The ability to acquire and use language is a biological trait of the human species. This capacity for language manifests itself as thousands of particular languages spoken around the world in communities large and small. But what is language? What does it mean for a human to ?know? a particular language? How do children acquire this knowledge? How do we use language to communicate? These are some of the important questions addressed by the field of linguistics, the scientific study of the human capacity for language in its physiological, cognitive, historical, and social manifestations. This course introduces some of the essential findings of linguistics: first and foremost, that all varieties of all languages are intricately structured at multiple distinct but related levels. Second, that this intricate structure can be described in terms that are not only precise, but which apply to all human languages. We will work to replicate some of these findings by deploying simple analytical methods on data from a variety of languages. These methods allow us to answer questions about the different structural components of language: phonology (how do speech sounds pattern?), morphology (what are possible words and how are they built?), and syntax (what is the hierarchical structure underlying sequences of words?). In all instances these methods require that we pay attention to basic notions of semantics, from which more complex conceptions of meaning will emerge. Having characterized language as an intricately-structured system of knowledge, we will then possess the tools to ask a number of additional questions about language and cognition. How does such complex knowledge play into the actual task of sentence production or comprehension? What do we know about the neural implementation of this knowledge in human brains? How does child language acquisition proceed, and what makes it so much more robust than language acquisition later in life? Do animals have languages of their own? Can they learn human languages? Finally, we will turn our attention to variation in language patterns observed over the passage of time, across geographical space, and within social systems. How and why do languages change over historical time? What can we know about languages spoken before the invention of writing? What distinctions exist between languages spoken in different places, and how can we tell whether similarities are due to genealogical relationships? How do new languages emerge? How do languages disappear? How does language use vary between individuals from the same place or the same community? How do socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and gender relate to the linguistic behavior of individuals? How does language policy affect educational outcomes? What about social cohesion and conflict? Although we will find that most of these questions lack definitive answers, we will develop an understanding of what it takes to ask them meaningfully and precisely. In particular, we will be able to eliminate false or misleading answers, especially when they fail to take into account the observable and describable properties of the human capacity for language.

Scientific study of human language. Methods, questions, findings, and perspectives of modern linguistics. Components of the language system (phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics); language acquisition; language and social variables; language and cognition; language change; language processing; language and public policy. prereq: Honors student or instr consent

Scientific study of human language. Methods, questions, findings, and perspectives of modern linguistics. Components of the language system (phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics); language acquisition; language and social variables; language and cognition; language change; language processing; language and public policy; language and cognition.

How words are organized into phrases/sentences. Basic units of a sentence. How these units are structured. How languages may be the same, or different, in syntax. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Concepts/issues in current syntactic theory. Prereq: LING 5001 and graduate student or honors student, or instructor consent

How sounds are organized/patterned in human languages. Foundation in phonological theory/problem-solving for advanced work in phonology and other fields in linguistics. Analyzing data, presenting written solutions. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

How sounds are organized/patterned in human languages. Phonological theory/problem-solving for advanced work in in linguistics. Analyzing data. Presenting written solutions to problem sets. prereq: 5001 or honors student or instructor consent. LING 5302 is directed towards honors students and graduate students.

Analysis of sentence meaning. Semantic properties. Relations such as analyticity, entailment, quantification, and genericity. Philosophical background, formal techniques of semantic analysis, how sentence meaning depends on word meaning, syntax, and context. The role of semantics in grammatical theory. prereq: [4201 or 5201] or instr consent

Syntactic theory. Principles and Parameters (P&P) approach to grammar. Focuses on Minimalist Program (MP). prereq: 4201 or 5201

Modern syntactic theory. Syntactic phenomena in various languages. Syntactic argumentation, development of constraints on grammar formalisms. prereq: 5201 or instructor consent. LING 5201 is directed towards honors students and graduate students.

Continues work of LING 4302W with emphasis on critical reading of current phonological literature. Phonological phenomena in the context of new developments in the field. Optimality Theory and the phonology-morphology interface. prereq: Ling 4302W

Phonology of human languages. Reading papers in the literature. Doing research in phonology. prereq: 5302 or instr consent. LING 5303 is directed towards honors and graduate students.

