Introduction to Linguistics - Content

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:35:23 -0400

Welcome to the fascinating world of the study of human language!

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:25:15 -0400

Class meets twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 2:50pm to 4:05, in Monroe 314.
Lookinng forward to seeing you there!

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:25:16 -0400

This is an introductory course in linguistics. The main topics will include the nature of human language as distinct from other communication systems; the subsystems of linguistic knowledge, i.e., sound patterns (phonology), word-formation (morphology), sentence structure (syntax), and meaning (semantics); language and the brain; language acquisition; language use in context; geographical and social dialects; sign language and historical development of language and language change.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:21:37 -0400

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK

Linguistics: An Introduction by William B. McGregor. 2009. Contiuum Publishing Group.
Accompanying website to the textbook: http://mcgregor.continuumbooks.net/

Readings will be assigned from the required textbook as well as from some supplementary materials. These will be mainly articles or chapters from books. Many of these will be made available through electronic reserve, and links to them will be listed here as well as on the syllabus page.

Recommended books:
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. By William O'Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. Fifth Edition. 2005. This is on physical reserve in the library.

An introduction to language by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams.Boston: Thomson/Heinle, 2003. This is on physical reserve in the library.

Also on reserve is David Crystal's "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language". It's a good reference for some of the topics that we'll be covering in this class.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:25:16 -0400

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Attendance and class preparation: Please make sure you come to every class. Missing class is only acceptable for one of the academically legitimate excuses. It’s impossible to do well on homework problems or write a good project report without attending classes regularly. And by “impossible” I really mean “impossible”.

Also, make sure you read the textbook as well as all materials on reserve or on the course website that are assigned in class every week BEFORE coming to class. It will help you (and help me too) a lot if you come to class prepared.

There will be FIVE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS to test your understanding of the material covered in class and to help you work on linguistic problems on your own, applying the same reasoning and analytical tools that we’ll be discussing in class. Each homework counts for 8% of your overall grade. So, take them seriously! While I do not mind you discussing assignment questions with your colleagues, bear in mind that the work you turn in has to be yours, and yours alone. Copying someone else’s work will be treated as cheating, will receive no credit, and will be subject to the consequences of violating academic integrity, as described in the College’s Academic Honesty Statement given at the bottom of this page.

In addition, each student will be required to work on a LANGUAGE ADOPTION PROJECT (LAP) for an unfamiliar or endangered language, and turn in a 10-page report on this particular language. Details on this project will be posted here in due time. The LAP is due on December 4^th by 1pm. A brief project proposal is also required by November 2^nd. A list of suggested languages and resources for the project will be posted on the class website soon. Please note that no two LAP projects can be on the same language. Should two students select the same language, choice will be granted on a “first-come, first-serve” basis. In addition, each student will be required to do a five-minute presentation on their LAP language in the final week fo classes. The LAP is worth 15% of your overall grade (10% for the written report plus 5% for the presentation).

Finally, students are required to take TWO TAKE-HOME EXAMS: a midterm and a final. The midterm exam will be assigned on October 21 and is due on October 28. The final exam, which will be comprehensive, will be assigned on December 7 and is due on December 10.

Here's how each course requirement contributes to your overall percentage in the course:

Class attendance and participation (including doing the readings)	5%
5 Assignments	40%
LAP + in-class presentation	15%
Take-home Midterm Exam	20%
Take-home Final Exam	20%

Here's how your letter grade will be assigned:

A	95% plus
A-	90% plus to 95%
B+	87% plus to 90%
B	83% plus to 87%
B-	80% plus to 83%
C+	75% plus to 80%
C	70% plus to 75%
C-	65% plus to 70%
D	50% plus to 65%
F	Less than 50%

Honor code

I will follow the Middlebury College’s Academic Honesty Statement as described here:

http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/acadinfo/honorcode/statement.htm

Please make sure to write the Honor Code Pledge "I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment," on both exams as well as the research paper (use “We” in this latter case, since you’ll be working in pairs). There’s no need to write the pledge on the assignments since I do not mind your discussing homework problems together. Make sure, however, to turn in your own work. Copying someone else’s work on assignments will still count as cheating, will receive no credit, not to mention the consequences of violating academic integrity.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:25:16 -0400

Usama Soltan
Assistant Professor of Arabic
Farrell House, #206
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

Email: usoltan@middlebury.edu
Office phone extension: x5869

Office Hours:
Monday and Friday 11:15am-12:45pm, and by appointment (e-mail or call to make an appointment)

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:29:14 -0400

This is the (tentative) class-by-class schedule that I envisage for this course. As usual, there will be slight changes here and there as the term unfolds, but it should give you a clear idea on what we intend to cover over the semester. This is also where a lot of the course materials will be uploaded (readings, assignments, exams). It's a convenient way of grouping (almost) everything in one table on a single page. So, do check here often.

