Dogs
“The sentence ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’ is grammatically correct but lacks meaningful interpretation.”
Semantics
“Changing word order in ‘The dog chased the cat’ alters who did the chasing.”
Syntax
“A child says ‘goed’ instead of ‘went’ after learning past tense rules.”
Morphology
“The plural of ‘mouse’ is ‘mice,’ not ‘mouses,’ following irregular patterns.”
Morphology
“Two words differ only by the sounds /p/ and /b/, changing meaning.”
Phonology
“Raising pitch at the end of a sentence turns a statement into a question.”
Phonology
“A hot dog meets the definition of ‘sandwich,’ yet many speakers reject that meaning.”
Semantics
“The word ‘bank’ means different things depending on financial or river context.”
Semantics
“A speaker says ‘It’s cold in here’ to indirectly request closing a window.”
Pragmatics
“Saying ‘Nice job’ after a mistake communicates sarcasm, not praise.”
Pragmatics