Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS LX 722: Intermediate Syntax: Modeling Syntactic Knowledge
  Graduate Prerequisites: GRSLX 621, or consent of instructor. Using linguistic data drawn from a wide variety of languages, students develop a precise model of syntactic knowledge through evaluation of hypotheses and arguments. Exploration of major discoveries and phenomena from the linguistic literature.
• CAS LX 723: Advanced Syntax: Issues in Modern Syntactic Theory
  Graduate Prerequisites: CAS LX 631, or consent of instructor. 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. Graduate students compare two different theories of a chosen phenomenon in their final project..
• CAS LX 732: Intermediate Semantics: The Grammatical Construction of Meaning
  Graduate Prerequisites: CAS LX 631 (formerly CAS LX 502), or consent of instructor. - 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. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course entitled "Semantics II" that was previously numbered CAS LX 503.
• CAS LX 733: Experimental Pragmatics
  Graduate Prerequisites: GRS LX 631 (formerly CAS LX 502), or consent of instructor. - Covers recent developments in the theory of pragmatics and related empirical findings obtained through a variety of experimental methods. Topics include scalar implicature and its relation to vagueness and imprecision, hyperbole, metaphor, irony, politeness, and the pragmatics of reference to objects in visual scenes. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Quantitative Reasoning II
• CAS LX 754: Acquisition of Syntax
  Graduate Prerequisites: GRSLX621, or consent of instructor. Exploration of the character and course of acquisition of syntactic knowledge in both first and second language contexts. Covers methodological principles for conducting studies and analyzing data, and topics including development of verb movement, binding theory, morphosyntax, and tense expression.
• CAS LX 790: Intermediate Topics in Linguistics
  Prereq: Graduate standing or consent of instructor - Topics for Spring 2024: Advanced Morphophonology. Investigation of what morphology and phonology are, how they may or may not be distinct, and how they interact. Topics will vary, but may include: emergence, innateness, inflectional classes, morphomes, paradigms, rules and/or constraints, analogy, cyclicity, ineffability, and prosodic morphology.
• CAS LX 795: Quantitative Methods in Linguistics
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing in the Linguistics program, or consent of instructor. - Introduces students to quantitative approaches to linguistic data, including visualization, hypothesis testing, and data modeling. Students gain proficiency in R, an open-source statistical environment, and learn the logic behind statistical techniques, as well as practical skills for using them.
• CAS LX 796: Computational Linguistics
  Graduate Prerequisites: CAS LX 250 and CAS CS 112, or consent of instructor. - Introduction to computational techniques to explore linguistic models and test empirical claims. Serves as an introduction to concepts, algorithms, data structures, and tool libraries. Topics include tagging and classification, parsing models, meaning representation, corpus creation, information extraction. [Students who have already taken CAS LX 394/GRS LX 694 are not eligible to take this course.] Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning II
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS LX 799: Advanced Quantitative Methods for Linguistics
  Prerequiste: CASLX 795. - This course provides students who already have a foundation in statistical analysis with a deeper understanding of data management and visualization, (mixed effects) regression modeling, dimensionality reduction, model selection, contrast coding schemes, interaction, partitioning algorithms, and strategies for streamlining workflow.
• CAS LX 801: Seminar in Linguistic Research
  Advanced graduate students working on their qualifying research papers or thesis present and discuss work in progress. The course is organized thematically based on students' research areas. Readings each week are determined on the basis of the research discussed. 2 cr. per semester.
• CAS LX 802: Seminar in Linguistic Research
  Advanced graduate students working on their qualifying research papers or thesis present and discuss work in progress. The course is organized thematically based on students' research areas. Readings each week are determined on the basis of the research discussed. 2 cr. per semester.
• CAS MA 505: History of Mathematics
  Prerequisites: (CASMA 225 or CASMA 230) and (CASMA 242 or CASMA 442); or consent of instructor. - The development of mathematics from Antiquity through the 18th Century. Assuming background in modern mathematics, its roots are systematically pursued in terms of modern techniques, structures, and results. Providing the emergence of mathematical concepts and procedures, a coherent, unifying view of number, geometry, algebra, calculus, and mathematical analysis is presented. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS MA 511: Introduction to Analysis 1
  Prerequisites: CASMA 225 or CASMA 230 - Fundamental concepts of mathematical reasoning. Properties of the real-number system, elementary point-set theory, metric spaces. Limits, sequences, series, convergence, uniform convergence, continuity. Differentiability for functions of a single variable, Riemann-Stieltjes integration.
• CAS MA 512: Introduction to Analysis II
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA511) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASMA511) - Background of CAS MA 511 used to develop further topics of calculus. Exponential and logarithmic functions, Taylor series, power series, real analytic functions. Differential and integral calculus for functions of several variables. Line and surface integrals, divergence theorem, Stokes's theorem, inverse and implicit function theorems, change of variables. Fourier analysis.
• CAS MA 531: Mathematical Logic
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA293) or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASMA293) or consent of instructor. - The investigation of logical reasoning with mathematical methods. The syntax and semantics of sentential logic and quantificational logic. The unifying Godel Completeness Theorem, and models of theories. A look at the Godel Incompleteness Theorem and its ramifications. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
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  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS MA 532: Foundations of Mathematics
  Prerequisites: CASMA 531 - Axiomatic set theory as a foundation for mathematics and as a field of mathematics: Axiom of Choice, the Continuum Hypothesis, and consistency results.
• CAS MA 539: Methods of Scientific Computing
  Prerequisites: (CASMA 225 or CASMA 230) and (CASMA 242 or CASMA 442) and programming experience or consent of instructor. - An introduction to topics including computational linear algebra, solutions of linear equations, numerical integration and solution of differential equations, finite element methods, and methods of stochastic simulation (i.e., Monte Carlo methods).
• CAS MA 541: Modern Algebra 1
  Prerequisites: CASMA 242 or CASMA 442. - Basic properties of groups, Sylow theorems, basic properties of rings and ideals, Euclidean rings, polynomial rings.
• CAS MA 542: Modern Algebra 2
  Prerequisites: CASMA 541 or consent of instructor. - Vector spaces and modules, Galois theory, linear transformations and matrices, canonical forms, bilinear and quadratic forms.
• CAS MA 555: Numerical Analysis I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA225 OR CASMA230) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASMA225 OR CASMA230) - Numerical solutions of equations, iterative methods, analysis of sequences. Theory of interpolation and functional approximation, divided differences. Numerical differentiation and integration. Polynomial theory. Ordinary differential equations.