Linguistics

LING W3101x Introduction to Linguistics 3 pts. An introduction to the study of language from a scientific perspective. The course is divided into three units: language as a system (sounds, morphology, syntax, semantics), language in context (in space, time, and community), and language of the individual (psycholinguistics, errors, aphasia, neurology of language, acquisition). Workload: lecture, weekly homework, final examination

LING W3997x-W3998y Supervised Individual Research 2-4 pts.

LING W4108y Language History 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: LING W3101 Language, like all components of culture, is structured and conventional yet can nevertheless change over time. This course examines how language changes, firstly as a self-contained system that changes organically and autonomously, and secondly, as contextualized habits that change in time, in space, and in communities. Workload: readings & discussion, weekly problems, final examination.

LING W4120x Language Documentation and Field Methods 3 pts. Prerequisites: Ling W3101 In light of the predicted loss of up to 90% of the world languages by the end of this century, it has become urgent that linguists take a more active role in documenting and conserving endangered langagues. In this course, we will learn the essential skills and technology of language documentation through work with speakers of an endangered language. Note: This course is now listed in Directory of Classes with a course number (#83648), but not time of place is given. It will meet MW 6:10-7:25 initially and then, if possible, M 6:10-9.

LING W4170y Language & Symbol: Semiotics of Speech, Literature, & Culture 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: Students taking the course must have taken either Introduction to linguistics or a course on linguistic semantics, literary theory, or linguistic anthropology.
Reading and discussion of scholarly literature on various aspects of the meaning, structure, and functioning of signs in language, art, and society. All reading for the course is drawn from original scholarly literature, some of it of a specialized nature. At some points (for instance, while discussing dimensions of the linguistic signs, or parameters of structural poetics), theoretical reading will be supplemented by brief practical assignments.

LING W4190y Discourse and Pragmatics 3 pts. Prerequisites: LING W3101 How discourse works, how language is used: oral vs. written modes of language, the structure of discourse, speech acts and speech genres, the expression of power, authenticity, and solidarity in discourse, dialogicity, pragmatics, mimesis.

LING W4202x Cognitive Linguistics 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: LING W3101, previously or concurrently Reading and discussion of scholarly literature on the cognitive approach to language, including: usage-oriented approaches to language, frame semantics, construction grammar, theories of conceptual metaphor and mental spaces; alongside of experimental research on language acquisition, language memory, prototypical and analogous thinking, and the role of visual imagery in language processing.

LING G4206y Advanced Grammar and Grammars. 3 pts. Prerequisites: LING W3101 An investigation of the possible types of grammatical phenomena (argument structure, tense/aspect/mood, relative clauses, classifiers and deixis). This typological approach is enriched by the reading of actual grammars of languages from Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

LING W4307x Scripts of Asia and the World 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Corequisites: Ling W3101 or equivalent History and mechanics of the world's two chief traditions of writing system: Semitic (ancestor of most of the world's scripts) and Chinese. Topics include oral vs. written language and literate vs. oral societies; the glottography and ideography controversies; loangraphs and kundoku; the five types of script (non-phonetic logogram, phonogram, alphabet, abjad, abugida); writing as art form: typography and calligraphy; computational treatment of scripts and mathematical scripts. Major traditions examined in detail: Chinese and its derived writing systems; Brāhmī and Devanāgarī and their descendants; Hebrew, Arabic, and the Tungusic descendants of Aramaic.

LING W4376x Phonetics and Phonology. 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: LING W3101 An investigation of the sounds of human language, from the perspective of phonetics (articulation and acoustics, including computer-aided acoustic analysis) and phonology (the distribution and function of sounds in individual languages).

LING 4444x In Search of language: From Rousseau to Derrida The course addresses fundamental ideas concerning the nature of linguistic meaning and communication, as they evolved in modern times, from the Enlightenment to the contemporary critique of the modernist linguistic paradigm. Beginning with the polemic between Herder and Rousse, the course then proceeds to Romantic philosophy of language (in particular, the role of Romantic philosophy in the emergence of historical linguistics and linguistic typology); Saussure, his structuralist interpreters and his critics; generative grammar as a philosophicalconcept; the notion of linguistic performativity and its philosophical implications; Bakhtin's heteroglossia; and the impact of the post-structuralist semiotic revolution (Barthes, Derrida) on the study of language

LING W4800y Language and Society 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. How language structure and usage and varies according to societal factors such as social history and socioeconomic factors, illustrated with study modules on language contact, language standardization and literacy, quantitative sociolinguistic theory, langusage allegiance, language and power.

LING W4903x Syntax 3 pts. Prerequisites: LING W3101 Syntax--the combination of words--has been at the center of the Chomskyan revolution in Linguistics. This is a technical course which examines modern formal theories of syntax, focusing on later versions of generative syntax (Government and Binding) with secondary attention to alternative models (HPSG, Categorial Grammar).