MLU
Seminar: Vertiefungsmodul Sprachwissenschaft I - English Word-Formation - Details
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General information

Course name Seminar: Vertiefungsmodul Sprachwissenschaft I - English Word-Formation
Course number ANG.05277.02
Semester SS 2021
Current number of participants 13
expected number of participants 30
Home institute Anglistik / Sprachwissenschaft
Courses type Seminar in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
First date Thursday, 15.04.2021 15:30 - 17:00, Room: Seminarraum 2 [AKStr.35] (Angl.)
Studiengänge (für) MA Angloamerikanische Literatur, Sprache und Kultur 120 LP
MA Englische Sprache und Literatur 45/75 LP
LAS, LAG, LAF
SWS 2
Miscellanea Registration:
via Stud.IP and Löwenportal

Module assignments

Comment/Description

Course outline:
This seminar will be devoted to a critical investigation of word structure in English. First, we shall take a look at the morphological building blocks of English and review (or introduce) basic concepts such as word, word-form, (allo-)morph and lexeme.
We then move on to contrasting inflectional morphology from derivational morphology, or, in other words, word-formation. This will be embedded in a discussion of the more general issues of lexicalization and productivity, involving such questions as:
How do new words come into being?
Are there any constraints?
Why are some formations successful and others not?
How can the productivity of word-formation processes be measured?
This section will be followed by a study of the major processes that are involved in the formation of (complex) new lexemes in English, such as affixation, compounding, conversion, backformation, clipping, blending, acronymy and eponymy.
The main focus of the seminar will be on present-day English, but in order to highlight some of the concepts involved we will turn to older stages of the English language and also contrast the principles with other languages, especially German, where necessary.