinating.
• Prepositions: Prepositions have the function of joining other words and establishing a relationship between them. Although there are different types of conjunctions in a morphological analysis, it will not be necessary to indicate it.
• Adjectives: accompany the name and complement it. That is, they serve to provide more information about it and show its characteristics. There are different types of adjectives but when we carry out a morphological analysis we only need to indicate their gender and number.
• Adverbs: they are words that serve as a complement to an adjective, another adverb, a verb or another sentence. Adverbs in Spanish have different types: mode, place, time, quantity, negation, doubt and order.
• Determinants: these are words that always accompany nouns and provide information about where they are located in space, their membership, their gender and their number. Among the determinants we can find the following: definite, indeterminate, demonstrative, possessive, indefinite, numeral, interrogative and exclamatory articles.
• Pronouns: we use them when we want to substitute a noun and thus avoid its repetition in an unnecessary way within a text. Pronouns can be of different types: personal, demonstrative, possessive, indefinite, numeral, interrogative and exclamatory.
• Nouns: they are in charge of naming people, animals or things and depending on the meaning they have, they can be different types: common, proper, concrete, abstract, countable, uncountable, individual and collectives. For their part, in addition to belonging to one or more of the categories mentioned above, nouns also have: gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural).
• Verbs: when we want to express an action, a state, a condition or the existence of a subject. These types of words have a root and an ending that is responsible for shaping the different conjugations and verb tenses. To carry out a morphological analysis we must indicate the following categories of the verb: conjugation, person, number, time and mode.

You already know the types of words that can intervene in a morphological analysis. Now let's see how to do it step by step using an example sentence. The first thing you should do is separate the sentence by words. In this case, our phrase will be: That man is my uncle. As you can see, the sentence has several words that compose it and presents a complete meaning.

Now, if we want to analyze it, we must separate it by words so that we obtain the following:

• That
• Mister
• It is
• Me
• Uncle

Once this step is done we will proceed to the identification and classification of each one of the words that we have indicated. In order to carry out a good analysis, it will be necessary to know correctly all the categories of words that exist in Spanish. You can get more information about them by clicking on each of the links you have above. The analysis would therefore be as follows:

• That: demonstrative, masculine, singular determinant.
• Lord: common, masculine, singular name.
• It is: verb to be. Third person singular present indicative.
• Mi: possessive, masculine, singular determiner.
• Uncle: common name, singular masculine.

As you can see, knowing the types of words it is very easy to carry out a morphological analysis.

Next we will see one more example with the sentence: The girl was wearing a pink dress. In the first place we separate by words to be able to carry out the analysis, which will be as follows:

• La: determining, article, feminine, singular.
• Girl: common, feminine, singular name.
• Carried: verb to carry. Third person singular past imperfect indicative.
• Un: indefinite determiner, masculine, singular.
• Dress: common, masculine, singular name.
• Rosa: qualifying adjective, masculine, singular.

We hope these examples have helped you understand how to do the morphological analysis of a sentence. If you want to continue improving, do not hesitate to visit our Spanish Language sections where you will find more lessons like this one.