Capstone project: Morphology conlang
Morphology conlang instructions
For the capstone project for this unit, you will create a morphology problem set of a language of your own invention (known as a conlang). You will then exchange your morphology problem set with your classmates and try to solve each others’.
Step 1: Coin some words
Coin about six root words. Decide the form, meaning, and part of speech of each word you coin. Your list of roots needs to include at least some nouns or verbs. Consider giving at least one of your words an unexpected part of speech compared to the languages you know.
Step 2: Coin some derivational morphemes
Coin 2-3 derivational morphemes. Decide the form, meaning, how it attaches to the root, what part of speech it takes as its base, and what part of speech it derives. Apply your derivational morphemes to some of your root words from Step 1. Since they are derivational morphemes, the derived forms might have an idiosyncratic meaning! If so, specify the meaning.
Step 3: Coin some inflectional morphemes
Create an inflectional paradigm. Choose either the verbal or nominal system and decide what grammatical distinctions your language will make.
- If you choose to work on the nominal system, you need to include at least 3 of these categories in your paradigm, with at least two values for each category: case, person, number, or gender.
- If you choose to work on the verbal system, you need to include at least 3 of these categories in your paradigm, with at least two values for each category: tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, transitivity, polarity, or agreement.
Decide if your language will be agglutinative or fusional, and coin appropriate morphemes, filling out your paradigm. Consider using a mix of prefixes and suffixes, and maybe other kinds of affixes too!
Step 4: Add some non-concatenative morphology
Include at least one form of non-concatenative morphology or reduplication to your data set, if you have not already. You may either coin an additional morpheme, or you may adjust one of the morphemes you already coined.
Step 5: Add some allomorphy
Include at least one kind of allomorphy to your problem set. Decide what conditions it, and modify all forms in your data set where the allomorphy should apply.
Step 6: Create a problem set based on your conlang
Out of all the word forms you created, pick a representative set the illustrate the patterns in your conlang. You may choose to form sentences or leave it as a list of words. Create a numbered list or table of the examples and their meanings. Try to make sure that your data set is solvable. That is, that there is sufficient data for another student to be able to identify the patterns. Try to make the problem set challenging but possible.
Also write up an answer key for your problem set in a separate document.
Step 7: Exchange your problem set with some classmates
Have 2-3 classmates attempt to solve your problem set and try to solve theirs.
Give feedback to your classmates, answering the following questions:
- Was there enough data to solve their problem set?
- How difficult was their problem set to solve?
- Was there anything that you thought was especially interesting or creative about their problem set?
Step 8: Revise your problem set
Check to see if your classmates got the “correct” solution and read their feedback, and revise your problem set to address any problems that arose. Also include a revised answer key.
Step 9: Write a brief reflection
Describe your experience developing your conlang problem set. Discussing the following aspects, making specific reference to both your problem set and your classmates’:
- What was it like to invent your own language? What sort of things did you have to consider? Which languages did you use as inspiration in coming up with your morphological patterns?
- What was it like to solve your classmates’ problem sets? What did you learn about what makes a problem set solveable?
- What issues did your classmates identify in your problem set? How did you address these issues in your revision?
Step 10: Submit
Combine your revised problem set, revised answer key, and reflection into a single document and submit following your instructor’s instructions.
For Instructors
- This assignment can be used as a summative assignment for Unit 2, enabling students to practice many of the skills introduced in this unit.
- Students may need help forming groups in which to exchange problem sets. You could use small-group discussion boards on your Learning Management System for students to exchange their problem sets.
- You will need to set intermediate deadlines to ensure students have enough time to exchange problem sets with their classmates.will
- LLMs are able to follow these instructions, with some weaknesses that you can watch out for.
- The problem set it constructs doesn’t repeat morphemes enough for the problem set to be solvable. If that is pointed out, it will improve but may not be completely solvable.
- In some iterations of constructing and revising a data set, it did not provide glosses for the data, only the form.
- Allomorphic rules it construct may not be phonetically natural. Rules or patterns may apply vacuously.
- The LLM did mention natural languages from which it borrowed language properties, but did not provide citations.
- When solving a morphology problem set, an LLM is able to identify many of the morphemes, but is inconsistent in segmenting them. Allomorphs may not be distinguished from morphemes in the presentation of the solution.
- An LLM-written reflection will not include specific reference to the problem set unless explicitly requested. It may confuse which problem set was composed by the student and which by their classmates.
This assignment was inspired by Nathan Sanders’ term project for his phonology class, where he had students build and exchange phonology problem sets.
