PIE reconstruction	Gloss	PIE reconstruction	Gloss
PIE reconstruction	Gloss	PIE reconstruction	Gloss
F	Sept 9	Word formation (morphology). Basic concepts: Word elements or morphs: minimal units of word formation. Kinds of morphs. Roots and affixes: differences. Affixes: Prefixes and suffixes. Native vs. borrowed words; characteristics. Differences between Latin/Greek vs. English word structure.	Chapter 3 cont. Morphemes. Roots and affixes. Quiz Word Elements 2, activated after class (6pm).
M	Sept 12	Word formation in English: Word structure and word analysis. Complexity of Greek/Latin (Classical) words. The many suffixes of English. Many adjective suffixes. Borrowed morphology in English: Latinate suffixes. Parsing.	Chapter 3 cont. Morphemes and Roots and affixes, cont. Some affixes of English. Definitions.
W	Sept 14	The functions of prefixes vs. suffixes. Word formation types. The nature of meaning: the flexibility of form-meaning relations.	Word formation processes; word formation types Quiz Word Elements 3, activated after class on Wednesday. Due Thursday 11:55 pm.
F	Sept 16	Video in class (Part IV, The Adventure of English)	Ch. 3 to end.
M	Sept 19	More on morphs. Parsing practice; etymologies (in game format).	Chapter 3 to end. Parsing Practice
W	Sept 21	Short introduction to Digital Media Center for info about how students can get equipment/facilities to make videos; announcement of Rice video contest. Announcement of 5% extra credit for this class for making a short video (3-5 mins) about some aspect of English words.
F	Sept 23	Review. Study Guide for Midterm #1.	Midterm #1, activated in evening (as soon as we can). End of window of accessibility: Sunday 11:55 p.m.
M	Sept 26	Introduction to allomorphs: the variant forms of morphemes. The English plural morpheme and its allomorphs; allomorphy in Latinate words. Basic concepts: voicing of consonants; assimilation. Sound contexts affect the sounds speakers produce.	Ch. 4; Definitions; Sound terminology preview.
W	Sept 28	Allomorphy in Latinate words cont. More on assimilation processes. Phonetics: the system behind our sounds.	Ch. 4 end; Ch. 5; Sound terminology preview. Quiz Word Elements 4, activated after class.
F	Sept 30	The sounds of English. Sounds vs. spelling. Mismatches. Phonetics is about sounds, not spelling.	Ch. 5 cont; Sound terminology
M	Oct 3	Consonants and vowels.	Ch. 5 end; Ch. 6.
W	Oct 5	More on consonants and vowels. Diphthongs. Kinds of assimilation.	Ch. 6. Quiz Word Elements 5, activated after class.
F	Oct 7	More types of phonological processes (deletion etc.) Morphologically-determined processes. Greek and Latin numerals. Borrowing pattern-- Especially in compounds: where whole words were borrowed, Latin almost always goes with Latin, Greek with Greek. Telling Latin from Greek loanwords.	Ch. 6 cont.
M	Oct 10	Midterm Break, No Class	No assiged reading; Can start on Ch. 7 to get a jump on next topic.
W	Oct 12	Polysemy and semantic change; their relation. Polysemy in suffixes and prefixes. Finite words, infinite concepts. (cont. on Friday). Some motivations for change in meaning. 1) Technological change and semantic change; 2) speaker expressiveness ('creative variation'); 3) economy ('abbreviation').	Ch. 7. Technology and semantics; Types of meaning change. Quiz Word Elements 6, activated after class but due Friday night 11:55 p.m.
F	Oct 14	Polysemy cont. Paths of meaning change; radial categories. Two frequent types of change: Metaphor (semantic extension by perceived similarity or parallel) and metonymy (semantic extension by contiguity, i.e. cooccurrence in time and space.) Metaphor and metonymy as cognitive processes in speakers/hearers that can lead to change; as well as types of changes (viewed after a change has become conventionalized). Spatial metaphor in Classical prefixes (e.g. hyper-, hypo-, super-, sub- and others)	Ch. 7 cont.
M	Oct 17	Spatial metaphor cont. More kinds of semantic change (book: 'results' of change): broadening and narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, eponymy. Start looking at Word Stories. What types of change can you identify in these examples? Discussion of Word Journal entries: Kinds of words that can be collected, content of entries, level of detail. Introduction to the Rice Neologisms Database. Etymology Online.	Ch. 7 cont.
W	Oct 19	More metaphors. More kinds of change cont. from above; Taboo and euphemism; the cycle of euphemism. Etymology. Word stories: the historical trajectory of words through time.	Word Stories; More examples of semantic change Quiz Word Elements 7 (Ch. 8), activated after class. Review 2.
