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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. The goal of syntax is to characterize the (largely unconscious) knowledge that enables speakers of a language to combine words into larger units such as phrases and sentences, and to "parse" (i.e., assign an abstract representation to) the phrases and sentences that they read and hear. This course-accessible to students with no previous training in linguistics-will introduce increasingly explicit grammar fragments of English. The goal is to present a range of phenomena of concern to syntax, and to explore formal devices that have been proposed to account for such phenomena. The course will consider such topics as argument structure and grammatical relations, constituent structure, subcategorization and selectional restrictions, idioms, movement and locality, case assignment, empty categories, and the interpretation of pronouns. The course also introduces central concepts and notation from contemporary theoretical syntax, focusing on the Principles and Parameters framework developed by Noam Chomsky and others. Conference.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. This course gives students the opportunity to build on concepts and methodologies learned in introductory syntax by exploring current research problems in formal syntax. Readings for the course include influential papers from the history of generative grammar, as well as more recent contributions to the field. This course also builds on the topics discussed in Linguistics 328, Morphosyntactic Typology, by considering data from a wide variety of languages, and addressing the issue of how formal syntactic theories handle cross-linguistic variation. Topics covered may include word order variation, constraints on phrase structure and movement, functional categories, and the theory of anaphora. May be repeated for credit with consent of the instructor. Prerequisite: Linguistics 323 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Linguistics 328 is recommended. Conference.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. Within linguistics, the analysis of discourse includes the study of linguistic units larger than the sentence and extends, more generally, to the study of stretches of speech (as well as written language) in the context of their use. This course will introduce a linguistic approach to discourse, touching topics possibly familiar from other disciplines: the nature of text, the determinants of style, the variety of linguistic genres, both written and spoken, and literacy and orality, including conversation and gesture. The class will use empirical materials from a variety of languages and cultural traditions to fuel this exploration. Along the way, we will consider some well-known conundrums surrounding such notions as meaning, reference, topic, coherence, and context. Prerequisite: Linguistics 211 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2009-10.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. The course provides an introduction to cross-linguistic variation and grammatical description. We develop the notion of linguistic typology and explore proposed universals of language, based on the comparative study of the morphology and syntax of the languages of the world. We consider such topics as parts of speech, word order, case marking, grammatical relations, passive and its friends, causatives, relative clauses, and configurationality-all with reference to both the familiar languages of Europe and less familiar languages of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. Prerequisite: Linguistics 211 or equivalent, or Linguistics 323, or consent of the instructor. Conference.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. This course is an introduction to the study of the internal structure of words, providing an overview of contemporary morphological theory and analysis. Topics include a survey of word formation processes (such as affixation, reduplication, and stem changes); the interface between word structure and other domains of organization in the grammar, such as sound structure (phonology) and sentence structure (syntax); and the reality of morphological categories such as "morpheme." Prerequisite: Linguistics 211 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2009-10.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. This course examines some of the core issues of contemporary sociopolitical theory from a semiotic- and linguistic-anthropological perspective. We address questions such as: To what degree is power a semiotic phenomenon In what sense are "nations" and other political communities linguistically constructed How might states be legitimated or authorized by particular discursive forms Is a common language necessary (or sufficient) for forming a cohesive political community What role do the institutions of linguistic standardization play in modern statehood What are the semiotic and linguistic mechanisms through which novel political structures are instituted How does political rhetoric, or propaganda, "work" Readings will include classic statements on the nature of political power-in which language often plays an essential, if implicit and routinely unnoticed, theoretical role-as well as contemporary work, both theoretical and ethnographic, on the politics of language and the language of politics. Prerequisite: Linguistics 212 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology Anthropology 334 Description
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. Through the empirical study of a non-European language, using native-speaking informants, the course explores the aims and techniques of linguistic fieldwork. Students will be expected to produce fragments of linguistic description based on individual and conjoint elicitation. Prerequisites: Linguistics 211 or equivalent and one 300-level linguistics course. Recommended: Linguistics 328, or at least one other course focusing on formal analysis (such as Linguistics 321, 323, or 329). Conference with laboratory sessions. Not offered 2009-10.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. A central goal of linguistic theory is to explain how children learn a first language despite significant structural and typological differences between different possible languages. This course explores patterns in the acquisition of linguistic structure, concentrating on problems posed by cross-linguistic variation. The course devotes special attention to how children acquire spatial language in comparative perspective. The course also considers the influence on acquisition of the sociocultural matrix in which language use emerges. Prerequisite: Linguistics 211 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Conference-seminar. Not offered 2009-10.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. The course will introduce the systematic study of meaning in language, ranging from problems in the semantic structure of lexical systems, and syntactic and morphological contributions to sentence meaning, to competing theories of truth-conditional semantics, situational semantics, and putative universal semantic primitives for integrated linguistic description. Prerequisite: Linguistics 323 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Students may take Linguistics 341 concurrently with Linguistics 323 if they have already completed Linguistics 211. Conference-seminar.
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3.00 Credits
Full course for one semester. This course will introduce the classical comparative method for identifying and comparing related languages. It will consider sound change, grammatical and semantic change, and the diffusion of linguistic features. It will consider further perspectives on language change, including structuralist(-functionalist) views, generative and variationist perspectives, and notions of lexical diffusion. Prerequisite: Linguistics 212 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Conference.
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