Linguistic Theory: Morphology

Timetable

TBA

Module aim (aims)

This course is an introduction to the main concepts and issues in morphology, the study of the relationship between words and their constituent parts and meaning. We will also deal with the implications of morphological analysis for the study of other components of language structure: phonology (sound systems), semantics (semantic relations), lexicon (word formation) and syntax (sentence structure).

While the course will focus on English morphology, examples will also be drawn from other languages, both similar to English (e.g. German) and more distant (e.g. Arabic).

The main topics include: words and their types; types and ordering of morphemes; inflection and derivation; grammatical categories; compound words; morphological typology; grammaticalization and loss of morphology; and the role of language contact. 

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

General knowledge of descriptive grammar of English and another language, e.g. Polish, Turkish, Arabic or Ukrainian.

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction to the course

 

Week 2: Aims of morphology; words, word forms and lexemes; types of categories

 

Week 3: Types of morphemes; morphemes and allomorphs; free and bound morphemes; roots and affixes

 

Week 4: Ordering of morphemes; suffixes and prefixes; other types of affixation

 

Week 5: Inflection; inflectional vs. derivational morphology; suppletion and syncretism; grammatical categories in English

 

Week 6: Gender in English and other languages; gender assignment; gender agreement

 

Week 7: Review

 

Week 8: Derivation; types of derivational processes; derivation of nouns, adjectives and adverbs

 

Week 9: Compound words and their types; blends and phrasal words

 

Week 10: Productivity; formal and semantic regularity; sources of English word formation (Germanic, Romance and Greek)

 

Week 11: English morphology compared with other languages

 

Week 12: Morphological typology; cross-linguistic differences in the choice and ordering of morphemes

 

Week 13: Review

 

Week 14: Final test

 

Week 15: Morphology and language change; the origin and loss of morphology; the origin of affixes

Reading list

Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2002). An introduction to English morphology: Words and their structure. Edinburgh University Press. (textbook)