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The following are courses offered in the Department this
year. Every now and then new courses are added when needed or requested by students.
The typical program of study for undergraduates is described here.
Courses taken for undergraduate credit are given a 200 rather than 300
level number. The typical program of study for graduate students is
described here.
To see the quarterly schedule of courses, click here.
Languages
in Linguistics
Introductory
Undergraduate Sequence
Introduction to Linguistics
I, II, III
20100-20200-20300/30100-30200-30300. (=ANTH 27001-27002-27003/37001-37002-37003,
SOSC 21700-21800-21900) Must be taken in sequence. This course is an
introductory survey of methods, findings, and problems in areas of major
interest within linguistics and of the relationship of linguistics to other
disciplines. Topics include, but are not limited to, sentence structure
(syntax), meaning (morphology, semantics), context and use (pragmatics),
sound systems (phonetics, phonology), language acquisition, the biological
foundation of language, geographical and social variation (dialectology,
sociolinguistics), and language evolution (structural change, language
birth and death, language diversification). Jerry Sadock, Autumn; Jason
Riggle, Winter; John Goldsmith, Staff; Spring.
Graduate and Other
Undergraduate Courses
Biological &
Cultural Evolution
11100. (= BIOS 29286, BPRO 23900, CHSS 37900, HIPS 23900, NCDV 27400, PHIL
32500). PQ: Third- or fourth-year standing or consent of instructor. Core
background in evolution and genetics strongly recommended. This course
draws on readings and examples from linguistics, evolutionary genetics, and
the history and philosophy of science. We elaborate theory to understand
and model cultural evolution, as well as to explore analogies, differences,
and relations to biological evolution. We also consider basic biological,
cultural, and linguistic topics and case studies from an evolutionary
perspective. Time is spent both on what we do know, and on determining what
we don’t. Salikoko Mufwene, William Wimsatt, Autumn.
Introduction to
Indo-European Linguistics
20100/30100. (=ANCM 34300) Fundamental principles of
comparison and historical reconstruction based on Indo-European data.
Survey of older attested languages and evidence from the subgroups of
Indo-European. Sketch of correspondences, pertinent rules, and resultant
reconstructed structures. Staff, Spring.
Language and
Communication
20150/30150. This course is a complement to the Introduction to Linguistics
sequence. It can also be taken as an alternative to it by those students
who are not majoring in Linguistics but are interested in learning
something about language. It covers a selection from the following topics:
What is the position of spoken language in the usually multimodal forms of
communication among humans? In what ways does spoken language differ from
signed language? What features make spoken and signed language linguistic?
What features distinguish linguistic means of communication from animal
communication? How do humans communicate with animals? From an evolutionary
point of view, how can we account for the fact that spoken language is the
dominant mode of communication in all human communities around the world?
Why cannot animals really communicate linguistically? What do the terms
language "acquisition" and "transmission" really mean?
What factors account for differences between "language
acquisition" by children and by adults? What does it mean to be a
bilingual? Are children really perfect "language acquirers"? What
factors bring about language evolution, including language loss and the
emergence of new language varieties? What is language contact and what are
its manifestations? This is a general education course without any
prerequisites. Salikoko Mufwene, Winter
Syntax I
20400/30400. (=ANTH 37801) PQ: LING 20100-20200-20300/30100-30200-30300 or
equivalent. This course is an introduction to basic goals and methods of
current syntactic theory through a detailed analysis of a range of
phenomena, with emphasis on argumentation and empirical justification. Major
topics include phrase structure and constituency, selection and
subcategorization, argument structure, case, voice, expletives, and raising
and control structures. Jason Merchant, Autumn.
Syntax II
20500/30500. (=ANTH 37802) PQ: LING 20400/30400 or consent of instructor.
This course is a continuation of LING 20400/30400. The primary focus of the
winter course will be the syntax of long distance dependencies: empirical
properties cross-linguistically, theoretical analysis, and implications for
the theory of grammar. Topics to be covered include the syntax of questions
and relative clauses; island constraints; crossover; parasitic gaps;
superiority; resumptive pronouns; wh-in-situ and multiple wh-movement;
Logical Form and quantifier raising. Jason Merchant, Winter.
