Introduction to Linguistics - Content

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:33:41 -0400

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

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:28:49 -0400

Class meets twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 2:50pm to 4:05, in Axinn 109.
Lookinng forward to seeing you there!

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:28:49 -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 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:28:49 -0400

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK

An introduction to language by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams.Boston: Thomson/Heinle, 2003. A copy is available on physical reserve at the Davis Family Library.

OTHER COURSE MATERIALS
In addition to the required textbook, further readings will be assigned 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. Some will be available on physical reserve. Currenlty, the following sources are on physical reserve at the Davis Family Library.

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

Language Myths, edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill. An interesting collection of essays discussing some of the common (mis)beliefs about language.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:28:50 -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 really hard, if not impossible, to do well on homework problems or write a good project report without attending classes regularly.

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 9^th by 12noon. A brief project proposal is also required by November 7^th. 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.

Finally, students are required to take TWO TAKE-HOME EXAMS: a midterm and a final. The midterm exam will be assigned on October 26 and is due on Nov 2. The final exam, which will be comprehensive, will be assigned on December 12 and is due on December 14.

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	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/studentlife/dos/honorcode

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 project report. 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 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:28:50 -0400

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

Email: usoltan AT middlebury DOT edu
Office phone extension: x5869

Office Hours:
Monday and Wednesday from 10:30am-12noon, and by appointment (e-mail or call to make an appointment).

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:24:23 -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, events & other links
Sept 12	What is linguistics about? The nature of human language and linguistic knowledge: "Design features" 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 14	"Design features" cont.: Human language vs. animal communication systems The innateness hypothesis. The poverty of the stimulus argument. Lecture Slides	Chapter 1 cont. pp. 3-27 Jackendoff's Patterns in the mind: Chapters 1-3	Spiders courtship gesturing Fiddler crabs claw-waving Bees dancing Conversations with KOKO
Sept 19	The biological basis of language Language and the brain Lecture slides	Chapter 2 Jackendoff's chapters cont. Language and the brain clips Aphasia Broca's aphasia Wernicke's aphasia PET scan experiment	Read the general Guidelines for answering questions on homework assignments HERE. HW1 assigned: .pdf
Sept 21	What is grammar? Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism The three main questions of linguistic theory Main subfields in linguistics Articulartory phonetics: Consonants Lecture slides	Chapter 6, pp. 230-245
Sept 26	Consonants cont. Vowels Lecture slides	Chapter 6 cont. pp. 246-251 Some useful links The IPA chart Interactive IPA: Some phonetics fun! The Phonetics Flash Animation Project: More Phonetics fun Interactive saggital Section website Interactive IPA from Peter Ladefoged's online Course in Phonetics Link to some phonetics resources A video of some English phonetic transcriptions	HW1 due
Sept 28	Coarticulation Syllable structure Prosodic features (aka Suprasegmentals) Lecture slides	Prosodic features (Chapter 6, pp. 252-255). Also the section on Prosodic Phonology in Chapter 7, pp. 296-302. Transcription. Have a look at the following exercises from the textbook (pp. 261-262): Exercises 1, 2, 3, and 5. Start reading Chapter 7, pp. 272-282	HW2 assigned: .pdf
Oct 3	Phonology: Phonemes and allophones Lecture slides	Chapter 7 cont., pp. 272-296 Link to Thai tones Thai tongue twisters
Oct 5	Phonology problems Phonological rules Lecture slides	Look at the phonology problems I gave out in class in preparation for in-class discussion. Finish Chapter 7 (read the section on phonological rules, if you haven't done that already)	HW2 due
Oct 10	Intro to Morphology: Morphemes and Allomorphs Lecture slides	Chapter 3 pp. 76-99
Oct 12	Morphological analysis: English, Swedish, Cebuano, Turkish Rules of word formation Morphological typology: Isolating vs. synthetic; agglutinative vs. fusional Lecture slides	Chapter 3 cont. pp. 100-107 Chapter on morphological typology from the Language Files Link about Borrowing in Middle English Link about Eponyms in English Start reading Chapter 4, pp. 117-129	HW3 assigned: .pdf
Oct 17	Morphological typology cont. Some visual and linguistics puzzles Lecture slides	Chapter 4, pp. 117-129
Oct 19	Syntax: Constituency Phrase structure grammar Lecture slides	Chapter 4 cont., pp. 129-148	HW3 due
Oct 24	Midterm Recess	Have fun!
Oct 26	Syntax cont.: Transformational rules Lecture slides	Chapter 4, pp. 149-167	Midterm Exam: .pdf
Oct 31	Syntax cont.: UG: Principles and Parameters Lecture slides	Stard reading Chapter 8
Nov 2	Universal principles of grammar: Islands and Binding Evidence from Language acquisition by children Lecture slides	Read the section on wh-movement in Chapter 4 Read the short section on pronouns in Chapter 5 Finish reading Chapter 8	MIDTERM due on Thursday Nov 3rd by 12noon
Nov 7	Discussion of Readings from Language Myths: - Myth 9: In the Appalachians they speak like Shakespeare - Myth 12: Bad grammar is slovenly - Myth 17: They speak really bad English down south and in NYC		LAP one-page proposal due HW4 assigned: .pdf
Tuesday Nov 8	*Screening of The Linguists* at the Davis Library, Room 230 at 7-8pm**
Nov 9	Sociolinguistics: Language and society The language-dialect distinction (or lack thereof) Regional dialects of American English Lecture slides	Chapter 10, pp. 430-452
Nov 14	Discussion of Readings from Language Myths: - Myth 2: Some languages are just not good enough - Myth 4: French is a logical language - Myth 11: Italian is beautiful; German is ugly - Myth 6: Women talk too much Lecture slides		HW4 due
Nov 16	Language and ethnicity (African American English) Language attitudes The standard vs. nonstandard Lecture slides	Chapter 10 cont. Reading from Language Myths: - Myth 1: The Meanings of words should not be allowed to change.	HW5 assigned: .pdf
Nov 21	Sociolinguistic variation cont. Language attitudes in educational systems: A case in Ann Arbor, MI The Academic English Mastery program in CA Lecture slides
Nov 23	Thanksgiving Break	Eat Turkey!
Nov 28	Language Change: Lexical, semantic, morphological change syntactic, and phonological Lecture slides	Chapter 11, pp. 488-509
Nov 30	Historical linguistics: reconstruction and the comparative method Lecture slides	Chapter 11 cont., pp. 510-518	HW5 due
Dec 5	Creating language out of thin air: Pidgins and Creoles Lecture slides	Section in chapter 10 on Languages in contact, pp. 453-460 Jackendoff's chapter on language creation Also, have a look at David Crystal's Encyclopedia: chapter on pidgins and creoles, pp. 334-339.
Dec 7	Revisiting language and thought Language death and endangerment Finale: Review Course response forms List of topics covered Lecture slides	Chapter 1, pp. 29-34 Also Crystal's discussion of "Language and thought", pp. 14-15 in the Encyclopedia An LSA article on endangered languages
Dec 10	Final Exam posted
Dec 12	LAP report due by 9am (extended deadline)
Dec 15	Final Exam due by 12noon (no extensions will be given)

