SPANISH 342

Spanish Word Formation

Description

This course examines the structure of Spanish words (primitive, derived and compounded) to achieve two main goals: help students achieve significant gains in the breadth and depth of their vocabulary and acquire a solid foundation in Spanish morphology. Accordingly, the course content is delivered entirely in Spanish and all work students produce is entirely in Spanish as well.

The course is organised around five main topics. We begin by surveying the repertory of morphological units (word, morpheme, root, affix, stem, desinence) and learn to deconstruct words by manipulating those elements. From there we go on to explore the complexities of inflection (the component of the word conveying grammatical information) and discover how inflectional categories combine to create multiple contextual variants for both nominal and verbal words. This is followed by an exploration of derivation, the process responsible for developing primitive words into more elaborate ones. Here we learn about prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation.

Compounds, words consisting of two or more simpler words, are then scrutinised and the ways in which they differ from primitive and derived words are noted. The last part of the course looks into the morphological structure of specific lexical categories (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs), applying the theoretical concepts taught. To complement the readings, a rich repository of useful materials is made available through the course website.

For each class, there is an assigned reading and a questionnaire is supplied to help students work through the content. Active class participation is an essential component of this course; students work in small groups to answer key questions about the content presented in class and to do morphological analysis.

As the semester unfolds, students develop their own research projects in which they investigate the morphological structure of specific word classes (e.g., prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, articles, demonstratives and so on). There are various check points and consultations through the semester to ensure steady progress towards the oral presentations. These take place during the last week, when students share their research findings with their classmates and demonstrate their improved understanding of Spanish word structure.

Assessment

Coursework only

Availability 2025

Not taught in 2025

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Associate Professor Eduardo Piñeros

Reading/Texts

Gómez Torrego, Leonardo. Análisis morfológico. Teoría y práctica. Madrid: SM, 2011. 288pp.

Points

SPANISH 342: 15 points

Prerequisites

15 points from SPANISH 201, 278, 319, 321, 377, 378

Restrictions

SPANISH 742