Syntax III
20550/30550. PQ: LING 20500/30500 or consent of instructor. This course
will be a continuation of Syntax 1 and 2, with special emphasis on issues
of the morphology-syntax interface. Jerry Sadock, Spring.
Phonetics
20600/30600. (=ANTH 37700) PQ: LING 20100-20200-20300/30100-30200-30300 or
consent of instructor. This course is an introduction to the study of
speech sounds. Speech sounds are described with respect to their
articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual structures. There are lab exercises
both in phonetic transcription and in the acoustic analysis of speech
sounds. Alan Yu, Autumn.
Pragmatics
20700/30700. Introduction to the pragmatics of natural language and its
relation to basic semantic and syntactic theory. Topics will include speech
acts, implicature, presupposition, and the incrementation of context. Chris
Kennedy, Autumn.
Phonology I
20800/30800. (=ANTH 37301) PQ: LING 20100-20200-20300/30100-30200-30300 or
20600/30600, or equivalent. This course is an introduction to the general
principles of phonology as a discipline. The emphasis is on fundamental
notions that have always been central to phonological analysis and that
transcend differences between theoretical approaches: contrast,
neutralization, natural classes, distinctive features, and basic
phonological processes (e.g., assimilation). We focus on generative
phonology, both "classical" and autosegmental models, with brief
discussion of optimality theory. Jason Riggle, Winter.
Phonology II
20900/30900. (=ANTH 37302) PQ: LING 20800/30800. This course deals with the
interfaces between phonology and morphology and phonetics. Topics vary, but
generally include issues in prosodic morphology and optimality theory.
Jason Riggle, Spring.
Morphology
21000/31000. (=ANTH 37500) This course deals with linguistic structure and
patterning beyond the phonological level. We focus on analysis of
grammatical and formal oppositions, as well as their structural
relationships and interrelationships (morphophonology). Amy Dahlstrom, Spring.
Language in Culture
I, II
31100, 31200 (=ANTH 37201, 37202, ISHU 35400) PQ: Consent of instructor.
Must be taken in sequence. This two-quarter course presents the major
issues in linguistics of anthropological interest. Among topics discussed
in the first half of the sequence are the formal structure of semiotic
systems, the ethnographically crucial incorporation of linguistic forms
into cultural systems, and the methods for empirical investigation of
"functional" semiotic structure and history. The second half of
the sequence takes up basic concepts in sociolinguistics and their
critique. We then discuss topics such as the linguistic analysis of
publics, performance and ritual, and language ideologies. Robin Shoaps,
Autumn, Susan Gal; Winter.
Historical
Linguistics
21300/31300. PQ: LING 20600/30600 & LING 20800/30800 or consent of
instructor. This course deals with the issue of variation and change in
language. Topics include types, rates, and explanations of change; the
differentiation of dialects and languages over time; determination and
classification of historical relationships among languages, and
reconstruction of ancestral stages; parallels with cultural and genetic
evolutionary theory; and implications for the description and explanation of
language in general. Staff, Winter.
Semantics I
22050/32050. PQ: LING 20400/30400 or consent of the instructor. This is the
first of two courses in formal semantics, designed to introduce students to
the core empirical phenomena of natural language semantics and to
familiarize them with the analytical tools involved in the investigation of
this domain. The focus of this class is truth-conditional meaning and the
compositional interpretation of phrases and sentences. Students will
develop skills in semantic analysis and argumentation by investigating
several empirical phenomena (including argument structure, modification,
quantification, ellipsis, variable binding and anaphora) and constructing a
theoretical framework for understanding and explaining their semantic
properties. Anastasia Giannakidou, Winter.
Semantics II
22100/32100. PQ: LING 20700/30700. This course is a continuation of LING
20700/30700 with emphasis on the interfaces with syntax and pragmatics.
