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LIN395 | Conference Course |
| LIN380L | Syntax I | |
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LIN380M | Semantics I |
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LIN380S | Sociolinguistics |
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LIN381K | Phonology II |
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LIN381M | Phonetics |
| LIN383.3 | Intro to Romance Linguistics | |
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LIN383.9 | Old German Dialects |
| LIN391 | Linguistic Evolution of Greek and Latin | |
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LIN391.2 | Studies in English Grammar |
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LIN392 | Creolization and Pidginization |
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LIN392 | Intro to Morphology |
| LIN392.1 | Intro to Cognitive Science | |
| LIN393 | Poetic Art of the Bible | |
| LIN393P.2 | Experimental Phonetics | |
| LIN393S | Syntax Without Transformations | |
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LIN393S.2 | Current Issues in Semantic Theory: Pragmatics |
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LIN395 | Conference Course |
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LIN396 | Language and Power |
| LIN396.2 | Intro to Graduate Linguistic Anthropology | |
| LIN396.5 | Language and Politics in Language Planning | |
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LIN397 | Forum for Doctoral Candidates |
Graduate standing
TBA
TBA
Back to graduate course index
The course offers a first introduction to semantics, the study of meaning in natural language. It introduces the basic tools that semanticists use to analyze meaning (set theory, relations, functions, phrase-structure rules and compositional semantic interpretation, statement logic and predicate logic, type theory and lambda abstraction). We will try out these tools on a number of semantic phenomena, including natural language quantifiers, plurals and mass terms. We will also discuss ways to relate syntactic structure to semantic interpretation which allow us to deal with the phenomenon of scope ambiguities. In general, we will concentrate on the "extensional" part of semantics; intentional phenomena like tense and aspect, modality, context-sensitivity and the interpretation of discourse will be treated in a follow-up course (LIN 381S).
Graduate standing.
Grading will be based on the homework exercises, a midterm exam, and a final exam (both will be take-home exams).
None required. Lecture notes will be made available.
Two books worth reading in addition to the course:
ociolinguistics is that branch of linguistics that tries to understand and investigate in a systematic way what it means to take seriously one of the most obvious of facts about language, that it is a social phenomenon. Those committed to thinking about language in this way range from researchers who believe that sociolinguistics should account for only those aspects of linguistic patterning that cannot be accounted for within formal theories of phonology, syntax, etc., to those who argue for a socially constituted linguistics, which would never lose sight of the social nature of language. These researchers may not share a method, theory, or epistemology, but they share the conviction that certain important aspects of language can only be understood by considering both the extralinguistic and the linguistic contexts in which it is created, used, and interpreted.
This course will seek to offer a broad introduction to the field, considering the many topics people who call themselves sociolinguists have studied as well as the contributions researchers in other fields--pragmatics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, rhetoric, education, communications--have made to our understanding of the social nature of language. We will consider in particular the ways in which sociolinguistic data and findings bear on issues of long-standing interest to linguists, including the mechanisms of language contact and change, the structure and uses of discourse, and the nature of pragmatics. We will also examine the functions and uses of languages, spoken and written, across speech communities of different kinds. Finally, we will discuss phenomena like pidginization/creolization, standardization, and language death, considering them from both a structural and social perspective. Despite the wide variety of topics considered, our primary concern will be the sorts of questions of greatest interest to those whose primary training is in linguistics. Please note that this course is a prerequisite for LIN 396: Research Methods in Sociolinguistics.
Prerequisites for this course are a graduate or undergraduate course of some sort in syntax and one in phonology; possibilities among UT course offerings include LIN 380L (Syntax I), LIN 380K (Phonology), LIN 391 (English Grammar), or LIN 391 (English Phonology), or their equivalent in some other department or at some other institution. These courses are listed as prerequisites because much of the reading for the course assumes (a) a general knowledge of linguistics, its goals, and methods and (b) familiarity with the approach to syntax and phonology popular in this country since the 1960's, often termed generative grammar. If you have any questions about your preparation for this course, please talk to instructor (kwalters@mail.utexas.edu) before signing up.
Attendance, intellectual engagement with the reading material, class participation, occasional flashes of insight and/or brilliance, a midterm, and a final exam.
Course packet to be available from local copy shop.
