Human language viewed from a social and historical perspective. Students will acquire the tools of linguistic analysis through interactive computer programs, covering phonetics, phonology and morphology, in English and other languages. These techniques will then be used to trace social differences in the use of language, and changing patterns of social stratification. The course will focus on linguistic changes in progress in American society, in both mainstream and minority communities, and the social problems associated with them. Students will engage in field projects to search for the social correlates of linguistic behavior, and use quantitative methods to analyze the results.

A general introduction to the nature, history and use of human language, speech and writing. Topics include the biological basis of human language, and analogous systems in other creatures; relations to cognition, communication, and social organization; sounds, forms and meanings in the world's languages; the reconstruction of linguistic history and the family tree of languages; dialect variation and language standardization; language and gender; language learning by children and adults; the neurology of language and language disorders; the nature and history of writing systems. Intended for any undergraduate interested in language or its use, this course is also recommended as an introduction for students who plan to major in linguistics.

A general introduction to the nature, history and use of human language, speech and writing. Topics include the biological basis of human language, and analogous systems in other creatures; relations to cognition, communication, and social organization; sounds, forms and meanings in the world's languages; the reconstruction of linguistic history and the family tree of languages; dialect variation and language standardization; language and gender; language learning by children and adults; the neurology of language and language disorders; the nature and history of writing systems. Intended for any undergraduate interested in language or its use, this course is also recommended as an introduction for students who plan to major in linguistics.

Students approaching the dissertation level will explore with faculty frontier areas of research on linguistic change and variation. Topics addressed in recent years include: experimental investigation of the reliability of syntactic judgments; the development of TMA systems in creoles; transmission of linguistic change across generations. The course may be audited by those who have finished their course work or taken for credit in more than one year. This course will have different topics each term.

Topics in Phonetics

Topics in Psycholinguistics

The first part of the course expands the system from LING 580 to include intensional contexts. In particular, we discuss analyses of modals, attitude verbs, and conditionals, as well as the scope of noun phrases in modal environments. The second part of the course discusses a selection of topics from current work in semantics, such as the semantics of questions, tense and aspect, donkey anaphora, indefinites, genericity, degree constructions, events and situations, domain restriction, plurality and focus.

This is a seminar on the acquisition of a first language by children. We will discuss the acquisition of the meanings of words and sentences, and the pragmatic and social interpretation of sentences in context. We will also consider how language relates to other cognitive systems and to human social reasoning. Particular emphasis will be placed on discovering the mechanisms children possess that enable them to learn and use language.

The second half of a year-long introduction to the formal study of natural language syntax. Topics to be covered include grammatical architecture; derivational versus representational statement of syntactic principles; movement and locality; the interface of syntax and semantics; argument structure; and other topics. The emphasis is on reading primary literature and discussing theoretical approaches, along with detailed case-studies of specific syntactic phenomena in different languages.