Role of language in human social interaction; linguistic indicators of social status and attitudes; language and sex roles; linguistic ecology; language planning for multilingual communities; implications for education and public policy.

Supervised planning and research for thesis under direction of Linguistics advisor. Students enrolling in this directed study/research course will complete the University's common Directed Study/Research contract with the faculty mentor/evaluator. The Faculty member will ensure academic standards are upheld, including: - the work proposed is at the appropriate level for the course, academic in nature, and the student will be involved intellectually in the project. - the project scope is reasonable for one semester and the number of credits specified (42 hours of work per credit) - the faculty mentor is qualified to serve in this role - assessment of student learning and grading criteria are clear and appropriate - the student will be working in a respectful, inclusive environment prereq: Linguistics honors candidate, instr consent.

Survey of language families of the world. Classifying languages genetically/typologically. Historical relationships among languages. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

How words are organized into phrases/sentences. Basic units of a sentence. How these units are structured. How languages may be the same, or different, in syntax. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Syntactic theory. Principles and Parameters (P&P) approach to grammar. Focuses on Minimalist Program (MP). prereq: 4201 or 5201

How sounds are organized/patterned in human languages. Foundation in phonological theory/problem-solving for advanced work in phonology and other fields in linguistics. Analyzing data, presenting written solutions. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Continues work of LING 4302W with emphasis on critical reading of current phonological literature. Phonological phenomena in the context of new developments in the field. Optimality Theory and the phonology-morphology interface. prereq: Ling 4302W

This course focuses on a core methodological tool in linguistics: working directly with native speakers of a language in order to gather information about that language. To gain practice and understanding in this broad methodological technique, we discuss practical fieldwork concerns, including: approaches to organization and record-keeping; techniques and pitfalls for conducting interviews; developing a good working relationship with native speaker consultants; ethical issues; and the relation between linguistic theory and language data. Each year, the course will tackle these issues in the context of a particular language of focus, working directly with a native speaker of that language in order to gain an understanding of the basic grammatical structure of the language. Students will learn to conduct interviews with the language consultant in class and will practice these techniques on their own as they pursue individual research projects through weekly interviews conducted outside of class. The course relies on knowledge of linguistic theory that students bring from syntax (LING 4201 or 5201) and phonology (LING 4302 or 5302) courses, but does not require any background knowledge of the language that we will investigate. Prerequisites: LING 4201 or 5201 and LING 4302W or 5302, or instructor consent

Techniques for obtaining/analyzing linguistic data from unfamiliar languages through direct interaction with a native speaker. prereq: [5105, grad major] or instr consent

Concepts/issues in current syntactic theory. Prereq: LING 5001 and graduate student or honors student, or instructor consent

Modern syntactic theory. Syntactic phenomena in various languages. Syntactic argumentation, development of constraints on grammar formalisms. prereq: 5201 or instructor consent. LING 5201 is directed towards honors students and graduate students.

Analysis of sentence meaning. Semantic properties. Relations such as analyticity, entailment, quantification, and genericity. Philosophical background, formal techniques of semantic analysis, how sentence meaning depends on word meaning, syntax, and context. The role of semantics in grammatical theory. prereq: [4201 or 5201] or instr consent

Analysis of linguistic phenomena in relation to beliefs and intentions of language users; speech act theory, conversational implicature, presupposition, information structure, relevance theory, discourse coherence. prereq: [4201 or 5201] or instr consent

How sounds are organized/patterned in human languages. Phonological theory/problem-solving for advanced work in in linguistics. Analyzing data. Presenting written solutions to problem sets. prereq: 5001 or honors student or instructor consent. LING 5302 is directed towards honors students and graduate students.

Phonology of human languages. Reading papers in the literature. Doing research in phonology. prereq: 5302 or instr consent. LING 5303 is directed towards honors and graduate students.

