
#426 – Edward Gibson: Human Language, Psycholinguistics, Syntax, Grammar & LLMs
Lex Fridman Podcast
Exploring Language Structure, Morphemes, and Inflectional Morphology
Forming a language tree involves identifying words and morphemes, which are minimal meaning units in a language. Words in English consist of roots (like verbs) and endings that convey information like third-person singular. Morphemes in a word can change its meaning through inflectional morphology, like indicating singular/plural for nouns or past tense for verbs. English has limited inflectional morphology, unlike languages like Russian. English verbs commonly use E.D. for past tense, but irregular words like 'drink' break the rule by not following this pattern.
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