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Transfer Student Courses in LinguisticsThis page was created at 12:42 PM on Thu, Oct 4, 2001. Fall Academic Term, 2001 (September 5 - December 21)Open courses in Linguistics Wolverine Access Subject listing for LING Fall Term '01Time Schedule for Linguistics. LING 210. Introduction to Linguistic Analysis.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Thomas E Toon (ttoon@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS). Credits: (4). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Nothing is more distinctly human than our ability to use language. Because of that, we expect that the study of language can provide insight into "human nature." This course is an analytic introduction to the methods linguists use for describing languages (although general training in analytic thought is our ultimate goal). Drawing on examples from a large number of the world’s languages, we will look at the sounds of language, how they are produced and how they pattern into words; we will study the diverse ways in which individual languages approach processes of word and sentence formation, while we ask whether there are processes universal to all languages. By focusing simultaneously on language data and on the techniques used by linguists to make sense of these data, we will see that our understanding of the object of inquiry (language) is influenced by our methods of inquiry. Requirements include problem-solving assignments, quiz(zes), and midterm and final exams; there is no prerequisite except an interest in language and thinking.
LING 211. Introduction to Language.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Robin M Queen (rqueen@umich.edu) , Rusty BarrettPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (SS). Credits: (3). Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rqueen/TEACHING/211 From time immemorial human beings have been curious about what appears to be a uniquely human possession, human language – about its structure, its diversity, its use, and its effects on others. This course explores the human capacity for language. We begin with a discussion of the uniqueness of human language and then review major aspects of language structure common to all human languages: sound systems, words and their meanings, sentence structures and meaning. We will then examine child language development, sentence processing, and language change; finally, we will extend our results to discussions of language variation, including social and political attitudes toward language (for instance, what is "Standard English", and is it better than other dialects of English? And should English become the official national language of the United States?). Course requirements include regular homework assignments, one midterm exam, and a final exam. Required Textbook:
LING 212. Introduction to the Symbolic Analysis of Language.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Acrisio PiresPrerequisites & Distribution: (4). (MSA). Credits: (4; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course is an introduction to some basic mathematical concepts and techniques used in linguistics. The main focus of the course will be learning how to construct models of natural language with these mathematical tools and to evaluate to which extent these models succeed in approximating natural language. It will introduce and explore topics familiar to linguistic theory such as structural descriptions, phrases and phrase markers, the use of set theory, trees, transformations and constraints on their application; and notions of derivations and representations. Most of the issues covered in the courses relate directly to syntax, although it should also be relevant to people interested in computational linguistics and semantics. Possible extensions into those areas may include types of grammars, automata and parsing theory; and/or the use of first order logic in quantification. There will be weekly readings and/or homework, a midterm and a final exam. There will be no discussion this course. The course will be MW 11:30-1 only.
LING 313. Sound Patterns.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Jose R BenkiPrerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 210 or 211. (3). (SS). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~benki/L313/syll313.html This course explores two fundamental aspects of the sounds of human languages: speech sounds as physical entities (phonetics) and speech sounds as linguistic units (phonology). In viewing sounds as physical elements, the focus is articulatory descriptions: How are speech sounds made? What types of articulatory movements and configurations are used to differentiate sounds in the world's languages? In this part of the course, the goal is to learn to produce, transcribe, and describe in articulatory terms many of the sounds known to occur in human languages. In the next part of the course, the focus is on sounds as members of a particular linguistic system. Phonological data from a wide range of languages are analyzed – that is, regularities or patterns in sound distribution are extracted from the data set and then stated within a formal phonological framework. We will also construct arguments to support the proposed analyses, and will find that phonetic factors play a crucial role in validating phonological analyses. Throughout the course, a major emphasis is that speech sounds are simultaneously physical and linguistic elements, and that these two aspects of sound structure are interdependent. Class sessions will consist of lectures, phonetic practice, and discussion of phonological data sets. Course grades will be based on weekly assignments, midterm, and take-home final exam. Linguistics 210, 211, 411, or permission of instructor is required to take the course.
