Description

Aims and Learning Objective: The course seeks to impart a detailed knowledge of the way in which English enriches its expressive capacity through various word formation processes, both major and minor. At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• explain the structure of English words.
• analyze the morphological structure of the English language using different morphological theories.
• make appropriate choices of word forms in their use of English.
• explain the mutual dependence between morphology and the other levels of linguistic analysis.
• apply the different morphological theories to analyze of other languages including their own.

Rationale
The course shall enable students to see word formation as a resource which enables language users to construct expressions that convey many different sheds of meaning. The course will also open the eyes of the students to knowledge that languages in general have morphological structure, certain principles apply in the analysis of the structure of words.

Course Synopsis
This is seminar course offered to postgraduate students enrolled in the MA English specializing in Language and Linguistics in the second semester. It is 12 credits (120 notional hours) for the semester course. This course will enable students to see word-formation as a resource which enables language uses to construct expressions that convey many different sheds of meaning. It will also provide students with an understanding of how the phonology and morphology interface, that is, the behavior of affixal morphemes as they mutate into allomorphs being largely explainable in terms of the phonetic features of parts of them. It will also cover and make a distinction between word class changing and word class preserving affixes, among others.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
• analyze the structure of English words
• apply different morphological theories in the analysis of the morphological structure of English
• distinguish between word class changing and word preserving affixes
• make appropriate choices of words and word forms in their use of the English language
• have an understanding of word formation processes and their productivity in English

• have an understanding of the interfaces between morphology and other levels of linguistic analysis such as phonology and syntax
• develop some problem-solving skills through data analysis
• apply the knowledge learnt to the morphological analysis of their own languages and languages in general
• develop good research and presentation skills of their findings
• able to engage in team work
• developed self-directed, lifelong learning skills