Marker (linguistics)

In Linguistics , a marker is a free or bound Morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word or sentence. In Analytic Language s and Agglutinative Language s, markers are generally easily distinguished. In Fusional Language s and Polysynthetic Language 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.

A lexeme is called marked if it contains a marker, and '''unmarked''' if not. In Nominative-accusative Language s, the Nominative Case is typically unmarked.

EXAMPLES

English : the suffix ''-s'' in ''dogs'' is a plural marker

Latin : the suffix ''-is'' in ''flaminis'' is a case marker, specifically a genitive marker

Spanish : the word ''hay'' in ''hay muchos libros en la biblioteca'' is an existential marker

Japanese : the Japanese particle が (''ga'') in ''ジョンが学生です。'' ga gakusei desu.'' 'John is a student.' is a subject marker

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Marker (linguistics)