Discourse processes. Application of concepts through conversation analysis. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Transcribing/analyzing talk and movement related to talk. Applying concepts to recorded conversations. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Methods/issues in computer understanding of natural language. Programming languages, their linguistic applications. Lab projects. prereq: [4201 or 5201] or programming experience or instr consent

Topics vary. See Class Schedule.

Directed study for Linguistics. Prereq instr consent, dept consent, college consent.

The ability to acquire and use language is a biological trait of the human species. This capacity for language manifests itself as thousands of particular languages spoken around the world in communities large and small. But what is language? What does it mean for a human to ?know? a particular language? How do children acquire this knowledge? How do we use language to communicate? These are some of the important questions addressed by the field of linguistics, the scientific study of the human capacity for language in its physiological, cognitive, historical, and social manifestations. This course introduces some of the essential findings of linguistics: first and foremost, that all varieties of all languages are intricately structured at multiple distinct but related levels. Second, that this intricate structure can be described in terms that are not only precise, but which apply to all human languages. We will work to replicate some of these findings by deploying simple analytical methods on data from a variety of languages. These methods allow us to answer questions about the different structural components of language: phonology (how do speech sounds pattern?), morphology (what are possible words and how are they built?), and syntax (what is the hierarchical structure underlying sequences of words?). In all instances these methods require that we pay attention to basic notions of semantics, from which more complex conceptions of meaning will emerge. Having characterized language as an intricately-structured system of knowledge, we will then possess the tools to ask a number of additional questions about language and cognition. How does such complex knowledge play into the actual task of sentence production or comprehension? What do we know about the neural implementation of this knowledge in human brains? How does child language acquisition proceed, and what makes it so much more robust than language acquisition later in life? Do animals have languages of their own? Can they learn human languages? Finally, we will turn our attention to variation in language patterns observed over the passage of time, across geographical space, and within social systems. How and why do languages change over historical time? What can we know about languages spoken before the invention of writing? What distinctions exist between languages spoken in different places, and how can we tell whether similarities are due to genealogical relationships? How do new languages emerge? How do languages disappear? How does language use vary between individuals from the same place or the same community? How do socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and gender relate to the linguistic behavior of individuals? How does language policy affect educational outcomes? What about social cohesion and conflict? Although we will find that most of these questions lack definitive answers, we will develop an understanding of what it takes to ask them meaningfully and precisely. In particular, we will be able to eliminate false or misleading answers, especially when they fail to take into account the observable and describable properties of the human capacity for language.

Scientific study of human language. Methods, questions, findings, and perspectives of modern linguistics. Components of the language system (phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics); language acquisition; language and social variables; language and cognition; language change; language processing; language and public policy. prereq: Honors student or instr consent

Scientific study of human language. Methods, questions, findings, and perspectives of modern linguistics. Components of the language system (phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics); language acquisition; language and social variables; language and cognition; language change; language processing; language and public policy; language and cognition.

Historical change in phonology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon. Linguistic reconstruction. Genetic relationship among languages. prereq: 3001 or instr consent

Historical change in phonology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon. Linguistic reconstruction. Genetic relationship among languages. prereq: 3001 or 3011H or 5001

Studying language as a social practice, students transcribe and analyze conversation they record themselves, and consider issues of identity and social power in daily talk.

History of and current issues in ethnographic research. Research projects, including participant observation, interviewing, research design, note taking, life history, and other ethnographic methods. prereq: 1003 or 1005 or grad student

How do children acquire language? Learn about acquisition of phonology (the sound system of the language), semantics (the meaning of units in the language), syntax (the structure of sentences), morphology (the structure of words, phrases, and sentences), and pragmatics (language use). Study English learning along with the acquisition of other spoken and signed languages. prereq: CPSY 2301 / 3301 or equiv

Introduction to scientific study of French language. Concepts/terminology to describe nature/functioning of sounds, words, sentences/meaning, and variation. Taught in French. prereq: 3015

Historical development of German, from beginnings to 1450. prereq: 3011

Theories of reference, linguistic truth, relation of language/thought, translation/synonymy. prereq: 1001 or 5201 or instr consent