This course is a continuation of LIN 480K (Phonology I), completing an introduction to contemporary phonology. The general topic of the course will be featural phonology (the distribution of feature specifications) within Optimality Theory and Laboratory Phonology.
In an initial introductory section, we will consider in general terms how complementary and neutralization distributions are expressed within Optimality Theory.
We will then take a typological approach to patterns in feature distribution. We will consider patterns in various languages in the distribution of (a) laryngeal features, (b) vowel features, and (c) tones. Each student will be responsible for searching some group of languages for patterns of these sorts, to contribute them to a class database, as well as doing an analysis of one pattern of each sort within Optimality Theory. As a class, we will aim to collect a database of patterns in each domain, and a set of cross-linguistically well-motivated constraints for that domain.
In the last section of the course, we will consider the relation between phonetics and phonology. Students will each do a small lab project using instrumental acoustic data to provide information about a phonological pattern.
Graduate standing and Phonology I (LIN 480K or 380K)
The grade will be based on homework and lab assignments (one every one or two weeks).
Readings, drawn from the literature on Optimality Theory and Laboratory Phonology, will be made available in a course packet.
The general theme of this course is: "What is phonetics?" A broad survey of major topics in modern phonetics will be presented. Theoretical issues as well as applications (e.g. speech technology).
In the first part we will familiarize ourselves with the traditional descriptive methods of phonetics: auditory analysis and transcription. This will include a presentation of phonetic alphabets and distinctive feature theory as well as exercises based on both known and unknown languages. The goal is to establish a general framework for specifying speech in terms of its linguistic and phonetic (mostly articulatory) properties sufficient for later phonology classes. (The book by Ladefoged is the text for this part. It will be supplemented by hand-outs).
Given this background, we will continue with acoustic phonetics. Basic theory and applications in the form of laboratory assignments and spectrogram readings (book by Johnson plus hand-outs). Our objective is to make every student familiar with the source-filter theory of speech production which is central to the acoustic specification of phonetic phenomena. Correlates of segmental and prosodic phenomena will be defined from a cross-linguistic perspective. The representation of speech signals in the auditory system will also be discussed. The rule of thumb in selecting the material for this part is as follows: Nothing will be introduced that does not have an explanatory bearing on the issues of linguistic phonetics: 'Formants without tears'!
The third and final part will be more problem-oriented and will present, in a preliminary manner, some current 'hot topics'. This means a review of work on speech production, speech perception, speech development and the phonetic bases of phonology which aims at giving a brief, but coherent and unified view of 'how speech works'.
Graduate standing
TBA
Ladefoged. A Course in Phonetics
J. M. Pickett Acoustics of Speech Communication: Fundamentals, Speech Perception
Theory, and Technology
This introductory course assumes little knowledge of linguistics, but excellent familiarity with at least one Romance language. We will examine the main processes of language change in the history of Romance, and study selected features of the synchronic grammars of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, as well as some of the lesser-known varieties of Romance. While a number of guiding principles of theory and analysis will be presented, we will concentrate primarily on data coverage and accuracy of description. Students will be encouraged to select a personal topic on a language other than the one they know best, and to develop it using a comparative approach.
Romance Linguisitcs 396K is required of all graduate students enrolled in the Romance Linguistics program and strongly recommended to students of French Linguistics and Ibero-Romance Linguistics.
Graduate standing.
Students will write a final paper; there is no final exam. Final papers may be written in English or in any Romance language. Other assignments include four 40mn quizzes and a 15mn oral report.
Computation of the Grade:
Four quizzes: 40%
Oral report: 20%
Final paper: 40%
The Romance Languages, ed. By Harris and Vincent. (1988; paperback
1990. New York: Oxford University Press).
This seminar is a comparative study of the dialectal development of Germanic. Through carefully selected textual readings from the rich literary traditions of West, North, and east Germanic, we will concentrate on tracing the evolution of Norse, Old and Middle English, Old and Middle High German, Old Saxon, Gothic, and Frisian. The course provides an up-to-date review of the comparative study of language change, as applied to the Germanic language-family and the cultural and linguistic setting of the German language.
No mastery of particular linguistic concepts is presumed or required.
We will evaluate critically the contributions of major hypotheses in tackling central questions of language, cultural identity, genre, and narrative poetics, as they relate to the Germanic group. Recent research on "convergence", creoles, and dialectology provides a specific focus on the interaction between languge, society and culture, in the light of Sapir-Whorf. Labovís innovative work in sociolinguistics opens up new approaches to core problems regarding the nature of language (and language change) within a speech community, ans as a reflection of a culture.
