surface analysis
Any synchronically valid analysis of a word’s morphology regardless of whether it represents its diachronic etymology, that is, its historical origin.
Noun
- Any synchronically valid analysis of a word’s morphology regardless of whether it represents its diachronic etymology, that is, its historical origin.
- Class guessers for the Xerox tagger assign potential POS [part-of-speech] tags to unknown words according to a surface analysis of the word form. In addition to the common practice of mapping POS tags according to the...
Synonyms: surface etymology
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see surface, analysis.
Origin
From surface (“an outward appearance”) + analysis.