Date	Topics	Readings and relevant links	Assignments and events
Sept 7	What is linguistics about? The nature of human language Lecture slides	Chapter 1 Read Nunberg and Wasow's overview of the field of linguistics	Questionnaire: Please fill in the questionnaire and send it to me by e-mail before Wednesday's class.
Sept 9	The nature of human language cont. "Design features" Lecture Slides	Chapter 1 cont. Chapter 10 Jackendoff's Patterns in the mind: Chapters 1-3	Spiders courtship gesturing Fiddler crabs claw-waving Bees dancing Conversations with KOKO
Sept 14	The nature of human language cont. The biological basis of language Lecture Slides	Chapters 1 and 10 cont. Jackendoff's chapters cont.	HW1 assigned: .pdf
Sept 16	More on the biological basis for language Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism Goals of linguistic theory Lecture Slides	Chapter 8 (section on language and the brain) Broca's aphasia Wernicke's aphasia PET scan experiment
Sept 21	Phonetics: Consonants Lecture Slides	Chapter 2 The IPA chart Some phonetics fun! International Dialects of English Archive Interactive saggital Section website	HW1 due
Sept 23	Phonetics cont. Vowels Coarticulation Lecture Slides	Link to some phonetics resrouces A video of some English phonetic transcriptions Chapter 2	HW2 assigned: .pdf
Sept 28	Syllable structure Prosodies (aka Suprasegmentals) Lecture Slides	Chapter 2
Sept 30	Phonology: Phonemes and allophones Lecture slides	Chapter 2	HW2 due (deadline extended till 12:30pm on Friday Oct 2)
Oct 5	Phonology cont.: Phonological rules Lecture slides	Chapter 2	HW3 assigned: .pdf
Oct 7	Morphology Morphemes and Allomorphs Lecture slides	Chapter 3	First talk in the Linguistics series this Fall “Study Abroad in China: Do Students Become More Fluent?” by Hang Du (Chinese Dept)
Oct 12	Fall Break	Have fun!
Oct 14	The Lexicon Processes of word formation Morphological typology Lecture slides	Chapter 4 Chapter 11, pp. 255-265	HW3 due
Oct 19	English plural allomorphy Turkish Vowel Harmony Morphological typology cont. Lecture slides	Section on Turkish vowel harmony from Isac and Reiss' book "I-language" Chapter 4
Oct 21	Syntax: Constituency Lecture slides	Chapter 5	Midterm assigned: pdf
Oct 26	Syntax cont.: Phrase structure grammar Lecture slides	Chapter 5 Also make sure to read Chapter 5 from O'grady et al's book on reserve in the library
Oct 28	Syntax cont.: Transfomrations UG: Principles and Parameters Head directionality Lecture slides	Chapter 5 Chapter 11: Section on syntactic typology	Second talk in the Linguistics series this Fall “Applied Linguistics 101: Language Matters in the Worlds of Education, Geopolitics, and Social Justice” by Shawna Shapiro (Writing) MIDTERM DUE
Nov 2	UG: Principles and Parameters cont. First language acquisition Lecture slides	Language acquisition movie clips: Clip 1: Wh-doubling in child language Clip 2: Negation in child langauge Chapter 9	LAP one-page proposal due HW4 assigned: pdf
Nov 4	More on first language acquisition: Evidence from Binding Lecture slides	Chapter 9
Nov 9	Sociolinguistics: Language in social contexts The language-dialect distinction (or lack thereof) Regional dialects of American English Lecture slides	Chapter 7 Do you speak American? Northern Cities Vowel shift clip with Labov American English dialect map clip Bert Vaux' dialect survey and maps	HW4 due
Nov 11	Sociolinguistics: Language in social contexts cont. Language and ethnicity (African American English) Language attitudes The standard vs. nonstandard Styles Lecture slides	Chapter 7 Linguistic profiling study Linguistic profiling ad Jeopardy with a new twist An excerpt about linguistic discrimination against AAE speaking students History of AAE	HW5 assigned: .pdf
Nov 16	Language Change: Lexical, semantic, and morphological change Lecture slides	Chapter 12
Nov 18	Syntactic change Phonological change Historical linguistics: reconstruction Lecture slides	Chapters 12 and 13	HW5 due
Nov 23	Explaining language change Creating language out of thin air: Pidgins and Creoles Lecture slides	David Crystal's Encyclopedia: chapter on pidgins and creoles, pp. 334-339. Jackendoff 1993: Patterns in the Mind, Chap 10, pp. 130-139
Nov 25	Thanksgiving Break	Eat Turkey!
Nov 30	LAP Presentations Click HERE to see the presentations order	Read McGregor's discussion of language and cognition and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Chapter 8) Read Crystal's discussion of "Language and thought", pp. 14-15 in the Encyclopedia
Dec 2	LAP Presentations Finale: List of topics covered Course response forms	LSA article on endangered languages Articles from the journal Language in 1992 on endangered languages. (Focus primarily on Ken Hale's final essay on the human value of linguistic diversity)	Third talk in the Linguistics series this Fall “Raising Bilingual Children in Monolingual Environments: A Case Study” by Ana Martinez-Lage (Spanish)
Dec 4	LAP due by 1pm
Dec 8	Final Exam assigned
Dec 10	Final Exam due

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:15:07 -0400

Lecture Powerpoint Slides will be posted here regularly for your reference.