Literary texts in the older Germanic languges, drawn from a wide reange of document genres, will provide fertile opportunities for tracking and comparing the effects of sociocultural and linguistic development. Comparative Germanic examples will allow detailed analysis of semantic, morphological and syntactic changes (regular and analogical) alongside sound change, as well as the results of language contact ñ borrowing, dialectal divergence, creolization, convergence. The emergence of Yiddish, Dutch, Plattdeutsch, Alemannic, Bavarian, Pennsylvania German, and other dialects within West Germanic will be carefully considered, as will the composite dialectal panorama that evolved into the synthesizing emergence of Standard German. We will conclude with some reflections on language change, language acquisition, and centripetal v. centrifugal forces of cultural-linguistic dynamics.
Graduate standing, or permission of the instructor. Also: an interest in language; willingness to surprise yourself.
Grades for the course will be distributed as follows:
The evaluation of your performance is mainly based on your oral participationin translations and discusssions, as well as a short individual research project and a final paper. Identical levels of linguistic expertse among the whole group are not expected. This means participation in discussions counts as much toward a grade as the research project and final paper.
This seminar aims to provide a comparative introduction to the linguistic and dialectal development of Greek and Latin, within the linguistic and cultural setting of the Indo-European language-family. Through carefully selected textual readings from the rich literary traditions of [1] selected phases of Greek, Greek dialects (Mycenaean, Arcado-Cypriot, Aeolic, Doric), convergence lects (Homeric Greek), the Attic-based koiné, and [2] linguistic relatives of Classical Latin, prinicpally Oscan, Umbrian, and pre-Classical Latin epigraphy and drama, we will concentrate on tracing the linguistic, socio-cultural and literary evolution of the eastern and central Mediterranean language-area. The comparative poetic, cultural, ethnohistorical, an dreligious traditions that underlie and connect the various branches of Greek and Italic will be explored in depth. Connections with the language of the Sanskrit Vedas, as well as Celtic [esp. Irish and Welsh], germanic [esp. Norse] and Slavic, will be particularly emphasized, on the cultural, poetic, mythological, and linguistic levels. We will be using the panorama of the Indo-European languages as a springboard for addressing wider issues of language change.
No mastery of particular linguistic concepts is presumed or required.
The emergence of dialects, standard languages and koinés will be examined comparatively and in the light of broader cultural implications. Semantic, morphological and syntactic changes will be analyzed in detail, as well as sound change, analogical effects, and the results of language contact - lexial borrowing, convergence, creolization. Taking the literary and poetic texts as documentary starting-points, internal reconstruction will serve to illuminate the comparative method and case-studies in comparative reconstruction. Considerations of language acquisition will be set against the broader questions of language diversity, change, and cultural and linguistic divides.
Graduate standing, or permission of the instructor. Also: an interest in language; willingness to surprise yourself.
Grades for the course will be distributed as follows:
50%: seminar participation
50%: written assignments/projects, final paper
The evaluation of your performance is mainly based on your oral participation in activities, discussions, as well as written assignments/projects (with an optional/ungraded brief oral presentation) and a final paper. Identical levels of linguistic expertise among the whole group are not expected. This means participation in discussions, along with active reading and research, count as much towards your grade as written work.
No textbooks to be bought. Course packet available at I.T. Copies.
This course approaches the rules of sentence grammar from the standpoint of general linguistic theory and practice. It will be concerned with structural characteristics of English and descriptions of them. After developing rules for simple sentences, we will examine several types of sentential complements and then go on to discuss various types of modifying structures. We will also look at a number of special constructions in English, including existential sentences, cleft sentences, and direct questions. Finally, we will discuss three topicsónegation, ellipsis, and tenseówhich have to do with the way sentences are interpreted.
The course will consider ways in which we can apply theoretical principles of grammar in different roles in our everyday lives.
Graduate standing
The grade for the course will be based on homework assignments, two exams and a mini project.
Tentative:
Baker, C. L. 1995. English Syntax. 2nd edition. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Berk, L. M. 1999. English Syntax: From Word to Discourse. Oxford.