Topics include temporal and aspectual operators in an event semantics with
times, as well as type-shifting, partitivity, and crosslinguistic variation
in NP-quantification. We also discuss negative polarity, scalarity, and
free choice phenomena with modality, as well as scope, indefinites, choice
functions, and the semantics of questions. Chris Kennedy, Spring.
Languages of the
World
23900/33900. A nontechnical general survey of human languages, examining
their diversity and uniformity across space and time. Major topics include
language families and historical relationships, linguistic typology and
language universals, sound and structural features of the world's
languages, and writing systems. Staff, Winter.
Themes in the
Development of 20th Century Linguistics
35160. John Goldsmith, Spring
We will take a broad perspective on the development of influential ideas in
20th century (and now 21st century) linguistics. The major themes which we
will study are these:
- Some
views on what makes a discipline a science: falsifiability
(Conjectures and Refutations, Karl Popper); developments during
periods of normal science, alternating with revolution (The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn).
- The
rise of modern linguistics as an empirical science. Breaking away from
traditional (general) grammar, to study the variety of languages that
are found: linguistics as a descriptive discipline. William Dwight
Whitney, Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, Zellig Harris.
- Distributionalism
as an alternative to general grammar. What do we do with alternative
distributionalist accounts? Accept them all, or find a way to rank
their usefulness and attractiveness to us as linguists? Length of
grammar as a selection criterion.
- The
phoneme: the first, great discovery of 20th century linguistics, and
the first to be dismissed by generativists. Its return to the scene in
lexical phonology.
- Jehovah’s
problem, Noah’s problem: What should you do when you think that
everything that has been done up to now is worthless? Flood the world?
- Linguistics
as an independent science (1860-?); linguistics as a branch of
cognitive psychology (1960-?); linguistics as a branch of biology
(2000-?). The rise of cognitive science as a discipline.
Contact Linguistics
36310. (=SLAV 30600) This seminar is intended to focus on current research
in contact linguistics in a global perspective, including but not limited
to the impact of languages of wider communication (e.g. English, Russian)
in contact with other languages. Topics to be covered include the
following: language/dialect contact, convergence and language shift
resulting in attrition and language endangerment and loss. Other
contact-induced linguistic changes and processes to be considered include
borrowing, code-switching, code-shifting, diglossia, loss of linguistic
restrictions and grammatical permeability, and the impact of language
contact in the emergence and/or historical development of languages. Lenore
Grenoble, Winter.
Introduction to Slavic
Linguistics
26400/36400. (=SLAV 20100/30100) The main goal of this course is to
familiarize students with the essential facts of the Slavic linguistic
history and with the most characteristic features of the modern Slavic
languages. In order to understand the development of Proto-Slavic into the
existing Slavic languages and dialects, we focus on a set of basic
phenomena. The course is specifically concerned with making students aware
of factors that led to the breakup of the Slavic unity and the emergence of
the individual languages. Drawing on the historical development, we touch
upon such salient typological characteristics of the modern languages such
as the rich set of morphophonemic alternations, aspect, free word order,
and agreement. Lenore Grenoble, Autumn.
Human
Being, Language, and Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics
26700/36700.
(=SLAV 21700/31700) This course explores the relatively new and developing
framework of cognitive linguistics. Topics include metaphor and metonymy,
prototypes, polysemy, categorization and conceptualization, blends, constructions,
the embodiment of meaning, construal, grammaticalization, and language
pedagogy. Readings are drawn from the work of
Croft, Janda, Fillmore, Lakoff and Johnson, Langacker, Sweetser, Talmy,
Turner, Wierzbicka, and others. Steven Clancy, Spring.
Programming for
Linguists
36601. Jason Riggle, Winter.
America: Society,
Polity, and Speech Community
27130. We explore the place of languages and of discourses about languages
in the history and present condition of how American mass society stands in
relation to the political structures of the North American (nation-)states
and to American speech communities. We address plurilingualisms of several
different origins (indigenous; immigrant) that have been incorporated into
the contemporary American speech community; the the social stratification
of English in a regime of standardization that draws speakers up into a
system of linguistic “register”; and how language itself has
become an issue-focus of American political struggles in the past and
contemporaneously. Michael Silverstein, Autumn.
