Morphology / Word Formation

Course Description

In this module, students will learn to describe and analyze how words are formed out of smaller parts. Central questions will include: What are the constituent parts of words? How do parts combine together? Why is it so difficult to define “word”? How can we use morphology and the lexicon to mediate between theories of syntax, semantics, and phonology?

Using a scientific perspective, we will practice generating and testing hypotheses and gathering primary language data. We will use theory to guide our interpretation of data, and we will use evidence from data to interpret theory. The primary goal of this exploration is to understand the human language capacity, through deep analysis of English data. We will also situate this work in the contexts of past and ongoing historical change, of sociolinguistic variation, and of cross-linguistic typology.