Course Information

LSA Course Guide: Linguistics Courses

• Fall 2007
• Winter 2007
• Fall 2006
• Complete list   of Linguistics graduate courses

Graduate Course Descriptions for Fall 2008

LING 512
Phonetics

This course introduces students to the nature of human speech and speech sounds. The course goals are: (1) To understand the speech process, which involves transmission of an acoustic signal from a speaker to a listener, and to arrive at a representation of speech sounds in terms of their articulatory (speaker-based), acoustic, and perceptual (listener-based) characteristics. Towards this goal, students are introduced to fundamental principles of phonetic theory through readings and lectures. (2) To introduce students to phonetic experimentation and modeling. Small-scale experiments provide training in acoustic analysis and perceptual testing, and reinforce theoretical principles by serving as empirical tests of selected claims. (3) To consider the relation between human articulatory and perceptual capacities and patterns in linguistic sound systems (i.e., phonology). Our exploration of issues related to this third goal is necessarily preliminary, serving as a bridge between phonetics and future coursework that many students will take in phonology. (4) To provide practical experience in producing and transcribing sounds of the world's languages.

LING 515
Generative Syntax

In Generative Linguistics, syntactic structure is generated by a formal rule system and by applying constraints to its output. Some of these rules and constraints have been hypothesized to be innate, or "unlearned" (most likely a species specific system). That is supported by how human language acquisition (or grammar growth) takes place, in a fast and successful way across the species, and by the observation of striking structural similarities across different human languages. Other aspects of our linguistic knowledge appear "learned", i.e. determined by an interaction between human biology and the particular linguistic experience individuals are exposed to, motivating different but constrained aspects of variation among human languages. This class explores this so-called "Principles and Parameters" approach to the analysis of human syntactic knowledge, focusing on the investigation of how various postulated ("simple") rules and constraints can interact to generate ("complex") structures, characteristic of the potentially infinite number of human language sentences one can produce (such as the one you are now reading, and understanding).

Prerequisites: For undergraduates, LING 315 and permission of the instructor. No prerequisites for linguistics graduate students. Graduate students from other departments may be allowed to enroll with permission of the instructor.

LING 517
Principles and Methods of Historical Linguistics

This course is an introduction to the theories and methods that enable linguists to describe and explain processes of linguistic change and historical relationships among languages. The major topics to be covered are the emergence of language families and means of establishing family relationships; sound change; grammatical change, especially analogy; language change caused by culture contacts; the Comparative Method, through which prehistoric language states can be reconstructed with an impressive degree of accuracy; internal reconstruction, a less powerful but still important method for gaining information about linguistic prehistory; and ways in which the study of current dialect variation offers insights into processes of change.

Course requirements: regular homework assignments (45%), final exam (45%), class participation (10%).

LING 613
Advanced Phonology

This course will focus on some of the most fundamental challenges faced by phonological theory, and consider different ways in which these challenges are addressed in current phonological theory. We will cover topics such as opacity, the formal learnability of phonological grammars, how to deal with non-categorical data (variation in production, data from speech processing tasks, etc.), etc. The aims of the course are twofold: (i) to introduce you to the issues that are currently at the forefront of formal, theoretical phonology, and (ii) to equip you with the knowledge and skills required to conduct independent research in phonology. The course will consist of a combination of lectures and seminar style discussions. Students will be expected to lead some of the class discussions, and will also be required to submit a research paper at the end of the academic term.

LING 621
Advanced Morphology

Internal structure of complex words (affixation, ablaut, grammatical tonology) with emphasis on the interplay of "phonology" and categorical structure. Will also explore the possibility of expanding morphology to cover clitics and tightly-knit phrase structures. Students will analyze extended data sets from several non-western languages.

LING 756
The Development of Language and Communication Skills

One of the most remarkable feats of childhood is the child's ability to learn a first language. This course will examine how children accomplish this task. We will focus on a wide range of empirical studies and theoretical analyses examining typical and atypical language development, with special focus on word meanings and syntax. Other topics include infant speech perception, pragmatics, language disorders, and language and thought. The format is a mixture of lecture and discussion. Students will be expected to contribute to class discussion, write a term paper, and make a presentation.

LING 792, Section 001
Topics in Linguistics: Perspectives on First Language Acquisition

Observing and describing young children's language learning is a fascinating project. In this introductory course we will explore central issues in child first language learning, including bilingual acquisition. We will draw on crosslinguistic studies and survey differing theoretical positions in discussing how children develop the skills to engage in meaningful communication - how they learn phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

LING 792, Section 002
Topics in Linguistics: Intonation

A course on topics in linguistics. Content varies by term and instructor.