Structure of English Words

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, gives a brief explanation of a few Greek and Latin morphology, in the singular and plural, that is still used today. (June 2, 2008)

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, explains relationships between the development of sounds as Indo-European languages mixed and explains many examples of how roots can create a variety of different words. (May 19, 2008)

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, discusses academic analyses of the correctness of words and their structural and logical use before he explores folk etymology. (May 12, 2008)

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, discusses the development of word meaning, and explains several words whose meanings are often taken for granted. (May 5, 2008)

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, discusses the technicality of vowel and word sound formation, and examines allomorphy and irregular but frequent changes in words. (April 28, 2008)

William Leben states that unraveling the organized structure of an English word is an exercise in morphology, not etymology. Lebal spends the second half of the lecture discussing the technical processes and terminology of consonant sounds.

William Leben, Stanford Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, evaluates several contemporary new words, and discusses how and why these words enter the lexicon. (April 14, 2008)

William Leben discusses the genetic evolution of the English language from before old English to middle English. Leben discusses several words and the multiple meanings that they have gained due to pronunciation. (April 7, 2008)

William Leben states that English has the largest vocabulary in the world, it's structurally able to borrow words from other languages, and it is most widely spoken around the world as a first and second language. (March 31, 2008)