Courses:

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This class will provide some answers to basic questions about the nature of human language. Throughout the course, we will be learning (in many different ways) that human language is a surprisingly intricate -- yet law-governed and fascinating mental system. In the first 2/3 of the class, we will study some core aspects of this system in detail. In the last part of the class, we will use what we have learned to address a variety of questions, including how children acquire language, ways in which languages are affected by contact with other languages, and the representation of linguistic phenomena in the brain, among others.

There is no official textbook for this course. If you would like a textbook for reference, one that many of the readings will come from is:

O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. Contemporary Linguistics: an Introduction. 4th edition. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001. ISBN: 0312247389.

Attendance in class and recitations is required. While you can learn a lot from the readings, many classes will present material not in the readings, or will present the material in a slightly different way. Attendance will be taken in recitations and from time to time may be taken in the lecture as well.

There will be assignments every so often. These will often be problems from real languages (sometimes slightly simplified) that use the concepts and analytic techniques discussed in class and in the readings; parts of them may also involve fieldwork (see # 4 below).

The problems will be handed out on Tuesday and will be due the following Tuesday. It is our goal to have the problems corrected for discussion in recitation by Friday. (When holidays intervene, we may make minor modifications in this schedule.) Late problem sets will not be accepted except for compelling reasons and with explicit e-mail permission of the instructor or recitation leader.

Honesty policy for problem sets: General discussion of the assignments with other students is acceptable and encouraged (e.g. "Remind me, how do I know if something is an allophone?"), but you must arrive at the actual solutions to problems on your own and write them up on your own.

Sometimes we will ask you on a problem set to find something out about a language that you don't speak. For your first homework assignment, your task is to find someone who speaks such a language who is willing to help you out with this kind of assignment. There should not be more than 5 such assignments in the course of the semester, and your work sessions should not last more than an hour or so each time.

There will be two in-class (60-90 minute) quizzes and a sit-down final exam. The final exam will cover material from the entire course, and will be a mixture of factual questions and problems. If you did well on the problem sets and quizzes, you should do well on the final exam.

You will be required to write a squib of about 8 pages, which is due by lecture 24. The squib can be an investigation of some aspect of the language you are working on (see # 4), or can be on some other topic that interests you; we'll discuss potential topics as the semester progresses.