Language, Power,
and Identity in Southeastern Europe: A Linguistics View of the Balkan
Crisis
27200/37200. (=ANTH 27400/37400, HUMA 27400, SLAV 23000/33000) This course
familiarizes students with the linguistic histories and structures that
have served as bases for the formation of modern Balkan ethnic identities
and that are being manipulated to shape current and future events. The
course is informed by the instructor's thirty years of linguistic research
in the Balkans as well as his experience as an adviser for the United
Nations Protection Forces in Former Yugoslavia and as a consultant to the
Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and other
organizations. Course content may vary in response to ongoing current
events. Victor Friedman, Winter.
Discourse Analysis
37300. Graduate level survey of approaches to analyzing language in
context, including interactional sociolinguistics, politeness theory,
ethnography of communication, speech act theory, information structure,
topic and focus, empathy and deixis, cohesion and narrative structure. Amy
Dahlstrom, Winter.
Advanced Methods in
Discourse Analysis
27310/37310. PQ:LING 31100-31200, LING 37300, or consent of instructor.
This class is intended for students who already have a background in
discourse or linguistic analysis and/or linguistic anthropology. In it,
students will gain hands-on experience in the collection, transcription and
analysis of discourse data. Regular class periods will be focused on the
theoretical background and conceptual tools relevant for the study of
language-in-use. Students will be introduced to contemporary usage-based
theories of language structure with the aim of enabling an understanding of
the cognitive, interactional and historical motivations for the shape of
linguistic resources, and situating our focus on language as a resource for
social action. We will also considerand evaluate through application to
interacitonal dataseveral different subdisciplinary approaches to and case
studies of, the discourse and culture nexus, with a focus on evaluating the
type of data-collection and ethnographic questions most suitable to
students’ own proposed research topics. During supplementary weekly
lab sessions, students will have an opportunity to learn and practice
software and recording technologies as well as to share their data with the
group in an informal workshop-style format. Robin Shoaps, Spring.
Talk Radio and
Discourses of the American Right
27320/37320. Talk radio -- traditionally associated with a conservative
political message -- has received much attention as a "new
medium" that plays a major role in American politics and the tenor of
public discourse. Rather than a critique of conservative political
philosophy, this seminar course is designed to enable students to bridge
fine-grained analyses of radio broadcasts with the macro-level concerns of
political groups. A major focus of the class will be on
"hands-on" analysis of talk radio data and examination of
communicative practices found there. Students will be responsible for
collecting and transcribing the talk radio broadcasts that will make up the
material for class analysis and discussion. The rigorous focus on data
collection and analysis will provide students with a basic training in
discourse analytic methods, while the nature of the material allows
examination of political discourse as an ethnographic object. Larger
questions to be considered include whether or not there is a unified rhetorical
style associated with the American Right; the nature of the relationship
between a message, its form and persuasion; and how moral stances are taken
in political contexts. Robin Shoaps, Winter.
Russian Discourse
Analysis
37330. PQ: Reading knowledge of Russian This course analyzes the linguistic
and information structures of naturally occurring spoken and written texts
in Russian. The course focuses on how connected discourse achieves both
global coherence and local cohesion. We will examine thematic structure
(including topic-comment and other information packaging strategies), use
of aspect in foregrounding/backgrounding distinctions, anaphora and
referent tracking, intonation, and other phenomena. Lenore Grenoble,
Autumn.
Sociology of
Language Endangerment
37550. Staff. Spring.
Romani Language and
Linguistics
37800. Staff, Spring.
Seminar on
Grammaticization
38000. We will study how some lexical items and syntactic constructions
specialize for specific grammatical functions. While critiquing some of the
current literature on the subject matter, we will examine trends followed
by different languages. Part of the critique will involve determining how
theories of grammaticization are connected to the traditional practice of
historical linguistics and what major issues arise today. Salikoko Mufwene,
Autumn.
