120163 SE Linguistics Seminar: English word-formation (2008S)

Word-formation deals with the creation of new lexical items according to productive morpho-semantic patterns, such as compounding (beefwar, history-changer, homepage, couch potato, walkman, Euroland, glide-walk), prefixation (rebrand, unmurder, download, minidisk), suffixation (slacker, quizzee, Nettie, Blairite), Blending (Clintonomics, cybercafé, Dimania, docusoap), acronyms (DVD, HTML). Especially the latter less regular patterns have become very productive in the last years and will form one focus of the seminar. Another part will concentrate on Neo-Latin formations such as astronaut, astrology, Anglo-Norman, their history and structural position in Modern English. Finally, we will look into the history and rivalry of native and non-native patterns of the type disconnect, detoxify, unfasten; afterthought, post-war; asymmetric, disloyal, incapable, non-white, unfair; ante-diluvian, foretell, precook, prototype.

Assessment: oral presentation of a paper in class (ca. 45 minutes), written version of the oral presentation (ca. 20 pages), active participation in the seminar discussions