Which field studies how words are formed from smaller units?

• A. Phonology
• B. Morphology
• C. Semantics
• D. Pragmatics

Answer: (B)

How words are formed from smaller units is studied by morphology. It focuses on morphemes—the smallest meaningful units—and how they combine to create words, including roots, prefixes, and suffixes. This explains why something like “cats” breaks into the root “cat” plus the plural morpheme “-s,” and why “unbelievable” stacks a prefix “un-,” a root “believe,” and a suffix “-able” to yield a new word with its own meaning and grammatical role. Phonology looks at sound patterns, semantics investigates word and sentence meanings, and pragmatics considers language use in context. So, the field that explains word formation from smaller units is morphology.