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  3. Bachelor in Languages, Literatures and Cultures
  4. Portuguese and English Studies
  5. Morphology

Morphology

Objectives

At the end of this course students should:

1. Explain some basic concepts required in the study of morphology and be familiar with the most important models of morphological analysis;

2. Characterize the nominal and verbal inflexion, derivation (prefixation and suffixation) and compounding;

3. Acquire specific skills to analyze the internal structure of complex words;

4. Recognize the difference between the processes of word formation and lexical creativity;

5. Discuss the troublesome notion of ‘word’.

General characterization

Code

711131051

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Maria do Céu Sernache Caetano Mocho

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

NA

Bibliography

  • Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.

  • Bauer, Laurie. 2003. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2nd ed.
  • Bauer, Laurie, Rochelle Lieber & Ingo Plag (eds.). 2015. The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lieber, Rochelle & Pavol Ṥtekauer (eds.). 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Teaching method

Lectures aiming at teaching morphology taking into account the different models of analysis and the uses of the language.

Presentation and discussion of group work: from consultations to reference works, students elaborate the definitions of the basic concepts of morphology, with the objectives of stimulating critical reflection and the application of theoretical knowledge, drawing up a (collective) Glossary of Morphology.

Presentation and discussion of individual works: analysis of small corpora, to identify words, morphemes and morphological processes in different languages, promoting autonomy and student’s observation and synthesis skills.

Evaluation method

Continuous assessment - 1 final exam (45%), 1 mid-term exam (35%), Individual and/or Group Work(20%)

Subject matter

1. Introduction: the study of morphology under structuralist, generative and other models;

2. Delimitation of some basic concepts required in the study of morphology: morpheme, morph and allomorph; word (simple and complex words); affix; stem and base;

3. Distinction between inflection and derivation;

4. Nominal inflection (gender and number of nouns and adjectives) and verbal inflection (regular and irregular verbs);

5. Derivation: prefixation; suffixation (nominal, adjectival and verbal suffixes; evaluative suffixes); parasynthesis;

6. Representation of internal structure of derivatives;

7. Compounding: criteria for defining a compound; exocentric and endocentric nominal compounds; neoclassical compounds;

8. Lexical creativity: clipping, blends, siglation, acronyms and loan words;

9. Discussion of the notions on productivity and creativity; productive and non-productive processes.