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:08:31 -0400

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

Lecture 1: Administriva; What is linguistics? What is language? Design features of human language.

Lecture 2: Human language vs. animal communication systems. The innateness hypothesis. The poverty of the stimulus argument.

Lecture 3: The biological basis of language; language and the brain.

Lecture 4: Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism; main subfileds in linguistics; phonetics.

Lecture 5: Consonants cont., Vowels.

Lecture 6: Coarticulation; syllable structure; prosodic features

Lecture 7: Prosodic features cont.; Phonology: Phonemes vs. allophones

Lecture 8: Solving Phonology problems; Phonological rules

Lecture 9: Morphology

Lecture 10: Word-formation processes; morphological typology

Lecture 11: More on morphological typology; some visual and linguistic puzzles

Lecture 12: Introduction to syntax: constituency; and heads, complements and specifiers; phrase structure rules.

Lecture 13: Syntactic structures: accounting for grammaticality, recursiveness, ambiguity and sentence relatedness; introdcuing transformations

Lecture 14: Syntax cont.: Why do languages differ syntactically? Introducing parameters.

Lecture 15: Syntax cont.: Islands; Binding; language acquisition

Lecture 16: Discussion of readings from Language Myths

Lecture 17: Sociolinguistics: Dialectal variation

Lecture 18: Discussion of readings from Language Myths

Lecture 19: One final Language Myth; continuing with sociolinguistic variation: Language and ethnicity

Lecture 20: Attitudes towards AAE in the classroom; ways to overcome challenges; Labov and Nichols studies; further aspects of sociolinguistic variation.

Lecture 21: Language change: lexical, semantic, morphological, syntactic, and phonological

Lecture 22: Causes of language change; Historical linguistics and reconstruction

Lecture 23: Reconstruction exercises; language creation: pidgins and creoles

Lecture 24: Cross-creole similarities; decreolization; language and thought revisited; language endangerment and preservation.

Files

Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:46:06 -0400

No file has been selected yet.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:22:29 -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
Suggested solutions

Assignment 2: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 3: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 4: .pdf
Suggested Solutions

Assignment 5: .pdf

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:08:31 -0400

Midterm Exam: .pdf

Final Exam: .pdf

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:48:57 -0400

Introduction and Resources

In the Language Adoption Project, will 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 is availabe HERE.

The LAP is due Dec 9th by 1pm. PLEASE LEAVE A HARD COPY IN MY MAILBOX IN FARRELL HOUSE.

LAP Resources

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

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. The Atlas is also available online here: http://wals.info/

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.

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. Also, do make sure there is enough information about the language to help you undertake the project.

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
	Thomas Phifer	Romansch
	Maddie Gilbert	Yaqui
	Hillary Woodworth	Welsh
	Kalya Koltes	Marathi
	Alena Lozhkina	Irish
	Michi Arai	Nepali
	Sam McEntire	Lakota
	Elena Shish	Hausa
	Jenna Reichenbach	Swahili
	Will Brooke	Tagalog
	Meghan Mendoza	Taiwanese Hokkien
	Paul Rosenfeld	Nobiin
	Santiago Azpurua-Borras	Yanomamo
	Maddie Maily	Ainu
	Jieming Sun	Zulu
16.	Rahul Rakshit	Mongolian
17.	Luis Ariel Rivera	Silbo Gomero
18.	Aaron Jylkka	Georgian
19.	Jesse Birdsall	Tibetan
20.	Olivia Hipkins	Sanskrit
21.	Sharon-Rose Broome	Persian
22.
23.

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Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:18:09 -0400

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

Update Dec 26, 2011: I posted your scores on the final exam, the LAP, as well as your total percentages and letter grades. Should you have questions, e-mail me.

Update Jan 1: Your grades were submitted via Banner web.

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

Useful Links

Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:08:32 -0400

Video clips of some animal communication systems

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

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

Phonetics and phonology

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

Link to Thai tones
Thai tongue twisters

Praat: Doing phonetics by computer

International Dialects of English Archive

Interactive saggital Section website

Word-formation processes
Link about Borrowing in Middle English
Link about Eponyms in English

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

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 world atlas of language structures online

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

Class Photos

Usama Soltan - nobody@example.net — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:08:32 -0400