Ling 001 Readings

This page lists the course readings for the Spring 2006 offering of Linguistics 001: Introduction to Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania (click for the syllabus or schedule). Most weeks include a chapter from The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker (the course textbook). The remaining readings are available as web links.

Many of these are pdf files, for which you will need the free Acrobat Reader. Some are copyrighted, in which case you are permitted to use them only for the purposes of this class and cannot distribute them to others.
For public web pages, the main link is given as "html"; but if that server happens to be down when you try to access it, archived copies (without images) can often be found under the "alternate" link. Please notify the professor of any broken links.

The readings are subject to change, so be sure to check this page every week. If you don't have the password for course materials — the same one used to read the lecture notes — contact your TA.

Jump to readings for week 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 .

Week	Required Readings	Optional Readings
1	The Language Instinct, chapter 1 (pp. 1-11) and chapter 12 (pp. 382-418). Geoffrey K. Pullum and Rodney Huddleston (2002), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, chapter 1, pp. 2-13: "Prescriptivism, tradition, and the justification of grammars", with adjacent material. [pdf] Henry Churchyard (no date), "Singular 'their' in Jane Austen and elsewhere". [html; alternate] Charles Fillmore (1997), "A Linguist Looks at the Ebonics Debate", Center for Applied Linguistics. [html; alternate]
2	The Language Instinct, chapter 2 (pp. 12-43). Harry Markowicz (2001), "American Sign Language: Fact and Fancy." Gallaudet University. Read the 7 myths linked on the page; the remainder is optional but recommended. [html; alternate, in one page] Gregory Hickok, Ursula Bellugi and Edward S. Klima (2001), "Sign Language in the Brain", Scientific American, June, 58-65. [pdf] Ann Senghas, Sotaro Kita, and Aslı Özyürek (2004), "Children Creating Core Properties of Language: Evidence from an Emerging Sign Language in Nicaragua", Science, September 17, 1779-1782. [pdf]	Howard M. Lenhoff, Paul P. Wang, Frank Greenberg and Ursula Bellugi (1997) "Williams Syndrome and the Brain", Scientific American, December, pp. 68-73. [pdf] John Horgan (1995) "A sign is born: Language unfolds among deaf Nicaraguan children", Scientific American, December, pp. 18-19. [pdf] Marie Coppola and Elissa L. Newport (2005) "Grammatical Subjects in home sign: Abstract linguistic structure in adult primary gesture systems without linguistic input", PNAS. [html]
3	The Language Instinct, chapter 6 (pp. 153-189). "Phonetics", from the Language Samples Project at the University of Arizona. Read the lessons on Physics/Physiology, Consonants I and II, and Vowels. [html] Neil A. Stillings, Steven E. Weisler, Christopher H. Chase, Mark H. Feinstein, Jay L. Garfield, and Edwina L. Rissland. 1995. Cognitive Science: An Introduction, 2nd edition. MIT Press. Chapter 6, "Linguistics: The representation of meaning", pp. 215-240 only. [pdf]	W. Wayt Gibbs (2002), "From Mouth to Mind: New insights into how language warps the brain", Scientific American, August, p. 26. [pdf] Overview of phonetics at the University of Lausanne. [html] Free phonetics fonts (optional for homework assignments). [html] Interactive IPA charts with sounds. [html] Access to sound clips in dozens of languages at UCLA [html], including all the IPA symbols [html] and sample English words. [html] Resources for studying spoken English, University of Washington. [html]
4	Andrew Lawler (2004), "The Slow Deaths of Writing", Science , July 2, 30-33. [pdf] Keith Rayner, Barbara R. Foorman, Charles A. Perfetti, David Pesetsky and Mark S. Seidenberg (2002), "How should reading be taught?" Scientific American, March, pp. 84-91. [pdf] Sally E. Shaywitz (1996). "Dyslexia", Scientific American, November, pp. 98-104. [pdf]	E. Paulesu, J.-F. Démonet, F. Fazio, E. McCrory, V. Chanoine, N. Brunswick, S. F. Cappa, G. Cossu, M. Habib, C. D. Frith, U. Frith (2001), "Dyslexia: Cultural Diversity and Biological Unity", Science, March 16 (vol. 291), pp. 2165-2167. [pdf] Omniglot [html] and Ancient Scripts [html]; these sites are interesting but don't trust every detail. Keith Rayner, Barbara R. Foorman, Charles A. Perfetti, David Pesetsky and Mark S. Seidenberg (2001), "How Psychological Science Informs the Teaching of Reading", Psychological Science in the Public Interest 2.2, November 2001. [pdf]