LING 315. Introduction to Syntax.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Samuel D Epstein (sepstein@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 210 or 211. (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course introduces the foundations of generative syntactic inquiry. Methodological issues are first presented, including discussions of mentalism, cognitive capacities, mind vs. brain, knowledge vs. behavior, and the difference between studying “languages” as opposed to investigating human cognitive capacities such as the human capacity to acquire natural language systems. A formal syntactic analysis of certain central aspects of English syntax is constructed as a vehicle for presenting the fundamental aspects of contemporary syntactic theory, while concurrently illustrating the application of the methods discussed in the first part of the course.
LING 350. Perspectives on Second Language Learning and Second Language Instruction.
Section 001 – Meets with Linguistics 450.001.Instructor(s): Helen J MorleyPrerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 210 or 211. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in Ling. 450. (3). (Excl).
Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The purpose of this course is to explore past and current directions in both theoretical and practical aspects of second/foreign language learning and teaching. The course will examine a number of language learning/teaching paradigms and focus on the changing forms and functions of methodology, technique, and approach as the emphasis of language pedagogy has shifted from teacher directed, drill and pattern practice to learner focused, task based instruction. Students will have an opportunity to reflect upon and analyze their own language learning experiences and begin to critique and understand the instructional needs of varying language learning populations.
LING 440. Language Learnability.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Teresa L SatterfieldPrerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 314 and 315. (3). (Excl). Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Ling 440 is an accessible introduction to learnability theory and its interactions with various linguistic theories. The course will work mainly within the Principles and Parameters framework, surveying general concepts from formal learning theory and complexity theory – together with important discussions from developmental psycholinguistics, language processing, and historical linguistics. Prerequisites: Ling 315 or instructor permission.
LING 492. Topics in Linguistics.
Section 002 – Text Processing and Linguistic Research. Meets with Linguistics 792.002.Instructor(s): Richmond H ThomasonPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be elected for credit twice. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course is concerned with tools and techniques for linguists who may find themselves needing to organize, search, and display linguistic corpora. The course will concentrate on structured corpora (e.g., the corpora that are constructed by field linguists in the course of their research) but is not necessarily confined to this material. The beginning of the course will consist of a brief introduction to the UNIX operating system and a less brief introduction to the Perl programming language. We will consider the issues involved in structuring linguistic data, and the interplay between format and functionality in designing a corpus. The material will be illustrated with examples such as syntactic treebanks, online dictionaries, corpora collected for analyzing discourse, and other corpora of interest to students in the class. The typical student in this course will be a student who has advanced knowledge of linguistics and is generally familiar with computers, who has had little or no computer science or computational linguistics, but who expects to be engaged in research involving the creation and manipulation of corpora. The course may be able to accommodate other sorts of students, but if this description does not match you, you should consult with the instructor before making a final decision on whether to take it. Send email to rich@thomason.org. Students who come to the course with a project in mind will get the most out of it. Course requirements will include a number of laboratory sessions and homeworks, a written proposal for a project, and the project itself, which will include a written description of the project work.
LING 492. Topics in Linguistics.
Section 003 – Comparative Syntax: Romance. Meets with Linguistics 792.003.Instructor(s): Acrisio PiresPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be elected for credit twice. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course addresses topics in the syntax of the Romance languages, especially Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian. As most language families, the Romance languages have common historical and typological features, although they also vary in significant respects. These similarities and differences will be studied from a generative linguistics perspective and cast in terms of the model of (universal) principles and parameters (of language variation), emphasizing the interaction between innate knowledge (or universal grammar) and the triggering experience represented by the primary linguistic data to which speakers have to be exposed in the process of acquisition of their native language. From this perspective, the course will cover (parametric) variation in functional domains, exploring connections among phenomena such as subject licensing, case and agreement, verb movement, word order and subject-verb inversion, non-finite complementation, control and clitic placement. Furthermore, this course will explore the consequences of this model for language change among dialects of Western Romance languages (Brazilian and European Portuguese, Galician and Spanish; and also French). Directed to both linguistics and Romance language majors. Pre-requisite: LING 315 or equivalent; or permission of instructor depending on other relevant background (such as knowledge of one or more Romance languages and/or courses in fields such as mathematics or computer science). Evaluation will be based on weekly readings and/or homework, a midterm and a final research paper.
LING 512. Phonetics.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Patrice Speeter Beddor (beddor@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 313. (4). (Excl). Credits: (4). Course Homepage: http://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/2001/fall/ling/512/001.nsf This course introduces students to the nature of speech sounds. One goal is to provide an overview of the type of sounds in the world's languages and to train students in the production and transcription of these (sometimes "exotic") sounds. Practice with these sounds is accomplished through native-speaker presentations, in-class exercises, and computer demonstrations. A second goal is to arrive at an understanding of the speech process, which involves transmission of an acoustic signal from a speaker to a listener, and a corresponding description of speech sounds in terms of their articulatory (speaker-based), acoustic, and perceptual (listener-based) characteristics. In achieving this goal, students are introduced to basic principles of phonetic theory through readings, lectures, and hands-on experience in the phonetics laboratory. A third goal is to investigate interactions among articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual properties and to consider their possible consequences for the structure of sound systems. These phonetic properties are viewed as imposing constraints on the notion of a "possible speech sound" and as contributing to the definition of the "possible speech sound system" for human languages.
LING 515. Generative Syntax.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Samuel D Epstein (sepstein@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Ling. 315. (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. In the Generative framework, syntactic structure is generated by a formal rule system and by applying constraints to its output. Some of these rules and constraints are hypothesized to be innate, or "unlearned" (perhaps a species specific system that, in part, makes human language acquisition, or grammar growth, possible). Other aspects of our linguistic knowledge appear "learned", i.e. determined by an interaction of human biology and particular linguistic inputs. This class introduces this so-called "Principles and Parameters" approach to the analysis of human syntactic knowledge, focusing on how the various postulated ("simple") rules and constraints interact to generate ("complex") structures, characteristic of natural language sentences (such as the one you are now reading, and understanding). Course requirements may include weekly assignments, a midterm, and a final. For undergraduates, Linguistics 315 and permission of the instructor are prerequisites. There is no prerequisite for graduate students. Text: Haegeman, Blackwell L. Introduction to Government & Binding Theory, 2nd Edition.
LING 517 / ANTHRCUL 519 / GERMAN 517. Principles and Methods of Historical Linguistics.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Sarah G Thomason (thomason@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Graduate standing, or permission of instructor. (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course is an introduction to the theories and methods that enable linguists to describe and explain processes of linguistic change and historical relationships among languages. The major topics to be covered are the emergence of language families and means of establishing family relationships; sound change; grammatical change, especially analogy; language change caused by culture contacts; the Comparative Method, through which prehistoric language states can be reconstructed with an impressive degree of accuracy; internal reconstruction, a less powerful but still important method for gaining information about linguistic prehistory; and ways in which the study of current dialect variation offers insights into processes of change. Course requirements: regular homework assignments (45%), final exam (45%), and class participation (10%).
LING 532. Issues in Bilingualism.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Teresa L SatterfieldPrerequisites & Distribution: Graduate standing or permission of instructor. (3). (Excl). Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Bilingualism has been common throughout history, but in the last half century or so a number of developments such as decolonization, an increase in demand for popular education, massive population shifts through migration, and the development of global communication have served to accentuate our sense of living in a visibly and audibly multilingual modern world. A number of interesting issues can be dealt with in a course on bilingualism, all of great current relevance. Examples are acquisition of language(s) by children in bilingual families; the bilingual brain; aspects of bilingual knowledge/competence; language maintenance and language shift in migrant communities; bilingual education; multilingualism and multiculturalism in the United States; minority languages; the politics of bilingualism; attitudes to bilingualism. Students will be encouraged to work where relevant with their own languages and endeavor systematically to frame their own experience of bilingualism.
This page was created at 12:42 PM on Thu, Oct 4, 2001.
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