Computational
Linguistics
28600/38600. This is a course in the Computer Science department, intended
for upper-level undergraduates, or graduate students, who have a good C++
background. We will look at several current topics in natural language
processing, dividing our time between discussing material in the textbook
and material in current research papers, and getting our hands dirty with
code and corpora. In line with most current work, our emphasis will be on
systems that draw conclusions from training data rather than relying on the
encoding of generalizations obtained by humans studying the data. As a
consequence of that, in part, and also because we will stand to learn more
about natural language if we do so, we will make an effort not to focus on
English, but to look at a range of human languages in our treatments. John
Goldsmith, Autumn.
Reading and
Research Course
29700. PQ: Consent of instructor and undergraduate adviser. Students are
required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
B.A. Paper
Preparation Course
29900. PQ: Consent of instructor and undergraduate adviser. Students are
required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
The Ecology of
Language Evolution
41900. Assuming that a language is a Lamarckian species, this course
explores all sorts of internal and external factors that can be identified
as part of its ecology. Our goal is to articulate the notion explicitly and
to operationalize it in order to account for aspects of language evolution.
This process is invoked here to cover not only changes in the structure of
a language, but also processes of language spread, speciation into new
varieties (language birth), and language death. In the general context of
language co-existence and competition, we would like to understand the role
of speakers as agents of evolution. Prerequisites: Any course in the
socio-historical linguistics group, or consent of the instructor. Salikoko
Mufwene, Winter.
Seminar on
Semantics: "The Grammar of Comparison"
42100. This seminar will provide a comprehensive study of the syntax and
semantics of comparative constructions and their relation to other aspects of
the grammar, with an eye towards ultimately building a better understanding
the principles underlying cross-linguistic variation in the expression of
comparison. Topics to be discussed include (but will not necessarily be
limited to): comparison, quantification and scope; comparison and
negation/negative polarity; comparison, ellipsis and the phrasal/clausal
distinction; superlatives; and the syntax/semantics of measurement. Chris
Kennedy, Autumn.
Seminar on
Languages of the Americas
45200. For students who are currently working on an indigenous language of
the Americas, or who are preparing to begin work on such a language, or who
simply wish to find out more about the languages of North, Central, and
South America. Students will give two presentations each: first, at the
beginning of the quarter, a general sketch of the language they choose;
second, at the end of the quarter, a more in-depth investigation of a
particular linguistic problem in their language. (Students not currently
working on a particular language will choose one to focus on for the
quarter.) The class meetings in the middle of the quarter not taken up with
student presentations will be devoted to topics to be determined by the
interest of the seminar's participants (e.g. reduplication, clitics,
irrealis mood, etc.). Amy Dahlstrom, Spring.
Syntax Seminar:
"Abstractness in Syntax"
46000. All theories of syntax posit abstract representations, elements
which do not have measurable physical correlates but which can be used to
explain syntactic behavior. These abstract representations fall into two
broad classes: constituent-abstract (namely phrase structure) and
phono-abstract (namely words or phrases that, while syntactically and
semantically active, have no segmental phonological representation). Some
recent theories have attempted to do away with phono-abstract structures
(in particular 'wysiwyg' theories). This seminar aims to review critically
the literature on these questions, weighing the relative advantages and
disadvantages of such elements, and concentrating on phono-abstract lexical
items (null words, morphemes) that provide structural uniformity, and
phono-abstract phrases such as those typically thought to be present in a
variety of elliptical structures. We will also consider the role of (the
often only implicit theoretical desideratum of) analytical uniformity
present to various extents in syntactic theories. Jason Merchant, Winter.
Seminar on Language
Contact
47000. Lenore Grenoble, Winter.
Linguistics
Proseminar
47800. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Research Seminar
47900. The course aims to guide students on their research in a structured
way and to present professionalization information crucial to success in
the field. The course is organized largely around working on the research
paper, with the goal of making it a conference-presentable and
journal-publishable work. Topics covered include abstracts, publishing,
handouts, presentation skills, course design, creating and maintaining a
cv, cover letters, webpages, and in general everything that is required for
you to successfully compete for jobs in linguistics. Anastasia Giannakidou,
Winter.
