This site contains the pedagogical and administrative parts of Itamar Kastner’s University of Edinburgh Morphology course (see my LAGB 2023 presentation). The source code for the course materials can be found (and will be updated) on the main branch.

The site will be updated as the semester progresses.

Welcome messages

I like to send announcements via our virtual learning system before the course starts for two reasons: to say hi, and to get students used to the less traditional nature of the course.

Welcome messages

Week 1: Words

Section 1 of the lecture notes:

1. What’s a word?
   • Exercise 0: Practice using the journal
2. What’s a word? / Course plan
   • Develop course plan together (week-by-week schedule)
   • Time allowing: in-class warm-up exercise
   • Exercise 1: Recap inflection vs derivation
3. Inflection and derivation
   • Exercise 2: Name something you’re good at; Say what you’re at uni for; Give two memories about marks, one positive and one negative.

Week 2: Affix order

Section 2 of the lecture notes.

1. Assessment
   • Discussion and decisions on assessment structure
   • Exercise 3: English and Latin auxiliaries
2. Affix order
   • Handout 1
   • Exercise 4: Finish Oji-Cree and Yupik examples from class
3. Affix order
   • Handout 1, continued
   • Exercise 5: allomorphy prep
   • Exercise 6: Allomorphy prep and group work

Week 3: Affix order, groupwork, allomorphy

Sections 2, 4 of the lecture notes.

1. Handout 2
2. Handout 2, continued / Group work
3. Allomorphy jigsaw: general setup, worksheets

Week 4: Allomorphy

1. Allomorphy jigsaw, continued
   • Exercise 7: comparatives (*ABA)
2. Handout 4: comparatives (*ABA)
   • Exercise 8: causatives

Week 5: Argument structure

1. Handout 5: Argument structure
2. Handout 5, continued / Causatives jigsaw puzzle
3. Handout 6: Causatives

Midterm

• Self-evaluation
• Exercise 9: lexical semantics

Week 6: Lexical semantics

1. Recap: hexagonal thinking (background, instructions, example template)
2. Topic 7: lexical semantics

Week 7: Lexical semantics

1. Topic 8: Manner/Result complementarity
   • Exercise 10: Berko (1958)
   • Exercise 11: Vote on topics for the last two weeks

Week 8: Acquisition, lexical processing

1. Topic 9: Acquisition
2. Topic 10: Lexical processing

Week 9: Computational modelling, summary

1. Discussion of group projects
2. Topic 11: ChatGPT
3. Summary: hexagonal thinking

Final evaluations

• Self-evaluation