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Li8: Morphology offers a concise overview of morphological variation in the languages of the world, provides an introduction to the descriptive and theoretical models that have been developed to analyze this variation, and summarizes the main sources of experimental and other external evidence for the evaluation of models and the validation of their claims.

The course highlights the substantive ideas about word structure and grammatical organization that underlie current morphological models and identifies any typological biases or independent theoretical commitments. Students are taught standard techniques of morphological analysis and are expected to gain facility in interpreting and evaluating analyses from different theoretical perspectives. A variety of languages are analyzed, and students are offered the opportunity to investigate questions raised in the course in relation to languages with which they are familiar or in which they have an interest.

Teaching and learning: 

16 lectures, 8 one-hour supervisions.

Each of the 16 lecture slots is 2 hours long. The lectures are normally each one hour long, but occasionally they will be a bit longer. You should keep the second hour free for these occasions, and in case we are able to have any practical sessions in the second hour (which may not be possible this year given the size of the class).

Assessment: 

Assessment will be by a three-essay take-home exam at the end of the academic year.