Seminar on
Semantics
52100. Anastasia Giannakidou, Spring.
Phonology Seminar:
"Phonotactics Part 1"
52400. Alan Yu, Autumn.
Prerequisites: LING 20600/30600 and LING 20800/30800.
What is phonotactic knowledge? Chomsky and Halle, for example, recognize a
three-way distinction: the well-formed (brick), the possible but
nonexisting (?blick), and the ill-formed (*bnick). In this seminar, we will
focus on recent experimental work that assesses speakers’ knowledge
of phonotactics and the role of phonotactics in synchronic and diachronic
phonology. (This is the first of a two-quarter sequence phonology seminar
on phonotactics. Jason Riggle will be teaching the second part of this
seminar in the Spring quarter focusing on the computational modeling of
phonotactic knowledge.) Sample questions we will address in the seminar
include:
- What
counts as phonotactic knowledge?
- What
is the nature of grammaticality judgment?
- How
do people acquire phonotactic knowledge?
- What
is the role of phonotactic knowledge in language change?
Phonology Seminar:
"Phonotactics Part 2"
52400. Jason Riggle, Spring.
Prerequisites: LING 20600/30600 and LING 20800/30800.
Seminar on
Morphology
52900. Jerry Sadock, Spring
Anthropology/Linguistics
Seminar
57710. Michael Silverstein, Spring
Anthropology/Linguistics
Seminar: "Ethnographic Lexicography"
57712. Michael Silverstein, Autumn
Reading and Research Course
60000. PQ: Consent of instructor and graduate adviser. Staff. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
LANGUAGES IN
LINGUISTICS
Introductory Modern
Hebrew I, II, III
20100-20200- 20300/30100-30200-30300. (=HEBR 10501-10502-10503, JWSC
25000-25100-25200, JWSG 35000-35100-35200) This course introduces students
to reading, writing, and speaking modern Hebrew. All four language skills
are emphasized: comprehension of written and oral materials; reading of
nondiacritical text; writing of directed sentences, paragraphs, and
compositions; and speaking. Students learn the Hebrew root pattern system
and the seven basic verb conjugations in both the past and present tenses,
as well as simple future. At the end of the year, students can conduct
short conversations in Hebrew, read materials designed to their level, and
write short essays. Ariela Finkelstein. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Intermediate Modern
Hebrew I, II, III
20400-20500-20600/30400-30500-30600. (=HEBR 20501-20502-20503, JWSC
25300-25400-25500, JWSG 35300-35400-35500) PQ: LGLN 20300/30300 or
equivalent. This course is devised for students who had previously taken
either modern or biblical Hebrew courses. The main objective is to provide
students with the skills necessary to approach modern Hebrew prose, both
fiction and nonfiction. To achieve this formidable task, students are
provided with a systematic examination of the complete verb structure. Many
syntactic structures are introduced, including simple clauses, and
coordinate and compound sentences. At this level, students not only write and
speak extensively, but are also required to analyze grammatically and
contextually all of the materials assigned. Ariela Finkelstein. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
Advanced Modern
Hebrew I, II, III
23000-23100-23200/33000-33100-33200. (=HEBR 30501-30502-30503, JWSC
25600-25700-25800, JWSG 35600-35700-35800) PQ: LGLN 20600/30600 or
equivalent. This course assumes that students have full mastery of the
grammatical and lexical content at the intermediate level. However, there
is a shift from a reliance on the cognitive approach to an emphasis on the
expansion of various grammatical and vocabulary-related subjects. Students
are introduced to sophisticated and more complex syntactic constructions,
and instructed how to transform simple sentences into more complicated
ones. The exercises address the creative effort on the part of the student,
and the reading segments are longer and more challenging in both style and
content. The language of the texts reflects the literary written medium
rather than the more informal spoken style, which often dominates the
introductory and intermediate texts. Ariela Finkelstein. Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
Elementary Georgian
I, II, III
22100-22200-22300/32100-32200-32300. This course introduces students to
Modern Georgian grammar primarily through reading exercises that relate to
Georgian historical, social, and literary traditions. Supplemental
activities that encourage writing, speaking, and listening skills are also
included in this course. Tamra Wysocki. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Advanced Georgian
I, II, III
