Spring 2025 graduate courses

For a full list of graduate courses in linguistics offered in recent years, see: GRS – Linguistics Courses.

Syntax: Introduction to Sentential Structure

CAS LX 621

Systematic examination of how meaning is encoded in words and sentences, and how it can emerge from the complexity of the grammar. Also touches on various aspects of pragmatics–the study of how meaning is shaped by context.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250, or consent of instructor.

BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking.

Questions

CAS LX 628

Exploration of question formation across languages, and from several theoretical perspectives, integrating syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology, pragmatics, and philosophy in pursuit of a general understanding of one of the central phenomena in theoretical linguistics.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250, or consent of instructor.

Sociolinguistics

CAS LX 641

Introduction to language in its social context. Methodological and theoretical approaches to sociolinguistics. Linguistic variation in relation to situation, gender, socioeconomic class, linguistic context, and ethnicity. Integrating micro- and macro-analysis from conversation to societal language planning.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250 or CAS AN 351, or consent of instructor.

Romance Linguistics

CAS LX 670

Covers morphophonological 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.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250, and prior study of some Romance language at the 4th semester level or higher (e.g. CAS LF 212 or LI 212 or LP 212 or LS 212 or CL 212, or equivalent); or consent of instructor.

History of French

CAS LX 678

Overview of socio-historical and linguistic factors underpinning the emergence, development, and spread of the French language over time. Study of historical, societal, and political events, along with phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and orthographic changes. Representative texts demonstrate stages of language change. Conducted in English.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250, or consent of instructor.

The Sounds of Spanish

CAS LX 683

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.

Prerequisites: CAS LX 250 and one LS 300-level language course, or consent of instructor.

Phonological Analysis

CAS LX 703

Survey of phonological theory and analysis, with focus on cross-linguistic typology of phonological systems. Phonological reasoning and argumentation skills are developed. Empirical coverage includes contrast, distinctive features, rules and constraints, opacity, tone, syllabification, stress, and interactions with morphology and syntax.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 301, or consent of instructor.

Intermediate Semantics: The Grammatical Construction of Meaning

CAS LX 732

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.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 331, or consent of instructor.

Intermediate Topics in Linguistics: Advanced Topics in Quantitative Methods

CAS LX 790

TBA

Computational Linguistics

CAS LX 796

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.

Prerequisite: CAS LX 250 and either CAS CS 112 or CS LX 394, or consent of instructor.

BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Research and Information Literacy.

Seminar in Linguistic Research

CAS LX 802

TBA