Historical Linguistics studies the origins and diachronic consequences of linguistic variation. This course will focus on identifying the linguistic (that is, language-internal, systemic) motivations for particular innovations and explanation of the course of evolution of linguistic structure. All aspects of linguistic change will be surveyed: phonological, morphological, lexical, and grammatical, with special attention to the role of linguistic meaning in diachronic syntax. Students will come to an understanding of the theoretical and methodological principles of linguistic reconstruction by working through at least one of the classic reconstructions of Comparative Linguistics. Reconstruction in morphology and syntax as well as in phonology will be discussed. Students will compare ideas of what it means to explain linguistic diachrony and attempt to come to grips with the differing points of view that underlie different theories of linguistic change. Students will be required to acquire and familiarize themselves with at least one standard Historical-Comparative grammar of their language or language family of specialization, and will be asked to study one classic problem in the history of that language or family and analyze various approaches to the problem, with particular attention to the theoretical underpinnings of divergent forms of explanation.

This course, assuming no more than general familiarity with phonological concepts, offers an intensive introduction to the formal apparatus of generative phonology, with an emphasis the development of fluency in analyzing phonological data. The presentation of material in class therefore assumes concurrent registration in the associated practicum (Ling 73600: Phonology Practicum, Monday 6:30-8:30 p.m., 1 credit).
The basics of phonological description and theory -- inventories, distinctive features, natural classes, alternations, levels of representation, rule formulation - are first introduced within the linear framework of classic generative phonology. With these basics in place, we motivate additions to the formalism - feature geometry, underspecification, autosegmental architecture , metrical representation -- in terms of their better capture of common phonological phenomena. Finally, we review an altogether different analytic framework, Optimality Theory.
Textbooks
Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.
Roca, I., & Johnson, W. (1999). A Workbook in Phonology. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Preliminary Reading
Although a course in linguistic phonetics is not a prerequisite for the course -- because phonology is not phonetics -- students without prior exposure may benefit from a review of basic notions and terminology. To this end, copies of Chapters 1, 3 and 5 of Roca and Johnson's (1999) "A Course in Phonology" (an undergraduate text) are recommended. See the department's readings cabinet.
Course Assessment
Regular homework assignments (phonology problem sets), plus mid-term and final take-home examinations.

This course will offer a comprehensive overview of the major theories of morphology in the field, with particular reference to the interfaces between morphology and phonology, and between morphology and syntax. Starting out from the debates between strong and weak lexicalism (culminating in Chomsky "Remarks on nominalization") and the classic Kiparskian level ordered morphology/phonology model, the course will work its way to current theories of morphology, including Anderson's (1992) amorphous morphology, Aronoff's (1994) morphology by itself, and Halle & Marantz's (1993) distributed morphology, as well as approaches to morphology which deny morphology independent status as a module of the theory and perform both inflectional and derivational word formation in the syntax (the strongly non-lexicalist model of Baker 1988), and the revival of strong lexicalism in Chomsky's (1995) minimalism. Students registering for this course are expected to have successfully completed their coursework for Syntax I (LING 72100), but no prior knowledge of phonology or more advanced syntax will be presupposed. As textbooks providing background reading on morphological theory and the issues in the interfaces between morphology and syntax/phonology, Spencer (1991) and Aronoff & Fudeman (2004) may be consulted.

Literature
I. Textbooks
Aronoff, Mark & Kirsten Fudeman (2004). What is Morphology?Oxford: Blackwell.
Spencer, Andrew (1991). Morphological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

II. Primary literature
Anderson, Stephen (1992). Amorphous Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aronoff, Mark (1976). Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Aronoff, Mark (1994). Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional Classes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Baker, Mark (1988). Incorporation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In R.A. Jacobs & P.S. Rosenbaum (eds), Readings in English Transformational Grammar. Waltham: Ginn & Co.
Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz (1993). Distributed Morphology. In K. Hale & S.J. Keyser (eds), The View from Building 20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lapointe, Steven, Diane Brentari & Patrick Farrell (eds) (1998). Morphology and Its Relation to Phonology and Syntax. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Spencer, Andrew & Arnold Zwicky (eds) (1998). The Handbook of Morphology. Oxford: Blackwell.

From Principles-and-Parameters Theory to Minimalism
Taking the end-point of Syntax I as a starting-point (and as a prerequisite for registration), this course takes its participants from Chomsky's (1981) original Government-Binding Theory all the way to the most recent incarnation of the principles-and-parameters approach to generative grammar: the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995). Along the way, it addresses, among other things: (i) Lasnik & Saito's (1984) theory of "gamma-marking" and intermediate trace deletion at LF, (ii) Chomsky's (1986-Barriers) densely successive-cyclic derivations for A'-movement via intermediate VP-adjunction, (iii) his unification of the theories of government and bounding, (iv) his analysis of A-movement and its dependency on head-chains, (v) the perspective on the general interdependency of A-movement and head-movement that the "equidistance" based theory of locality in Chomsky (1993) gives rise to, (vi) the general premises of the minimalist program of Chomsky (1993) and Chomsky (1995), (vii) the reduction of the phrase-structure component of the theory ("bare phrase structure"), and (viii) the connection between hierarchical relationships between constituents and their linear sequencing ("antisymmetry"; Kayne 1994).