Study of syntax and semantics of sentential and first-order logic. Symbolization of natural-language sentences and arguments. Development of deductive systems for first-order logic. Metatheoretic proofs and methods, including proof by mathematical induction and proof of consistency and completeness. prereq: 1001 or instr consent

Elements of set theory, including the concepts of enumerability and nonenumerability. Turing machines and recursive functions; the results of Church, Godel, and Tarski and the philosophical significance of those results. prereq: 5201 or instr consent

Axiomatic and semantic treatment of propositional and predicate modal logics; problems of interpreting modal languages. prereq: 5201 or instr consent

Theories/experimental evidence in past/present conceptions of psychology of language. prereq: Grad or [[jr or sr], [3011 or 3031 or 3051 or 3061]] or instr consent

Survey of typical language development, major theoretical perspectives about development, and analyses of children's language.

What is a click sound? Why is it that people who learned to speak English in New York City are more likely to produce the words Mary, merry, and marry differently than people who learned English in Minneapolis? Why does the name 'Beto' produced by a native speaker of English sound so much like the word 'pero' produced by a native speaker of Spanish? How is English-accented Japanese different from Japanese produced by a native speaker? How does one write the sounds of speech using the international phonetic alphabet? Phonetics is the science of speech production. In this course in phonetics, you will develop skills in phonetic transcription, and you will apply those new skills to understanding differences across languages, speech development, dialects, and individual speech styles. By the end of the course, you will be a skilled phonetic transcriber, and you will have used those skills to understand aspects of speech that can't be understood without a knowledge of phonetics. Your new knowledge of the sound structure of human languages will make you a more flexible listener when you encounter new languages, or new varieties of languages you already know. The skills in this course will be taught with a variety of in-person and on-line tools, including lectures, small group work, on-line self-paced modules, and interactive transcription practice.

This course aims to provide you with an understanding of the basic concepts of phonetics and phonology and to teach you to apply these concepts to Spanish. The course will be both conceptual and practical. The practical component will involve using the concepts learned in class to improve your own pronunciation of Spanish. You will acquire skills in recognizing, producing, transcribing and describing in linguistic terms the sounds of Spanish and in understanding and analyzing the Spanish sound system. Consideration will also be given to the Spanish orthographical system as it relates to the sound system, variation in Spanish pronunciation among native speakers, and the challenges of a second language learner in acquiring the phonology of their second language. prereq: A grade of C- or better in SPAN 3104W or SPAN 3104V or TLDO 3104W or ARGN 3104W or SPAN 3105W or SPAN 3105V or TLDO 3105W or SPAN 3107W or SPAN 3107V or TLDO 3107W.

This course is an introduction to the morphology and syntax of Spanish as a written language. The goal of the course is to improve written Spanish by understanding morphological and syntactic notions and developing the ability to syntactically analyze words and sentences. Consequently, much of the course work will be devoted to practice syntactic analysis of Spanish sentences taken from literary texts. We will first work with morphological analysis. Then we will proceed with syntactic analysis. We will start with the simple sentence. Then we will study morphological notions such as noun, adjective, and verb. After that we will tackle the analysis of complex constructions such as coordinate clauses and subordinate clauses. Prereq: A grade of C- or better in SPAN 3104W or SPAN 3104V or TLDO 3104W or ARGN 3104W or SPAN 3105W or SPAN 3105V or TLDO 3105W or SPAN 3107W or SPAN 3107V or TLDO 3107W.