F	Oct 21	Etymologies cont. False etymologies and folk etymology. Reading and creating dictionary etymologies. Authoritative etymologies. Parsing vs. etymology.	Look at some sample etymologies and citations (quotations) in the Oxford English Dictionary Online. Read General Info about the OED. Preview Overview of the OED Online. Also: review Parsing, section on Parsing vs. Etymology. Study Guide for Midterm #2
M	Oct 24	Emergence of dictionaries in Europe; kinds of dictionaries. The Oxford English Dictionary. Lexicography.	History of dictionaries and the OED; About the Oxford English Dictionary. Guide to OED Entries. Look at some sample entries on OED online.
W	Oct 26	Review.	Midterm #2, activated after class
F	Oct 28	Classical morphology in English words. Nouns, number gender and case; adjectives; (if time), verbs. What happens when the words become English.	Ch. 9; Classical morphology: nouns and verbs.
M	Oct 31	The verb system in Latin. "Stem vowels" as linkers. What happens to Latin verbs when they become English verbs; and what happens in derivational processes.	Ch. 9 and Classical morphology: nouns and verbs cont. Amusing but true history: The Latin Language.
W	Nov 2	Participles and other weird forms. Spellings and pronunciations.	Ch. 9 to end; start Ch. 11. Quiz Word Elements 8 (Ch 9).
F	Nov 4	Other changes. Changes in older loanwords from French (ca 1100-1450); derivational relations with Latin loanwords. (A few of these changes were discussed preliminarily in Ch. 6 and in class on Oct. 8 in the section on Other Sound Changes and Morphologically Determined Sound Changes.)	Ch. 11 cont.
M	Nov 7	The Linguistic Relatives of English. The Indo-European language family. Comparison of cognates.	Ch. 10 pp. 189-196. Sir William Jones quotation; Genetic relations of languages. Indo-European family tree; Indo-European cognates: family words
W	Nov 9	Recurrent sound correspondences. Reconstruction of vocabulary of a proto-language. Grimm's law (first part).	Ch. pp. 189-196 cont. Quiz Word Elements 9 (Ch 10).
F	Nov 11	Class cancelled due to instructor fall.	Start reading Wikipedia article linked below.
M	Nov 14	Features of Proto-Indo-European; changes leading to Latin and Greek. Associating Latin and Greek morphemes with each other; and to English and other Germanic cognates. The Indo-Europeans: Who were they? What did they do?	Ch. 10 pp. 196-200. Wikipedia article on the Proto-Indo-Europeans (Sections 1-2.1). Optional famous article: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans by Calvert Watkins. The section on Language and Culture (and its subsections) and the Conclusion are especially recommended.
W	Nov 16	Indo-Europeans and their culture, end. Language families of the world.	Quiz Word Elements 10 (First part of elements in Ch. 11). Websites in class.
F	Nov 18	Usage and variation. Review/re-introduction of a basic concept: Linguistic varieties. Types and styles of language defined by groups and contexts, including geography, socioeconomic class, age group, interest group, style (formal vs. informal, etc.), genre (written vs. spoken, newspaper writing, academic discourse, and other context types).	Begin reading Ch. 8.
M	Nov 21	More on varieties. Geographical and social dialects	Ch. 8 cont.
W	Nov 23	Class cancelled due to instructor illness.	Last Quiz 11 on last part of word elements in Ch. 11, activated after class. Due Monday after T'giving.
F	Nov 25	Thanksgiving holiday, no class.	No reading. Be sure to read/review the part of Chapter 3 on word formation processes (derivation, compounding, clipping, blending, acronyms, etc. before your Word Journal is due).
M	Nov 28	Language variation cont. Shibboleths: Language as a group-defining tool. Language and power. Spelling and grammar shibboleths as a minefield for those with less access to education, and, basically, everyone under the power of prescriptive (and sometimes not knowledgable) people.	3 video clips (in Owlspace Resources in folder English Dialects): (1) Kid of 24 accents in English, native and foreign; (2) Voice Recognition Elevator; (3) Getting rid of dialects; the Dialect Coach. The Story of the Shibboleth.
W	Nov 30	Language peeves. Prescriptivism as a weapon. Extra Credit videos (short multimedia presentations on any aspects of English words).	End Ch. 8. Study Guide for Midterm #3. Also review Word formation processes and types. The Rice Neologisms Database is up and ready to receive your entries. Be sure to review the instructions at Word Journal before entering your words, so that you get the right information in the right fields. Review session TBA.
F	Dec 2	As time permits: Slang and jargon. Characteristics of slang. Special lexical varieties --Cockney rhyming slang, others. Lexical change in slang. Lexical innovations. Slang as an important source of neologisms. Two more word formation types: malapropisms and 'eggcorns'. Wrap-up.	Completed Word Journal due Friday Dec. 3 Neologisms and the information you collected on them must be entered into database. Small grace period if you need it. Midterm #3 activated Friday as soon as possible.
S-T	Dec 3-6	Study days, formerly known as Dead Week.	Rice populated by zombies.
W-W	Dec 7-14	Final Exam Week. No final exam in the class. Take a nap instead.	Then go do your other work.

© 2011-present Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 3 Dec 2013