Task and Feedback

[Cristina Banfi]

Dear All,

 

Here is the text and task I gave you last Tuesday, plus the two submissions I received with some feedback.

 

General comments:

 

• You can decide to present the information 'graphically', i.e. using tables, arrows, etc. or in the form of an explanation. Both options have advantages and disadvantages. In the case of the former, the presentation is brief and succinct but if there is something wrong it may be difficult to figure out if you do not understand the concept or you made a slip of the pen. If you use a graphic presentation, you should take full advantage of the possibilities that word processing give you. In the case of the latter, you need to write out your explanation, which means you can make mistakes in so doing, but it may provide a clearer idea of what you mean. In either case, to show that you understand the notion, you may want to provide further examples.

 

• The rubric for the task was broad and, at the same time, specific, i.e. "provide all the morphological and syntactic information you can come up with". This means that:
• you did not need to provide semantic information unless it was specifically relevant to the morphological and syntactic information
• you can provide more specific information, e.g. the fact that in attaching a certain morpheme, you stem needs to be changed in this or that way.

 

• You labeled your files with your names. This information should also appear inside the files, together with other information about what this is (task, course, date, etc.)

 

• It would probably be helpful if you included the phrase/sentence in which the word appears, particularly if you make reference to the syntactic context in the analysis!

 

• It is probably wise when analysing words to think about all the possible options (e.g. all the categories that a certain word can belong to) to then narrow those options down and justifying why you discard certain options with solid arguments. In this way, you would not miss out certain possibilities.

 

• Is it sheer coincidence that the two groups picked the same words?

Best,

 

C