Morphology concerns linguistic structure within words; for example, “Handschuhe” can be broken down into the morphemes “hand”, “shoe” and plural (-e). There is significant variation in morphological structure across languages: some have rich systems of inflection and derivation, while other languages barely use morphology at all. This seminar reviews how complex morphology is processed by humans and machines, with special attention to functional and information-theoretic accounts.
Key themes:
Course Management System: TBD — will be finalized before introduction session
Instructors: Kate McCurdy. For any questions, please contact me by email: kmccurdy@lst.uni-saarland.de
Time (block seminar): 1-4 pm on Weds Feb 12, Monday Feb 17, Weds Feb 19, and Friday Feb 21.
In addition, there will be an online introductory lecture + coordination session during Winter Semester. Preliminary date, possibly subject to change: January 13, 2025.
Registration deadline: January 31
Room: TBD
This is a block seminar course.
Every student will give a 30-minute presentation.
Students that do not present on a given day are expected to prepare a one- to two-page high-level overview which summarizes the day’s assigned reading and explains how the papers relate to each other. The summary should conclude with a question for discussion. These summaries will be submitted by CMS at the start of each classroom session.
N.B. Syllabus contents may be revised based on seminar participation. Syllabus and presentation assignments will be finalized by Feb. 7.
| Date | Topic | Readings | Slides | Optional Material | Presenter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-13 | Introduction to Morphological Processing | TBD | Aronoff and Sims (2023); Sims et al. (2022) | Kate | |
| 2025-02-12 | Regularity and Generalization | Wu et al. (2019), Breiss and Jo (2023), Jeong et al. (2023) | |||
| 2025-02-17 | Complexity and Learning | Cotterell et al. (2018), Johnson et al. (2021) | Ackerman and Malouf (2013), Seyfarth et al. (2014) | ||
| 2025-02-19 | Morphemes and Subword Tokens | Gutierrez-Vasques et al. (2023), Nair and Resnick (2023) | |||
| 2025-02-21 | Modeling Morphological Fusion | Elsner et al. (2020), Socolof et al. (2022), Rathi et al. (2022) |
IMPORTANT: Please make sure to check which versions (4CP or 7CP) your study program allows.
For students taking the seminar for 4 credits:
Presentation: 50%
Reading summaries: 50%
For students taking the seminar for 7 credits:
Presentation: 25%
Reading summaries: 25%
Final report: 50%
Given time limitations, presentations will be strictly kept to 30 minutes each, followed by a break and then a general discussion covering all of the papers. The presentation should focus on high-level points from the readings, such as the main argument and evidence for and against key claims under consideration.
You will write a 6 page report (ACL format). Details TBD — will be finalized before introduction session.
The report should be uploaded via CMS. The due date will be one month following our final in-person session.
Please contact Kate (kmccurdy@lst.uni-saarland.de) or Michael (mhahn@lst.uni-saarland.de) for any questions.
If you need any accommodations due to a disability or chronic illness, please either contact Michael at mhahn@lst.uni-saarland.de or the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Management Unit of the university.