Comparative Study of Morphological and Semantic Features in Selected Human and Programming Languages

This study investigates the morphological and semantic relationships between human language and programming language through a comparative linguistic analysis. Although programming languages are often treated as purely technical systems, they draw extensively on natural language forms, particularly in their lexical and structural design. Despite this overlap, there is limited research that systematically examines programming constructs using established linguistic theories. Addressing this gap, the study applies Morphological Theory and Katzian Formal Semantics to analyse the selected programming statements in Python and Java, focusing on sequence, decision, and loop structures. Using a qualitative, descriptive, and comparative design, the study analyses purposively selected programming statements and contrasts their morphological formation and semantic interpretation with corresponding structures in English. The findings reveal that programming languages employ distinctive morphological processes, including symbol-based affixation, blending, clipping, and a dominance of imperative verb forms. Semantically, programming constructs exhibit extreme functional precision, operational restriction, and the elimination of ambiguity, in contrast to the polysemy and contextual flexibility of natural language. While both systems share root morphemes and compositional meaning principles, programming languages impose rigid constraints that align meaning strictly with computational execution. The study concludes that programming languages constitute linguistically grounded yet functionally specialised systems. By demonstrating how linguistic frameworks illuminate programming constructs, the research contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship and offers a foundation for linguistics-informed approaches to programming comprehension, particularly for non-specialist learners.