Theoretical Morphology

Morphology can be defined as the study of the internal structure of words and the way words relate to one another: for instance, the words "cognitive" and "cognition" are morphologically related in a specific way.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to key theoretical frameworks for the linguistic study of morphology, and make them fluent in the design and criticism of formal analysis of morphological systems. After discussing the big theoretical divides in the study of morphology, it will provide a detailed introduction to one or two formal frameworks in theoretical morphology, with applications to the inflection system of various languages.

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Make sense of the structure of a morphological system in any language
• Design a formal analysis for a small morphological fragment
• Assess critically research proposals in theoretical morphology
• Read contemporary literature in theoretical morphology              

Broad knowledge of the empirical domain of morphology is assumed, such as is provided e.g. by the S1 class "Morphology"

Students without such knowledge can be enrolled on a case-by-case basis, and will be guided to autonomous training to be able to catch up