22700-22800-22900/32700-32800-32900. This course emphasizes more advanced
language skills and vocabulary building through independent reading and
writing projects as well as class exercises involving media such as
newspaper and magazine articles, videoclips, radio programs, movies, and
additional sound recordings and online materials. Tamra Wysocki. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
Advanced Modern
Hebrew I, II, III
23000,23100, 23200/33000,33100, 33200. (=HEBR 30501-30502-30503, JWSC
25600-25700-25800, JWSG 35600-35700-35800) PQ: LGLN 20600/30600 or
equivalent. This course assumes that students have full mastery of the
grammatical and lexical content at the intermediate level. However, there
is a shift from a reliance on the cognitive approach to an emphasis on the
expansion of various grammatical and vocabulary-related subjects. Students
are introduced to sophisticated and more complex syntactic constructions,
and instructed how to transform simple sentences into more complicated
ones. The exercises address the creative effort on the part of the student,
and the reading segments are longer and more challenging in both style and
content. The language of the texts reflects the literary written medium
rather than the more informal spoken style, which often dominates the
introductory and intermediate texts. Ariela Finkelstein. Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
Old Church Slavonic
25100/35100. (=SLAV 22000/32000) PQ: Knowledge of another Slavic language
or good knowledge of one or two other old Indo-European languages required;
SLAV 20100/30100 recommended. This course is an introduction to the
language of the oldest Slavic texts. It begins with a brief historical
overview of the relationship of Old Church Slavonic to Common Slavic and
the other Slavic languages. This is followed by a short outline of Old
Church Slavonic inflectional morphology. The remainder of the course is
spent in the reading and grammatical analysis of original texts in Cyrillic
or Cyrillic transcription of the original Glagolitic. Victor Friedman,
Winter.
Elementary Yiddish
I, II, III
27200-27300-27400/37200-37300-37400. (=JWSC 20300, YDDH 20300) This course
is an introduction to Yiddish language and culture. All four language
skills – speaking, listening, comprehension, reading and writing
– are stressed to insure that students acquire a basic command of
Yiddish. Additionally, the course introduces the cultural and historical
context for the Yiddish language through film, music (klezmer), and song.
Yiddish conversation skills will be developed through role plays and
listening to native speakers on CD in language lab and/or at home. Jan
Schwarz. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Romani Language and
Linguistics
27800/37800. Staff, Spring
Lak Morphonemic and
Syntactic Analysis-I
36550. (=EEUR 2500/35000) Prerequisites: LGLN 26500/36500. Using
linguistically close readings of authentic texts, students will deepen
their understanding of the structure of Lak through direct engagement with
the linguistic analysis of the texts. Victor Friedman, Winter.
Lak Morphonemic and
Syntactic Analysis-II
36551. (=EEUR 2500/35000) Prerequisites: LGLN 36550. Using linguistically
close readings of authentic texts, students will deepen their understanding
of the structure of Lak through direct engagement with the linguistic
analysis of the texts. Victor Friedman, Spring.
AMERICAN SIGN
LANGUAGE (ASLG)
American Sign Language I, II, III
10100-10200-10300. American Sign Language is the language of the deaf in
the United States and much of Canada. It is a full-fledged autonomous
language, unrelated to English or other spoken languages. This introductory
course teaches the student basic vocabulary and grammatical structure, as
well as aspects of deaf culture. Drucilla Ronchen. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Intermediate
American Sign Language I, II, III
10400-10500-10600. PQ: LGLN 10300. In this course we continue to increase
grammatical structure, receptive and expressive skills, conversational
skills, basic linguistic convergence, and knowledge of idioms. Field trip
required. Drucilla Ronchen. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
SWAHILI (SWAH)
Swahili I, II, III
25200-25300-25400/35200-35300-35400. This course is designed to help
students acquire communicative competence in Swahili and a basic
understanding of its structures. Through a variety of exercises, students
develop both oral and writing skills. Fidele Mpiranya, Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
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