GISDepartment of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies

The formation of words, with particular reference to English.

At first the subject may sound like etymology (the history of words), but it is not: native speakers have a considerable unconscious knowledge of word formation, even without any historical awareness.

As morphology is part of linguistics, the ultimate purpose of this course is that of linguistics: to help give you some insight toward the aim of understanding how the human mind works.

As for “employability skills”, you’ll get practice in reading comprehension, gathering information and developing hypotheses; and you’ll also get a heightened and informed sensitivity to language that should help you in careers as diverse as law and copywriting.

Will be able to gain “DP 1”, “DP 2”, and “DP 4”.

英語 / English

Using weekly slideshows, we’ll go through the textbook, which is neither long nor hard to read. Rather than encouraging the mere learning of facts (sure soon to be forgotten), textbook and course both emphasize exercises, so that the reader is a participant in morphology rather than a mere spectator.

Students both submit work for assignments and get comments on this work via “Hoppii”.

あり / Yes

なし / No

授業形態/methods of teaching：対面/face to face

※各回の授業形態は予定です。教員の指示に従ってください。

1[オンライン/online]：Introduction

Morphemes, words, lexemes and other confusables; benefits of morphology

2[対面/face to face]：Words, Dictionaries, and the Mental Lexicon

Conventions of published dictionaries versus the hypothesized structure of the mental lexicon; the published dictionary as resource

3[対面/face to face]：Lexeme Formation (i)

Morphemes, prefixes and suffixes, bound bases, formatives, etc

4[対面/face to face]：Lexeme Formation (ii)

Compounding: headedness, endo-/exocentricity, subordinative/attributive/coordinative compounds

5[対面/face to face]：Lexeme Formation (iii)

Conversion, infixes, internal stem changes, reduplication, etc

6[対面/face to face]：Productivity and Creativity

How a prefix or suffix may be newly added to a word or stem inconspicuously and successfully; how new words are created jokily (but rarely with lasting success)

7[対面/face to face]：Lexeme Formation (iv)

Infixes, circumfixes, parasynthesis, internal changes, reduplication, templatic morphology, subtractive processes

8[対面/face to face]：Inflection (i)

What inflection is; inflection for number, person, gender, case; accusative vs ergative case systems

9[対面/face to face]：Inflection (ii)

Inflection for tense, aspect, voice, mood, etc; inflectional classes; inflection versus derivation

10[対面/face to face]：Typology

How languages differ in morphology, and how they resemble each other

11[対面/face to face]：Words and Sentences

The relationship between morphology and syntax in certain kinds of construction; clitics; phrasal verbs

12[対面/face to face]：Sounds and Shapes

The relationship between morphology and phonology in allomorphs; lexical strata (different phonological and morphological rules for different large sets of words)

13[対面/face to face]：Theoretical Challenges (i)

What morphological rules are; “lexical integrity” (the immunity of morphology from syntactic operations)

14[対面/face to face]：Theoretical Challenges (ii)

Blocking, affix ordering, bracketing (tree) paradoxes, affixal polysemy

Reading the relevant pages of the textbook, doing exercises from the textbook (and its “challenges”), revising with the slideshow, finding other examples and real or apparent counterexamples. Allow two hours a week for this. Also, weekly assignments, which consolidate what has been covered in class. As an example, the assignment for the fourth week in 2021 asked about each of the five compounds backup singer, know-nothing, military intelligence, rotgut, and drunk driver: students were asked to provide the (syntactic) category of each of the two compounded words, and of the resulting compound; and to say whether the compound was subordinative, attributive, or coordinative, whether it was left- or right-headed, and whether it was endocentric or exocentric. Allow two hours a week for the weekly assignment too.

Lieber, Rochelle. Introducing Morphology. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-1-108-95848-6.

Bauer, Laurie, Rochelle Lieber, and Ingo Plag, The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Dixon, R. M. W. Making New Words: Morphological Derivation in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Marchand, Hans. The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation: A Synchronic-Diachronic Approach. Munich: C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1969.

Mattiello, Elisa. Extra-Grammatical Morphology in English: Abbreviations, Blends, Reduplicatives, and Related Phenomena. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2013.

Schmid, Hans-Jörg. English Morphology and Word-Formation: An Introduction. 3rd ed. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2016.

Work done for assignments: 100%

Evaluation not by examination but instead by weekly assignments. This frees up a lot of class time, thereby allowing us to cover the course material in less of a rush.

Students aren’t obliged to bring a computer, tablet, or smartphone. But their classroom use is welcome at particular times and for particular class purposes (which of course don’t include websurfing, emailing, tweeting, etc).

● http://tinyurl.com/gis-morpho makes each class slideshow available to anyone, anywhere.
● Though the course has no formal prerequisite, students will need an interest in language, of course; also, a very basic understanding of linguistics (word categories, etc).

None.