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GRADES
 
 
 
This course is an introduction to the main issues in the study of cross-linguistic variation, particularly from a formalist perspective. We will be mainly concerned with characterizing the notion "possible human language", showing how linguistic diversity is actually constrained and that certain universal principles hold of all languages. We will also discuss the kind of explanations for linguistic diversity that are typically given by two major schools of linguistic thought. Linguistic data will be drawn from both familiar as well as the so-called “exotic” languages, and linguistic phenomena will relate primarily to aspects of word formation (morphology) and sentence structure (syntax). In the second half of the term, we will discuss diversity in human language across space (e.g., geographical and social dialects) and time (language change), as well as “language emergence” as in the case of pidgins and creoles, “language death” and the case of endangered languages, minority languages as in the case of sign languages.

If it helps, you may think of the course as having three major parts, all relating to the issue of language diversity (check the class schedule here). In Part I, we start with a general introduction to the study of linguistic typology and the major issues typically discussed in this regard. Then we move on to Part II, where we look in detail at several instances of variation in syntactic phenomena (i.e., those related to sentence structures) as well as morphological phenomena (i.e., those related to word structure). In Part III of the course, we spend most of the second half of the term discussing linguistic diversity in historical and sociological terms, as well as issues relating to language birth and language death. We will end the course with a discussion of another fascinating aspect of linguistic diversity, that is, sign language systems, where the manual-visual modality replaces the audio-oral modality of spoken languages, thus helping us further in our pursuit to answering the fundamental question: "What is a possible human language?"

Should be a fun course. Welcome Everyone!