Morphology
is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words (words as units in the http://www.answers.com/topic/lexicon are the subject matter of http://www.answers.com/topic/lexicology). While words are generally accepted as being (with http://www.answers.com/topic/clitic) the smallest units of http://www.answers.com/topic/syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, http://www.answers.com/topic/english-language speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs, and dog catcher are closely related. English speakers recognize these relations from their tacit knowledge of the rules of word formation in English. They infer intuitively that dog is to dogs as cat is to cats; similarly, dog is to dog catcher as dish is to dishwasher. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages.