Is the following statement morphology or syntax Fred eat Martha banana?

Answer 1

If you mean, "Is the following statement defective in morphology or in syntax?" then the answer is morphology. If syntax were the problem, then rearranging the words would yield a sensible sentence; but no rearrangement would make "Fred eat Martha banana" sensible. On the other hand, if you change the morphology -- the structure of the words -- by writing "Martha's" and either "eats" or "ate," then the result is either "Fred eats Martha's banana" or "Fred ate Martha's banana," either of which satisfies the rules of standard English usage. (Other morphological changes and other syntactic changes will satisfy the question, too, but without changes in morphology, no valid sentence can be derived. For example, it is possible to write, "Martha's banana ate Fred's," a sentence that is grammatically sound (both syntax and morphology are standard) and, in a special context, could be semantically sound as well. (Imagine a children's story or a play in which the characters are bananas.) Notice that it is possible to create sentences that are grammatically sound (both syntax and morphology are standard) but that are semantically anomalous -- they make no sense outside of some poetic or mystical realm. "Curious green dreams sleep furiously" is a famous example of such a sentence.