Introduction to Linguistics - Content

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:39 -0400

Welcome to the fascinating world of the study of human language (aka Linguistics)!

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:39 -0400

Class meets twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 1:30pm to 2:45, in the Warner Hemicycle Room. Be there!

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:39 -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, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:40 -0400

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK

Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. By William O'Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. Fifth Edition. 2005.

I put the textbook on 2-hour reserve in the main library. I will also put David Crystal's "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language" on physical reserve. It's a good reference for some of the topics that we'll be covering in this class.

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.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:40 -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 EIGHT 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 5% 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, students will be required to work in pairs on a ten-page-long RESEARCH PAPER on a topic of their choice that is relevant to the focus of the class. Details on the paper will be posted here in due time. A brief paper proposal is due on April 5.

Finally, students are required to take TWO TAKE-HOME EXAMS: a midterm and a final. The midterm exam will be assigned on March 15 and is due on March 22. The final exam, which will be comprehensive, will be assigned on May 14 and is due on May 21.

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

Class attendance and participation (including doing the readings)	5%
8 Assignments	40%
Research paper	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 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:40 -0400

The textbook website is here:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/linguistics/default.asp?s=&n=&i=&v=&o=&ns=0&uid=0&rau=0

Some useful Links
International Dialects of English Archive: http://web.ku.edu/idea/
Interactive saggital Section: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/phonetics/sammy.html

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:40 -0400

Usama Soltan
International Studies and Arabic
Robert A. Jones '59 House, Room B03
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

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

Office Hours:
Monday and Wednesday 10:30am-noon, and by appointment (e-mail or call to make an appointment)

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:40:04 -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, check here often.

Date	Topics	Readings	Assignments
Feb 13	The nature of human language Lecture Slides	Chap.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 Thursday's class.
Feb 15	CLASS CANCELLED	STAY SAFE!
Feb 20	The nature of human language cont. Lecture Slides	Chap 17 Artticle on the European starling	Spiders courtship gesturing Fiddler crabs claw-waving Bees dancing Conversations with KOKO
Feb 22	The nature of human language cont. Lecture Slides	Chapters 1/14 Jackendoff's Patterns in the mind: Chapters 1-3	HW1 assigned
Feb 27	Phonetics: Consonants Lecture Slides	Chap 2 The IPA chart Some phonetics fun!
March 1	Phonetics cont.: Vowels Suprasegmentals Lecture Slides	Chap 2 International Dialects of English Archive Interactive saggital Section website	HW2 assigned
March 6	Speech production and coarticulation Phonology: Phonemes and allophones Lecture Slides	Chap 3
March 8	Phonology cont.: Phonological rules Lecture Slides	Chap 3	HW3 assigned
March 13	Phonology cont.: Features Syllable structure Lecture Slides	Chap 3
March 15	Morphology Morphemes: Free and bound Inflectional vs. derivational morphemes Allomorphs Lecture slides	Chap 4	Midterm assigned Download the midterm here: .pdf and .doc format
March 20	Morphology cont. Processes of word formation Morphological typology Lecture slides	Chap 4
March 22	Semantics: the nature of meaning Connotation, denotation, extension and intension Semantic relations among words and sentences Thematic relations Lecture slides	Chap 6	Midterm due on Friday March 23 by 4:15pm by e-mail or by hand in my office
March 27	Spring Break	Have fun!
March 29	Spring Break	Have fun!
April 3	Syntax Constituency Phrase structure grammar "Trees" Lecture slides	Chap 5
April 5	Syntax cont. Grammaticality, structural ambiguity, recursiveness Transformations: I-to-C movement; DO-support; wh-movement. Lecture slides	Chap 5	HW4 assigned
April 10	Syntax cont. Universal Grammar and parametric variation Lecture slides	Chap 5: pp. 177-182	Pairs for research project and paper topic due
April 12	Syntax cont. VOS/OSV/OVS orders Constraints on wh-movement: Islands Binding Lecture slides	Chap 6: pp. 225-28	Watch Part II of the Human Language Series movie HW5 assigned
April 17	First language acquisition Lecture slides	Chap 11
April 19	First language acquisition cont. Natural sign languages: Phonology, morphology, and syntax Lecture slides	Chap 10	HW6 assigned
April 24	Historical linguistics Aspects of language change: Lexical, semantic, morphological, syntactic, and phonological Lecture slides	Chap 7
April 26	Historical linguistics cont. Reconstruction Why do languages change? Lecture slides	Chap 7	HW7 assigned
May 1	Language in social contexts cont. The language-dialect distinction Regional and social dialectal variation Lecture slides	Chap 15
May 3	Language in social contexts cont. Debunking some myths about dialectal variation Lecture slides	Chap 15
May 8	Pidgins and Creoles Lecture slides	Chap 15
May 10	Indigenous and endangered languages Why should we care? And what should we do? Finale: Course highlights Lecture slides	Chap 9	Paper due
May 14			Final Exam assigned
May 21			Final Exam due

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:41 -0400

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:36:20 -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. Each homework counts for 5% 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 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.

Assignment 1: .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 2: .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 3 .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 4: .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 5: .pdf. and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 6: .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 7: .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:37:01 -0400

Midterm Exam: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Final Exam .pdf and .doc
Suggested Solutions

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:42 -0400

Below is a list of the paper topics and the students working on each. Please make sure to let me know should you decide to change the topic and/or title of the paper.

	Paper topic	Students
1	The patterning and significance of intonation across languages	Nat Carter and Blake Johnson
2	Computational linguistics	Kathryn DiPasquale and David Hamberlin
3	Gender differences in language use	Laura Batterink and Devyn Young
4	Pidgins and Creoles	James Giampietro and Maeve Whelan-Wuest
5	Social dialects	Kenzie Chin and Aly DeGraff
6	Dialectal differences/Slang	Hyang Mi Lee and Arlene Peguero
7	Language differences according to Gender	Molly Holmes and Caleigh Waldman
8	Sexuality in language	Syliva Mendez and Ryan Tauriainen
9	Language development/Slang	Allison Bernard and Mike Norris
10	The acquisition of English by Arabic speakers	Afifa Faisal and June Trinos
11	The Monitor Theory in Second Language Acquisition	Ryan Bohling, Beno Shell-Schnitzer, and Ben Ehrlich
12	Factors in language change	Nestor Martinez, David Parker, and Marina Pravdic
13	Aphasia	Colin Foss and Molly Kilbreth
14	Language Change	Jean Falconer and Geoff Wietelmann
15	Gender differences in communication	Rachel Siviski and Anna McDonald
16	American English accents and dialects	Devin Currens and Christian Hellberg
17	Wild Children	Sara Helmers and Bryan Pacheco

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:58:42 -0400

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

You can now check all your scores and your final letter grade by clicking here.