5	The Language Instinct, chapter 4 (pp. 74-118). Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch (2000), The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees program. Chapters 1 and 2. [html]
6	The Language Instinct, chapter 5 (pp. 119-152). Anderson, Stephen R. (2003), "Morphology", vol. III, pp. 78-83. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, MacMillan. [html]
7	The Language Instinct, chapter 7 (pp. 190-230). Geoffrey K. Pullum and Rodney Huddleston (2002), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, chapter 1, pp. 33-41: "Semantics, pragmatics, and meaning relations". [pdf] The following short discussions are from The MIT Encylopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (MITECS): Barbara Partee (2001), "Semantics". [html] Laurence Horn and Gregory Ward (2001), "Pragmatics". [html] Sam Glucksberg (2001), "Metaphor". [html]	The lexical semantics of "May we come in?" [html]
8	The Language Instinct, chapter 3 (pp. 44-73). Terry Au (2001), "Language and thought", MITECS. [html] Paul Kay (2001), "Color categorization", MITECS. [html]
9	The Language Instinct, chapter 8 (pp. 231-264). W. Wayt Gibbs (2002). "Saving dying languages", Scientific American, August, pp. 78-85. [pdf] Donald A. Ringe (2003). "Language change: Some basics", class handout, University of Pennsylvania. [pdf]	Handouts by Ringe on "Classification of the world's major languages" [pdf] and "Classification of the Indo-European languages" [pdf] Elizabeth Pennisi (2002), "Speaking in Tongues", Science, February 27 (vol. 303), pp. 1321-1323. [pdf] Michael Balter (2002), "Search for the Indo-Europeans", Science, February 27 (vol. 303), pp. 1323-1326. [pdf] Jared Diamond and Peter Bellwood (2003), "Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions", Science vol. 300 (25 April 2003), pp. 597-603. [pdf]
10	These short readings are from the PBS website accompanying the series "Do you speak American?" Connie Eble (2005), "Sociolinguistics Basics" [html] Carmen Fought, "Are Dialects Fading?" [html] J.K. Chambers, "Talk the Talk?" [html] John Fought, "R-ful Southern" [html] Matthew Gordon, "Vowel Shifting" [html] John Fought, "Gatekeeping" [html] Dennis R. Preston, "They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City" [html] Dennis Baron, "The Legendary English-Only Vote of 1795" [html] Labov, William (1995), "The case of the missing copula: The interpretation of zeroes in African-American English". In L. R. Gleitman and M. Liberman (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, Volume 1: Language, 25-54. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2nd edition. [pdf, screen-readable only] Jim Quinn (1997), "Phillyspeak", The Philadelphia Citypaper, August 14–21, 1997. [html; alternate]
11	The Language Instinct, chapter 9 (pp. 265-301). Lila Gleitman and Paul Bloom (2001), "Language Acquisition", MITECS. [html] Marina Nespor (2001), "Acquisition of Phonology", MITECS. [html] Paul Bloom and Lila Gleitman (2001), "Acquisition of Word Meaning", MITECS. [html]
12	The Language Instinct, chapter 10 (pp. 302-339). Nina F. Dronkers (2001), "Neural Basis of Language", MITECS. [html] Michael S. Gazzaniga and Jeffrey J. Hutsler (2001), "Hemispheric Specialization", MITECS. [html] David A. Swinney (2001), "Aphasia", MITECS. [html]
13	The Language Instinct, chapter 11 (pp. 340-381). Marc D. Hauser (2001), "Primate Cognition", MITECS. [html] Juliane Kaminski, Josep Call, and Julia Fischer (2004), "Word Learning in a Domestic Dog: Evidence for 'Fast Mapping' ", Science, June 11 (vol. 304), pp. 1682-83. [pdf] Paul Bloom (2004), "Can a dog learn a word?", Science, June 11 (vol. 304), pp. 1605-06. [pdf] Ray Jackendoff (1999), "Possible stages in the evolution of the language capacity", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3.7, 272-279. [pdf]	Morten H. Christiansen and Simon Kirby (2003), "Language evolution: Consensus and controversies", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7.7, 300-307. [pdf]
14	The Language Instinct, chapter 13 (pp. 419-448). Kenneth Wexler (2001), "Innateness of Language", MITECS. [html] Donald Brown (2001), "Human Universals", MITECS. [html]	Harry Frankfurt (1986), "On Bullshit", now available as a book (2005). [html; see also videos]