Morphology: Words and their Structure - Einzelansicht

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Morphology, in linguistics, is the study of the forms of words, and the processes by which new words are formed. Speakers of a language know a lot about the internal structure of words (e.g., fly-ing, be-en) as well as regular ways of forming new words from existing ones (e.g., to answer – an answer starlet, or breakout star). The aim of this course is to improve your understanding of the structure of English words and the grammatical and lexical properties of the English language. Seminar topics will include important theoretical issues in linguistic morphology such as the difference between inflexion and derivation, the notion of productivity, various types of word-formation processes, such as compounding, affixation, zero-derivation, backformation, clipping, blending, and acronyms, the relationship between word-formation and borrowing. These topics will be dealt with in the form of student presentations starting with the second session. 

Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew. 2002. An Introduction to English Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

1. Oral presentations
2. Active participation
3. Written exam (final session)