Lecture 1: Introduction; Administrivia; "design features" of human language.

Lecture 2: Design features cont.

Lecture 3: Biological basis for language; Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus argument.

Lecture 4: More evidence for the biological basis for language; prescriptivism vs. descriptivism; goals of linguistic theory

Lecture 5: Phonetics: Consonants

Lecture 6: Phonetics cont.: Vowels; processes of coarticulation

Lecture 7: Processes of coarticulation; syllabue structure; prosodies (aka suprasegmentals)

Lecture 8: Phonology: phonemes vs. allophones; phonological rules.

Lecture 9: Phonological rules

Lecture 10: Morphology

Lecture 11: Word-formation processes; morphological typology

Lecture 12: English plural allomorphy; Turkish Vowel Harmony; and morphological typology cont.

Lecture 13: Introduction to Syntax

Lecture 14: Syntax cont.: Phrase structure grammar.

Lecture 15: Syntax cont.: Transformations; Principles and Parameters; head directionality

Lecture 16: Syntax cont.: More on word order variation; constraints on wh-movement (Islands); falsifying UG and child language

Lecture 17: The case of Chtristopher, the polyglot savant; the syntax and semantics of coreference in human language; experimental evidence from child language

Lecture 18: Sociolinguistics: The language-dialect distinction; variables affecting dialectal variation; examples of dialectal variation.

Lecture 19: Sociolinguistics cont.: Language attitudes; language and ethnicity (African American English); standard vs. nonstandard dialects; situation-based linguistic variation (Styles)

Lecture 20: Sociolinguistics cont.: Slang, code-switching, language and gender. Language Change: Lexical change, semantic change, and morphological change.

Lecture 21: Language change cont.: Syntactic change and phonological change; introduction to Historical linguistics and reconstruction

Lecture 22: Language change cont. Why do languages change? Also: Language contact: Creating language out of thin air: The case of Pidgins and Creoles

Lecture 23 and 24: LAP presentations

Lecture 24: List of topics covered

Files

Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:17:31 -0400

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:25:29 -0400

On this page are posted the homework assignments for the class. These assignments are meant to test your understanding of the material covered in class and to help you work on aspects of cross-linguistic variation on your own, applying the same reasoning and analytical tools that we’ll be discussing in class.

There will be a total of FIVE homework assignments. Each homework counts for 5% of your overall grade. So, take each one seriously!

While I do not mind you discussing assignment questions with your colleagues, bear in mind that the work you turn in has to be yours, and yours alone. Copying someone else’s work will be treated as cheating, will receive no credit, and will be subject the consequences of violating academic integrity, as described in the College’s Academic Honesty Statement.

Policy on delay in turning in assignments:
        5% off if turned in after the deadline on the day it’s due (that means prior to midnight).
        10% off if turned in on the next day after the deadline.
        20% off if turned in later than that.
        Not accepted after I post the solutions (I know that's self-evident, but just in case)

Projected dates for assigned homework are listed in the table for the syllabus. Notice that you'll typically have one week to work on each assignment. I'm very reluctant to give extensions, except for academically legitimate reasons.

Before you answer the first assignment, please take a few minutes to read the guidelines for answering questions on homework HERE.

Assignment 1: .pdf

Assignment 2: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 3 .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 4: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 5: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:26:29 -0400

Midterm Exam: .pdf

Final Exam: .pdf

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:12:00 -0400

Introduction and Resources

In the Language Adoption Project, you're supposed to study a language of your choice, as long as the language is unfamiliar or endangered. There's plenty of these out there, so you shouldn't have trouble finding one. The goal of the project is for you to get to know a language that you haven't known much about before, and apply some of the concepts and analytical tools we discussed in class to that language to test our theory of grammar. Of course, you're also expected to give some basic information about the language, where it is spoken, by how many speakers. if it's endangered, etc. A link to some guidelines questions for the LAP can be accessed HERE.

THE LAP IS DUE Dec 4th by 1pm. PLEASE LEAVE IT IN MY MAILBOX IN FARRELL HOUSE.

A good resource on languages of the world which I mentioned in class is the “The world atlas of language structures”, which is available in the main library at the Main Atlas Case G1046.E3 W6 2005.

