The idea that one member of a grammatical pair is the basic, default one and the other is the special case.
In precise terms
An asymmetry between members of an opposition, where the unmarked member is more frequent, formally simpler, acquired earlier and distributionally freer. Markedness is a relation within a system, not an absolute property.
An example
cat / cats
What is going on here
English singular is unmarked — no ending, higher frequency, used in citation. Plural is marked by '-s'. But markedness is language-specific: some languages mark the singular and leave a general form unmarked for number.
Why this matters when you are learning a language
Marked forms are typically learned later and lost first, so markedness predicts a good deal about difficulty order. It also explains why some contrasts are far rarer across languages than others.
Across languages
Voiceless stops are unmarked relative to voiced ones and far more common in inventories. Many languages have no plural marking at all, and some mark a singulative against a collective base — the reverse of the English pattern.
Related terms
- PhonemeAdvanced — A sound unit that can change one word into another in a given language.
- AllophoneAdvanced — One of the predictable pronunciations of a single phoneme, chosen by its environment.
- Linguistic typologyAdvanced — Classifying languages by their structural features rather than their family history.
Where to go next
- Language guides — See grammatical and lexical categories used in context.
- Terminology quiz — Test the terms on this page.