A general introduction at the graduate level to the analysis of sentence structure. The approach taken is that of contemporary generative-transformational grammar.

First half of a year-long introduction to the formal study of phonology. Basic concepts in articulatory phonetics; the distribution of sounds (phonemes and allophones); underlying and surface forms, and how to relate them using both ordered-rule and surface-constraint approaches. The survey of theoretical topics in this term includes distinctive features (context, organization, underspecification); the autosegmental representation of tone; and the theory of phonological domains and their interaction with morphological and syntactic constituency. Emphasizes hands-on analysis of a wide range of data.

Speech: its linguistic transcription, its quantitative physical description, and its relationship to the categories and dimensions of language structure and use. The physical basis of speech: acoustics, vocal tract anatomy and physiology, hearing and speech perception, articulation and motor control. Phonetic variation and change. Prosody: stress, intonation, phrasing speech rate. Phonetic instrumentation, the design and interpretation of phonetic experiments, and the use of phonetic evidence in linguistic research, with emphasis on computer techniques. Introduction to speech signal processing. Speech technology: introduction to speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech coding. This course will emphasize the phonetics of natural speech, and its connections to issues in other areas of linguistics and cognitive science.

Evolutionary linguistics Scholars have been interested in the origins and evolution of language for hundreds of years, and work was published on the topic throughout the twentieth century. The end of the century, however, saw a considerable upsurge in serious scientific interest, leading to increasing interdisciplinary communication on the topic and the development of new empirical tools. This course offers an introduction to the literature in this field, bringing together research from a diverse range of disciplines, and laying out what questions remain and how they might possibly be answered.

This course is a graduate seminar in neurolinguistics. We will explore language in the brain through readings and discussion.

Game Theory has provided a new way of looking at linguistic meaning, particularly pragmatics (the use of language). This course will survey the use of Game Theory in linguistics as well as develop the techniques for studying signaling behavior. We will look at the formal foundations of signaling with particular attention paid to games of incomplete information (games where even which game is being played is uncertain). This will allow us to extend pragmatics beyond Gricean conversational maxims to areas like deception and polite signaling.

This course provides an introduction to formal semantics for natural language. The main aim is to develop a semantic system that provides a compositional interpretation of natural language sentences. We discuss various of the aspects central to meaning composition, including function application, modification, quantification, and binding, as well as issues in the syntax-semantics interface. The basic formal tools relevant for semantic analysis, including set theory, propositional logic, and predicate logic are also introduced.

This course traces the linguistic history of English from its earliest reconstructable ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, to the present. We focus especially on significant large-scale changes, such as the restructuring of the verb system in Proto-Germanic, the intricate interaction of sound changes in the immediate prehistory of Old English, syntactic change in Middle English, and the diversification of English dialects since 1750.

This course is an upper level undergraduate/graduate seminar in neurolinguistics. We will explore language in the brain through readings and discussions.

This tutorial allows students to deal in a concentrated manner with selected major topics in linguistics by means of extensive readings and research. Two topics are studied during the semester, exposing students to a range of sophisticated linguistic questions. Senior status or permission of the instructor to enroll. Majors only.