Detailed study of topics in syntax and semantics, e.g., pronominalization, negation, complementation. Topics vary from term to term.

Readings in modern morphological theory and evaluation of hypotheses in the light of synchronic and diachronic evidence from various languages.

Topics in Phonetics

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.

The generative literature on language acquisition has produced many accurate and insightful descriptions of child language, but relatively few explicit accounts of learning that incorporate the role of individual experience into the knowledge of specific languages. Likewise, the experimental approach to language development has identified processes that could provide the bridge between the data and the grammar, but questions remain whether laboratory findings can sufficiently generalize to the full range of linguistic complexity. This course is an overview of research in language acquisition with particular focus on the important connection between what children know and how they come to know it.

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.