LECTURE SLIDES
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lecture 2: Introduction cont.
Lecture 3: Variation in word order; "design features" of human language
Lecture 4: Biological basis for language; aspects of our "subconscious" knowledge of our native language.
Lecture 5: The "critical period" hypothesis; introducing UG
Lecture 6: Syntax; head directionality
Lecture 7: VSO-type languages (Welsh); French vs. English; why is the verb always second in German?
Lecture 8: VOS, OVS, and OSV languages; Mohawk and a crash course in morphology
Lecture 9: Mohawk polysynthetic word structure, subject and object drop, and freedom of word order.
Lecture 10: Optional polysynthesis: Chichewa, Slavey, and absence of Reverse Chichewa
Lecture 11: Verb serialization; adjective neutralization; accusative vs. ergative languages; the wh-parameter
Lecture 12: The anaphor binding parameter; wrap-up of parameters
Lecture 13: Language change: lexical change; semantic change; morphological change.
Lecture 14: Morphological change cont., syntactic change. Basic introduction to phonetics.
Lecture 15: Phonological change; lexical diffusion
Lecture 16: Historical linguistics, reconstruction, and causes of language change.
Lecture 17: Parametric appraoch to syntactic change; Introduction to sociolinguistics and dialectal variation
Lecture 18: Regional dialects; African American English, Chicano English; debunking some misconceived ideas about language variation
Lecture 19: More on language and society, Styles, Slang, and language and gender
Lecture 20: Pidgins and Creoles
Lecture 21: Sign language
Lecture 22: Language death
Lectures 23 and 24: Presentations
Review: List of the topics we covered in this class
added on 2009-02-08 at 5:08 pm
updated on 2009-05-07 at 12:37 pm