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Home , Word

Department of – Fall 2017

Linguistics 104: Word Structure Time: Tuesday & Thursday 12–1 Location: Boylston 303 https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/31290

Instructor: Stefan Hoefler Email: [email protected] Office: Boylston 314 Office hours: Wednesday 1–2

1 About this course

This course is an introductory course in linguistic . It investigates the internal structure of words and the rules for forming words in human . The aim of the course is to provide the students with substantial knowledge about the diversity of morphological patterns in the world’s languages, or in other words: about what languages do or do not do in terms of word formation and . Topics to be covered: morphological patterns (affixation, compounding, base modification, etc.), morphological rules, the nature of the , inflection vs. derivation, words vs. , the interface between morphology and , morphology and , morphology and change.

2 Objectives

After completing the course, students will be qualified to understand and evaluate current discussions in the field of linguistic morphology, morphosyntax, and neighboring fields. They will be proficient in dealing with issues of word-formation and inflection in any given language or language family, both in a synchronic and diachronic perspective.

3 Requirements

Students are expected to do the following: • Attend and participate in all lectures (10%). Attendance is mandatory. However, you are allowed 2 absences when you provide a written excuse before the beginning of the class. Students are asked to participate in the discussion of the textbook chapters, homework problems, exams, etc. Sometimes, small-group practice will be conducted during classes and students will be expected to work together as a team. • Reading and reading questions (10%). Students are expected to complete the assigned readings before each lecture as they the lectures and provide the necessary background. Students will receive a number of questions to answer about each reading assignment and are required to submit their answers (hand-written or printed out) at the beginning of Tuesday and/or Thursday class (if the reading assignment is split up into 2 portions). The purpose is to help you understand the most important issues of every reading and to prepare you for classroom discussions. Answers will, however, not be graded. • Homework (30%). The homework assignments will be graded for content. They usually consist of problem sets based on the of the preceding lecture(s) to make sure students are fully capable of solving them. Homework is to be printed out (unless it is hand-written), stapled, and handed in at the beginning of Tuesday class. Students are encouraged to work with colleagues in order to figure out the problem sets. All the work that is turned in must be in your own words, however. Late submissions will only be accepted under special circumstances. • Take a Midterm (20%) and a Final (30%). Both the Midterm and the Final exams will be a mixture of (multiple) choice, problem-solving, and short-answer questions. Both exams will be “semi closed-”, i.e., you are allowed to bring a one-page A4-sized notes sheet. A (95-100), A- (90-95), B+ (85-90), B (80-85), B- (75-80), etc.

4 Textbook

• Martin Haspelmath and Andrea D. Sims. 2010. Understanding Morphology. 2nd edition. London and New York: Routledge. • Readings from other sources will be posted on Canvas.

5 Classroom etiquette

You are allowed to eat and drink in class as long as it does not produce too much smell or noise. Please refrain from using your cellphones or laptops except for checking . For pedagogical reasons, I strongly recommend taking notes by hand directly on the handouts.

6 Schedule

This schedule is a tentative outline of topics, readings, and homework by week. It may change depending on class progress and is thus subject to change.

Week Date Topic Readings Assignments 1 8/31 Intro RQ1 (due 9/5) • What is morphology? 2 9/5 Basic concepts H&S ch. 1 • and word-forms and 2 9/7 • , bases and roots HW1 (due 9/12) • and allomorphs RQ2a (due 9/12) 3 9/12 Morphological patterns H&S ch. 3.1 RQ2b (due 9/14) • affixation, compounding, base

9/14 modification, etc. H&S ch. 3.2 HW2 (due 9/19) Morphological rules RQ3a (due 9/19) • -based vs. word-based model 4 9/19 Lexicon H&S ch. 4 RQ3b (due 9/21) • a morpheme or a word-form lexicon? Inflection 9/21 • inflectional values H&S ch. 5.1 HW3 (due 9/26) RQ4a (due 9/26) 5 9/26 Derivation H&S ch. 5.2 RQ4b (due 9/28) • derivational meanings 9/28 Inflection vs. derivation H&S ch. HW4 (due 10/3) • properties 5.3-5.5 RQ5a (due 10/3) • dichotomy or continuum? 6 10/3 Productivity H&S ch. 6 RQ5b (due 10/5) • restrictions on word-formation rules 10/5 H&S ch. 7 HW5 (due 10/10)

7 10/10 Midterm review 10/12 In-class midterm RQ6a (due 10/17) 8 10/17 Morphological trees H&S ch. 7 RQ6b (due 10/19) • compounding • hierarchical structure 10/19 Words and phrases H&S ch. 9 HW6 (due 10/24) • compounds vs. phrases RQ7 (due 10/24) • free forms vs. bound forms • clitics vs. affixes 9 10/24 Morphology and phonology H&S ch. 10 • morphophonological alternations • morphophonology as phonology? / as 10/26 morphology? HW7 (due 10/31) RQ8 (due 10/31) 10 10/31 Morphology and syntax H&S ch. 11.1 • valence-changing operations and 11.3 11/2 • transpositional derivation / inflection HW8 (due 11/7) RQ9 (due 11/7) 11 11/7 Morphology and language change Booij ch. 11 11/9 • historical sources of morphology HW9 (due 11/14) • changes in morphological rules / word RQ10a (due 11/14) structure 12 11/14 Theoretical challenges and current trends in Lieber ch. RQ10b (due 11/16) morphology 10 • morphological rules and theoretical controversies 11/16 • current trends in morphology TBD HW10 (due 11/21) RQ11 (due 11/21) 13 11/21 Morphology and typology Lieber ch. 7 • how to characterize the morphological systems of languages 11/23 Thanksgiving recess, no class 14 11/28 Review 11/30 Final