Three credit hour course; meets 1:25-2:15 p.m., MWF in BH 221.

This course provides important background for M.A. candidates preparing for
the MODERN LINGUISTICS option, area (c) MORPHOLOGY on the M.A. examination.

This course introduces students to the study of the morphology of Modern
German within recent, mainstream generative theory. Morphology is the branch
of linguistics devoted to the study of words. We will consider the three major
areas of German morphology:

(1) inflection (grammatically determined forms of words: der große
Wagen-ein großer Wagen-die großen Wagen-große Wagen;
singen-sang-gesungen);
(2) derivation (the creation of new words using devices such as prefixes and
suffixes: finden-erfinden-Erfinder-Erfindung); and
(3) compounding (the combination of two or more words to form a single word,
for which German is so famous: Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaft,
Entwicklungsplanungskommissionsvorsitzende(r),
Dauerarbeitslosigkeitsbekämpfungsgesetz).

On Mondays and Wednesdays, students will attend joint G458/558 sessions, where
the instructor will present new material in an informal lecture format. In
connection with the material covered in the Monday/Wednesday sessions,
students will have approximately seven (7) relatively brief written
assignments to hand in, and there will be a midterm and a final.

G558 Friday sessions, held at a time to be arranged, will be devoted to the
discussion of material in the Matthews Morphology textbook and to scholarly
articles on (primarily) German morphology and morphological theory. Each
student will present (at least) two articles in Friday sessions. Students will
write a paper (minimally) contrasting two competing approaches to an
analytical problem in German morphology or to an issue in morphological theory
turning on German(ic) data.

(+) Note: G458 Friday sessions, held at the regularly scheduled class time,
will assume a workshop format and will be devoted to the discussion of
homework and in-class exercises designed both to reinforce the descriptive and
analytic material and to encourage German vocabulary development. Students
enrolled in G558 are welcome to attend these sessions on a voluntary basis,
but this is NOT a requirement of the G558 course.

Texts:
DUDEN DEUTSCHES UNIVERSALWÖRTERBUCH
Matthews, MORPHOLOGY
instructor-generated handouts
additional articles on reserve