I also put my personal copy of the Dictionary of Languages on reserve in the library. You may find that useful.
An extensive list of languages and assoicated descriptive grammars is available here:

http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/atlas.bib

A shortened list that I created from online resources is available here.

Also, the catalogue I had in class is available online here: https://ssl.kundenserver.de/www.s83009615.einsundeinsshop.de/sess/utn;jsessionid=15452e7b540df1d/shopdata/index.shopscript

As you can see there’s no shortage of languages to work on; just make sure you choose an unfamiliar or endangered language. If you’re not sure if a language is suitable for the LAP, check with me first.

Also try to do some basic online search on the language you initially choose, and see if it interests you still.

LAP guideline questions

You can see a list of some guideline questions that you might want to consider when looking at your LAP language by clicking HERE. Some of the questions will be relevant, some will not, but the list should at least give you an idea of what you are expected to be looking for regarding your LAP language.

LAP languages

	Name of Student	LAP language
	Jeff Ferraro	Flemish (Germanic)
	Raina Lynn Crawford	Leonese (Romance)
	Elma Burnham	Hausa (Afro-asiatic)
	Juliana Kay	Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut)
	Scott Wehrwein	Quechua (Quechuan)
	Martina Bonolis	Irish (Celtic)
	Chris Allen	Welsh (Celtic)
	Neil Goodman	Tlingit (Na-Dene)
	Lucas Braun	Nkore-Kiga (Niger-Congo)
	Zack Withers	Swahili (Bantu)
	Ali Hamdan	Syriac (Semitic)
	Adam Kritzer	Unserdeutsch (German-based Creole)
	Julianna Mauriello	Hawaiian (Austronesian)
	Chris Chung	Nyanja/Chichewa (Niger-Congo)
	James Landenberger	Romani (Indo-Aryan)
16.	Toby Norden	Anindilyakwa (Gunwingguan)
17.	David Fouhey	Khmer/Cambodian (Khmer)
18.	Amy Scanes-Wolfe	Makhunwa Enahara (Niger-Congo/Bantu)
19.	Kyle Olsen	Qawasqar (Alacalufan)
20.	Riley Ertel	Halh (Mongolian)
21.	Sarah Bellingham	Ukrainian (Slavic)
22.	Whitney Obr	Franco-Provençal (Romance)
23.	Simone Dinshaw	Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan)
24	Stephen Powell	Cappadocian Greek (Greek)
25	Ben Goldstein	Tagalog (Austronesian)

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:18:09 -0400

You can check your scores by clicking HERE. Your scores are listed by your language codes, which I distributed in class. If you do not know what your language code is, e-mail me.

Last updated on Dec 20, 2009, with final percentages and letter grades.

This class is now officially over.
Have a good break everyone!

Useful Links

Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:19:51 -0400

Textbook and accompanying website links
Linguistics: An Introduction by William B. McGregor. 2009. Contiuum Publishing Group.
Accompanying website to the textbook: http://mcgregor.continuumbooks.net/

Video clips of some animal communication systems

Spiders courtship gesturing
Fiddler crabs claw-waving
Bees dancing
Conversations with KOKO

Language and the brain clips
Broca's aphasia
Wernicke's aphasia
PET scan experiment

Language acquisition clips
Wh-doubling in children's speech (from work by Stephen Crain, Rosalind Thornton, and Graciela Tesan)
Swedish negation in child English (from work by Stephen Crain, Rosalind Thornton, and Graciela Tesan)
Berko's wug test (with Rosalind Thornton)
Video clips of Christopher, the polyglot savant (from work by Neil Smith)

Sociolinguistics clips
Do you speak American? Test your vowel power!
Northern Cities Vowel shift clip with Labov
American English dialect map clip
Bert Vaux' dialect survey and maps

Linguistic profiling study
Linguistic profiling ad
Jeopardy with a new twist
An excerpt about linguistic discrimination against AAE speaking students
History of AAE

Other useful links

The IPA chart

Interactive IPA: Some phonetics fun!
The Phonetics Flash Animation Project
Interactive IPA from Peter Ladefoged's online Course in Phonetics

Link to some phonetics resrouces
A video of some English phonetic transcriptions

Praat: Doing phonetics by computer

International Dialects of English Archive

Interactive saggital Section website

MLA interactive language map of languages spoken in the US

Ethnologue: An encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world’s 6,912 known living languages

The Universals Archive of Universität Konstanz. : A huge list of linguistic universals that have been suggested in the relevant literature, in particular those of an implicational kind.

SIL: Summer Institute of Linguistics

Endangered languages:The SIL webpage on endangered languages.

Software tools: Computer resources including an extensive library for language researchers and software tools and fonts.

The Linguistic Soceity of America