Lobeck, A. 2000. Discovering Grammar: An Introduction to English Sentence
Structure. Oxford.
The graduate seminar in Creole Studies will begin with a general discussion of the nature of pidgin and creole languages, and we will listen to tape-recorded samples and examine some publications written on them. No attempt will be made at this point to draw any conclusions about what kind of languages they are, or where they come from. This will be followed by an account of the development of the field of Creole Studies (Creolistics), from Pelleprat (1649) to the present. The major approaches--monogeneticist, polygeneticist, relaxificationist, substratist, componentialist, bioprogram--will be dealt with, and the works of their main proponents read and discussed.
This will be followed by an examination of the definitions of the terms pidgin and creole, and of other so-called 'marginal' languages (traders' jargons, cryptolectal varieties, foreigner speech, etc.), in order to justify their inclusion, or otherwise, as true cases of pidginized or creolized languages. This will be followed by a survey of the world's pidgins and creoles, and a detailed examination of the history and linguistic features of a small number of representative languages, with tape-recorded texts for analysis. These will include African American Vernacular ("Black English"), Texas Afro-Seminole Gullah, and Louisiana Creole French, among others.
Towards the end of the course we shall return to the issues raised at the beginning, and attempt a definition of the processes and typologies. We will also look at creolization/metropolitanization, and issues of education and standard language reform.
If there is a particular, related topic you would like included in the course, please inform the instructor (xulaj@mail.utexas.edu) before August and he will try to incorporate it.
Graduate standing
Grade for the course will be based on a research paper.
No text for sale. Copious handouts.
This course presents an introduction to morphology, with special emphasis on the interface between phonology and morphology. Thus, we will examine morphophonological phenomena (for example, phonological changes occurring as the result of morpheme concatenation) as well as prosodic morphology. Prosodic morphology refers collectively to a diverse group of phenomena including reduplication, word truncation, and nonconcatenative root-and-pattern models of word formation found primarily in Semitic languages and in some Penutian languages of the Americas.
The class will begin with a practical overview of traditional morphological concepts and classes. Readings for the semester will be drawn from the literatures in morphology and phonology, beginning with structuralist approaches (e.g. Nida 1946), continuing through autosegmental approaches (e.g. McCarthy & Prince 1986) and ending with relevant selections from the current literature in optimality theory. To the greatest extent possible, the languages examined in this class will be indigenous languages of the Americas. Students working on Native American languages will be encouraged to satisfy the course's requirements by analyzing the morphology of their language(s) of interest.
Graduate standing
Problem sets (one every week for the first half of the semester),
40%
One term essay (preliminary and revised versions), 30%
Three quizzes, 30%
TBA
TBA
Graduate standing.
TBA
TBA
The objective of this course is to acquaint the students with the beauty and special
features of the Biblical Poetry ñ from the literary ñ artistic ñ as well as the linguistic
philological and stylistic points of view.
Readings in the Hebrew original will include: the Song of Lamech (Genesis, 4), the
Blessings of Jacob (Genesis, 49), The Song of the Sea (OR: The Song of Moses; Exodus,
15), The Parables of Balaam (Numbers, 23-24), the poem of "Haíazinu" "Listen
O Heavens" (Deuteronomy, 32), The Blessings of Moses (Deut., 33), The Song of
Deborah (Judges, 5), The Prayer of Hannah (First Samuel, 20), The Lamentation of
David over Saul and Jonathan (Second Samuel, 1), The Song of David upon delivery
from the Land of Saul (Second Samuel, 22), Isaiahís Message to King Hezekiah regarding
King Senacherib (Second Kings, 19); selected samples from the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and the "Minor Prophets"; selections from the Psalms, Job, The
Song of Songs etc.
Graduate standing. Students deficient in Hebrew may obtain individual help from Prof. Bar-Adon.
Grades will be based on class participation, regular assignments and class reports, and a term paper.
The Hebrew Bible (with or without English translations.)
The goal of this course is to let the students do their own small research projects. Experimental work in the lab will be encouraged.
With respect to organization, the course will continue where the 381M lectures ended. That means that, initially, there will be classes in which we will further pursue what we began in the final part of 381M, namely the review of current work on speaking, listening and learning to speak. Topics for projects usually suggest themselves during this part. Once students have their own projects, we will abandon the lecturing and switch to a one-on-one format.
LIN 381M or consent of instructor.
