Linguistics

(including courses in Applied Linguistics)

• CAS LX 500: Topics in Linguistics
  Two sections, each covering a different topic, are offered 2014/15. Students may register for more than one section of CAS LX 500 (with different topics) for credit. Topic for Fall 2014: Variation in English Dialects. Exploration of how dialects of English differ from each other, focusing on grammatical variation in the US, with occasional forays into British dialects. Students come to appreciate how linguists investigate grammatical diversity scientifically, revealing the complex structure of non- standard dialects. Topic for Spring 2015: Melodies of English (and some other languages). Exploration and analysis of English melodic patterns. Students transcribe and even gather prosodic data (intonation, grouping, and prominence), using computer software and the ToBI framework. Comparisons of the English intonational system to systems of other languages of the world.
• CAS LX 501: Linguistic Field Methods
  An in-depth investigation of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse/pragmatics of an African or other non-Indo-European language. Weekly sessions with language consultant.
• CAS LX 502: Semantics I
  Introduction to the study of linguistic meaning, with the goal of improving understanding of the ways in which native speakers produce and interpret language. Emphasis on the interaction of meaning with other components of grammar and cognitive systems. Carries humanities divisional studies credit in CAS.
• CAS LX 503: Semantics II
  Systematic development of a semantic theory of natural language, using the tools of model-theoretic semantics. In-depth study of the relation between meaning and grammar, and the relation between meaning and context.
• CAS LX 504: Topics in Pragmatics
  Covers the main areas of linguistic pragmatics, the study of language use and the relation between meaning and context. Study of pragmatic phenomena such as presuppositions, implicatures, anaphora, and focus, from the perspective of linguistic semantics.
• CAS LX 507: The Sounds of Spanish
  Introduction to Spanish phonetics and phonology. Covers articulatory, acoustic, and auditory phonetics, focusing on techniques for visualizing speech sounds. Examines the phonemic inventory and phonological organization of Spanish from several perspectives, including generative and articulatory phonology as well as sociolinguistics. Conducted in Spanish. Also offered as CAS LS 507.
• CAS LX 508: The Structure of Spanish
  Introduction to Spanish morphology and syntax. Explores the structure of Spanish words, phrases, and sentences from multiple perspectives with a focus on natural language data. Examines Generative, Usage-based, and Lexical-Functional approaches to the analysis of grammatical structure. Conducted in Spanish. Also offered as CAS LS 508.
• CAS LX 510: Phonetics
  Introduction to articulatory and acoustic phonetics. Investigation of the production and perception of the sounds of the world's languages. Development of practical skills, including IPA transcription, description of sound systems, and basic acoustic analysis. Focus on crosslinguistic typology. Carries humanities divisional studies credit in CAS.
• CAS LX 513: Introduction to Phonology
  Introduction to phonological theory and analysis. Focus on major crosslinguistic patterns in phonological systems. Topics covered include distinctive feature analysis, phonological rules and constraints, phonological opacity, tone, syllables and syllable weight, metrical stress theory, and interactions with morphology and syntax.
• CAS LX 515: Languages in Contact: The High Stakes of Grammatical Border-Crossing
  Examines the mechanisms and outcomes of language contact by surveying cases around the globe from the past and present. Topics include lexical-borrowing, code-switching, pidgins and creoles, language death, and the emergence of entirely new language systems.
• CAS LX 517: "Having" and "Being" across Languages
  Languages differ startlingly in how they express the apparently basic concepts of "possession" and "essence". Students explore this variety and its implications, addressing fundamental questions about linguistic relativism, language universals, and the relationship between structure and meaning.
• CAS LX 521: Morphology
  Morphology, the study of the internal structure and the shapes of words across languages, straddles the boundary between syntax and phonology. Introduction to major issues in the study of morphology, emphasizing links to other components of grammar. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
• CAS LX 522: Syntax I
  Part one of a two-semester sequence. Introduction to the logical structure and organization of language, and to generative theory. Application of principles of syntactic analysis to students' own and other languages through data-oriented problems from different language types. Carries humanities divisional studies credit in CAS.
• CAS LX 523: Syntax II
  Part two of a two-semester sequence. Investigation of syntactic commonalities and differences across languages. Scrutiny of evidence and argumentation from past and current analyses, focusing on construction of strong arguments. Topics include movement, passives, question formation, syntactic micro-structure, and interaction with semantics, pragmatics, and phonology.
• CAS LX 525: Prosody
  Exploration of the melodic and rhythmic aspects of the languages of the world. Emphasis on theoretical and experimental approaches to cross-linguistic typology. Specific topics include syllables and syllable- weight, rhythm and speech timing; stress and metrics; tone and intonation.
• CAS LX 530: Variation in Dialects of English
  Exploration of how dialects of English differ from each other, focusing on grammatical variation in the US, with occasional forays into British dialects. Students come to appreciate how linguists investigate grammatical diversity scientifically, revealing the complex structure of non-standard dialects.
• CAS LX 532: Romance Linguistics
  Covers sound and morphosyntactic change since Latin, plus various topics in the comparative grammar of modern Romance languages. Students deepen their linguistic knowledge and analytic skills by applying what they have learned in other linguistics courses to this language family.
• CAS LX 535: Historical and Comparative Linguistics
  Introduction to language change and the methodology of historical linguistic analysis, using data from a wide array of languages. Investigates genetic relatedness among languages, language comparison, historical reconstruction, and patterns and principles of change in phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Carries humanities divisional studies credit in CAS.
• CAS LX 540: Acquisition of Syntax
  A general introduction to the study of first and second language acquisition within the framework of generative grammar, focused on the development of syntax. Topics include the development of syntactic structure, verb movement, finiteness, null subjects, binding, and questions.
• CAS LX 541: Phonological Development
  Surveys current knowledge about how children acquire phonology during the first years of life. Topics include biological foundations; perceptual and vocal development; word learning; phonological universals; implicit and explicit learning mechanisms; formalist and functionalist models; and individual variation.

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