This course constitutes an introduction to the origins and history of the Spanish language. Spanish (or Castilian) descends from Latin, which is also the ancestor of Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian, among others. This is why we say bueno in Spanish, bon in French, buono in Italian, bom in Portuguese, and buna in Romanian. Also, Latin belongs to a wider group of languages: the Indo-European family, which also includes Sanskrit, English, German, and Russian, among others. For this reason, the word for the number two in English is similar to dos in Spanish, dvaú in Sanscript, dva in Russian and zwei in German. In the course, we will see how Latin words changed to become Spanish words. These changes did not happen in a void. Therefore, in the first part of the course we will study the historical circumstances that caused the birth and expansion of Spanish. When Romans invaded the Iberian Peninsula there were other groups already there who lent some of their words to Latin. Celts occupied the northwestern portion of Spain, which is known as Galicia. Interestingly, the traditional musical instrument of Galicia is the bagpipe, as in Ireland and Scotland, which also have Celtic ancestors. Some Celtic words passed to the variety of Latin spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, and later to Spanish. Thus, while France and Italy utilize the Germanic word bier to designate beer: French bière, Italian birra, in Spanish we say cerveza, which comes from the Celtic word cerevisia. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes invaded the Iberian Peninsula. This is how some Germanic terms passed to Latin and eventually became Spanish. Since English is a Germanic language, these Spanish terms are similar to the English ones: spy espía, vandalism vandalismo, goose, ganso, etc. At the end of the Germanic rule, Arab groups invaded Iberia. As a result, Spanish has more than four thousand Arabic words, as ojalá from inshallah ?god willing?. The Arabs brought with them advances in astronomy, mathematics, medicine, agriculture, poetry, etc. For this reason, during the Middle Age, Al-Andalús, which was the name of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula occupied by the Arabs, flourished economically and culturally. It is during this period that Spanish developed. In the second part of the course, we will see how Latin words transformed into Spanish. These changes were not at random, on the contrary most of them changed in predictable ways. For example, the Latin letter p when placed between two vowels became b in Spanish: the word lupus ?wolf? became lobo in Spanish, scopa ?broom? became escoba. Studying this evolution will help you understand the reason behind some supposed irregularities in the Spanish Grammar: duermo vs. dormimos. Also, you will be able to recognize the relation between some English and Spanish words, since both languages are like lone cousins. prereq: A grade of C- or better in SPAN 3104W or SPAN 3104V or TLDO 3104W or ARGN 3104W or SPAN 3105W or SPAN 3105V or TLDO 3105W or SPAN 3107W or SPAN 3107V or TLDO 3107W.

This course explores questions related to the use and/or learning of Spanish and may touch on topics related to the sounds of Spanish (phonetics and phonology), the structure of sentences (syntax) or words (morphology), meaning (semantics), language in context (pragmatics), or language in society (sociolinguistics). Topics vary by semester and instructor. Some topics that have been addressed in this course include: How does study abroad impact the acquisition of Spanish as a second language? How is meaning created in Spanish? What are the features of the Spanish spoken in the US? How does language maintain, question, or challenge power hierarchies? Topics for a specific semester can be found in Class Schedule prereq: A grade of C- or better in SPAN 3104W or SPAN 3104V or TLDO 3104W or ARGN 3104W or SPAN 3105W or SPAN 3105V or TLDO 3105W or SPAN 3107W or SPAN 3107V or TLDO 3107W.

Origins and developments of Ibero-Romance languages; evolution of Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. prereq: Grad student or instr consent

Linguistic types/processes that appear across languages. Grammatical relations, word order, transitivity, subordination, information structure, grammaticalization. How these are present in syntax of Spanish. prereq: Grad student or instr consent

Problems in Hispanic linguistics; a variety of approaches and methods.

Revision/expansion of a paper completed for a linguistics course. prereq: Ling major, [jr or sr]

Supervised research, writing, and revision for honors thesis begun in LING 3093 or through work with the individual advisor. Completion of LING 3093 or instructor permission is required.

Studying language as a social practice, students transcribe and analyze conversation they record themselves, and consider issues of identity and social power in daily talk.

Supervised research, writing, and revision for honors thesis begun in LING 3093 or through work with the individual advisor. Completion of LING 3093 or instructor permission is required.

Survey of language families of the world. Classifying languages genetically/typologically. Historical relationships among languages. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

How sounds are organized/patterned in human languages. Foundation in phonological theory/problem-solving for advanced work in phonology and other fields in linguistics. Analyzing data, presenting written solutions. prereq: 3001 or 3001H or 5001 or instr consent

Revision/expansion of a paper completed for a linguistics course. prereq: Ling major, [jr or sr]