Written term paper and a presentation of project in class towards the end of the semester.
No text
This seminar is an introduction to important non-transformational syntactic frameworks, focussing on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). These are lexicalist theories, so a lot of the action is in the lexicon. The two theories are similar, but HPSG is perhaps more suited to studying the syntax-semantics interface, while LFG's flexibility makes it a good framework for studying typology and universals. We will survey some major issues in syntax, making this course primarily about syntax itself and only secondarily about theories of syntax. The course is appropriate for students who have just taken Syntax I and II, or for more advanced students. Students interested in computation will also find this course relevant, since many computational implementations employ HPSG, LFG, or related unification-based frameworks (however, this is not a course in computational linguistics, nor does it presuppose any knowledge of it). Students will complete some problem sets and write a short paper.
For more information on LFG and HPSG see:
Graduate standing.
TBA
This is an introduction into pragmatics, the theory of language use. We will discuss the difference between literal vs. situational meaning, Grice's theory of meaning, the theory of conversation by David Lewis, the nature of conventions, and the notion of reference. There will be a thorough dis-cussion of Grice's theory of conversational implicatures and conventional implicatures (presuppositions), of speech act theory, and of politeness and power in conversation. We will discuss several applications of pragmatic theory, like rhetorical figures and discourse types.
Introduction into the semantics of natural language (LIN380M)
Grading is based on homework exercises and an in-class presentation with an elaborate handout.
There is no textbook; handouts will be provided.
Individual instruction. Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Consent of instructor must be obtained. Requirements: You must have the prior written consent of the instructor before you register for or add this course. Graduate Conference Course Agreement forms are available in Calhoun 508. Please see Kathy Ross, Graduate Coordinator, for information.
This course explores notions of power as they emerge and are constructed in language in interaction, ways in which linguistic exchanges can express relations of power, and the role that power can play in the structure of human communicative interaction. Readings include both ethnographic studies and theoretical work about language and power across a range of disciplines and cultures. Early on in the course students will collect language data from a context of their choice, and this data will be analyzed both collaboratively and individually in terms of the concepts and issues examined in the readings and in class discussions.
TBA
TBA
TBA
This is the anthropology graduate core course in linguistic anthropology. It consists of lectures and class discussions introducing the major subareas of linguistic anthropology (the study of language in relation to culture and society). Topics to be dealt with include: types of linguistic structure, the description and analysis of unwritten languages, the analysis of discourse, semantics, social organization and language use, the acquisition of communicative competence, speech play and verbal art, the ethnography of speaking, language change and language history, language and speech in contemporary society.
Graduate standing required. Contact the instructor (jsherzer@mail.utexas.edu) for permission to register for this course.
TBA
TBA
This course will focus on important, though sometimes overlooked, aspects of language and society: language and politics and language planning, which may not be sufficiently accounted for otherwise. It has to be recognized that nations and other political entities do have a significant impact on language behavior and language planning. Whereas, it is especially prominent in societally patterned language behavior and language planning of emerging and developing nations, it may be present, though less overtly, in developed and established nations and societies, as well (including the US).
The study of the reflection of various aspects of language and politics in literature (both prose and poetry) is likely to add another interesting dimension to this seminar. The same applies to aspects of language of politics... Needless to say, in addition to the study of general trends and practices, special attention will be given to representative case studies, across nations. Among the topics to be discussed in this seminar are the following:
I. Introductory:
II. Language and Politics:
III. Language Planning in Theory and in Practice:
IV. Societal Biligualism/Multilingualism and Socio-Political Implications:
V. Language Politics and Education:
VI. Belles-Lettres and Language Politics: The Reflection of Language and Society and of Language-Politics in Literature (in Prose and Poetry):
VII. Cross Cultural Communication:
VIII. On Language of Politics
Graduate standing.
Class participation, oral report, discussion of articles, and a term paper.
A list of texts will be provided in class.
The purpose of this course is to help graduate students develop certain skills that will be useful to them in their careers as linguists. These include:
To meet the first goal listed above, students will give several oral presentations of their work on one of their Ph.D. qualifying papers, which they are expected to finish during the course of the semester.
Graduate standing. Consent of instructor must be obtained.
Oral presentations of your own research, class participation, short written assignments, and progress on your qualifying paper. This course is only offered on a credit/no credit basis.
None.
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