The course presupposes a solid command of the issues addressed in Syntax I (LING 72100), but no specific knowledge of syntactic theory beyond that point.

Literature
The Haegeman (1994) textbook that was used for Syntax I will continue to be used in the first weeks of classes; beyond that point, we will rely primarily on Chomsky (1995), The Minimalist Program (MIT Press) and materials that will be provided in class.

An introduction to Montague semantics, also known as model-theoretic semantics or truth conditional semantics. The course covers some of the philosophical background as well as the intersection of semantics with syntax and pragmatics. Specific topics include: definitions of truth, predicate logic, quantification, and intensionality. The course assumes a bit of syntax but no mathematical or logical background. The text is Meaning and Grammar, 2nd edition (Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, MIT Press). Students will also be encouraged to look at Logic, Language, and Meaning (L T F Gamut, Chicago Press) as well as other texts. The course is evaluated with a series of assignments during the semester (50%) and a final take-home assignment (50%).

We will study the process by which perceivers assign syntactic structure and meaning to sentences (word sequences). The aim is to discover how the knowledge of language represented in the mental 'competence grammar' is put to work in performance. We will read the early classic papers on parsing models as background for studying current theories. We will consider sentence processing at the 'interfaces': how is LF computed? How does prosody affect syntactic structure assignment? Data will be drawn from experimental studies of Croatian, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and other languages as well as English.

This course emphasizes readings and discussion about the nature of the initial state and the nature of the learning mechanism. The main theme is how children learn the basic syntactic structure of their language; we will concentrate on syntactic structure. We will be concerned both with the nature of children's syntactic representations (what are they like at the initial state?; what are they like in intermediate states?) and with how the child moves from state to state (how does the child learn [and why is the word "learn" controversial]; how does the child make use of her input)?

Classes will use a combined lecture-seminar format. There is no text: students will read original research and theoretical articles. Students will also a) perform some transcription and data analysis, b) write a 5-10 page midterm paper (which will be a review of a recent journal article), c) make one class presentation, and d) write a final paper or take a final examination.

An important goal of the course is for students to think like researchers in language acquisition. By transcribing and analyzing cild data, students will learn how to ask and answer questions in language acquisition. We will investigate syntactic categories, children's first word combinations, children's errors of omission and commission, the role of performance limitations, the role of parental input in acquisition, and models of learning.

This seminar course explores phenomena in bilingualism, bringing together two perspectives. The primary perspective is a psycholinguistic one; i.e., we ask questions about the character of language representations and processing mechanisms in the mind of the adult bilingual speaker/hearer, and of their development in the young bilingual. How is language knowledge organized and accessed to support the behavioral "juggling act" of bilingualism, in which there is ready yet normally selective availability of more than one system of grammatical knowledge? And, since any adequate empirical investigation of linguistic representation and process in the bilingual must crucially be conducted with well-defined populations under situationally appropriate protocols, we also review the classic sociolinguistic literature. That literature raises questions about, e.g., varieties of bilingualism, language choice in different domains, and the analysis of code-switching behavior.

El prop—sito del seminario es aprender a realizar investigaciones sobre el espa–ol hablado en EEUU bajo la —ptica de la sociolingŸ’stica variacionista o de la sociolog’a del lenguaje. El estudiante organizar‡ y llevar‡ a cabo un peque–o proyecto de investigaci—n sobre las estructuras o los usos variables del espa–ol hablado o escrito en Nueva York o en otras partes de EEUU, o sobre la distribuci—n sociol—gica o demogr‡fica, las actitudes valorativas, la selecci—n de c—digos, o el mantenimiento o cambio, del espa–ol estadounidense. Un segundo prop—sito del curso ser‡ familiarizar al estudiante con los principales temas que han ocupado a la sociolingŸ’stica del espa–ol en EEUU. El profesor llevar‡ la clase en espa–ol. Las preguntas en clase y los trabajos escritos pueden ser en espa–ol o en inglŽs, a opci—n del estudiante. Habr‡ lecturas en los dos idiomas.

Variationist approaches to sociolinguistics
The purpose of the course is to teach students to organize and conduct quantitative-variationist sociolinguistic research based on spoken or written discourse data drawn from a language of their choice. Students will carry out a small research project on a variable feature of their language or on a quasi variable feature that is amenable to quantitative analysis. Students will learn the basics of variationist research using crosstabs, anovas, correlations, and linear and logistic regressions through the spss program. An additional purpose of the course is to evaluate the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of variationist research by reading and discussing recent papers on variationist approaches to sociolinguistics. Readings will be on variable features of English, Spanish and French. Students should be acquainted with the basics of syntax and phonology, and have a fondness or at least a tolerance for naturalistic data, numbers, and statistics.

Text corpora generally provide the data for computational linguistics - data that can be used to build a statistical model of a linguistic phenomenon, to test a theory in psycholinguistics, or to construct a natural language processing tool. The goal of this course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills that are necessary to conduct their own research in computational linguistics. Topics will include elementary probability theory, information theory, and statistics. Students will also be introduced to methods commonly used in analyzing corpora, such as parsing marked-up text, tagging words with parts of speech, developing and evaluating statistical models of language, using lexical databases, and computing similarity among words and documents.

Corpus Analysis is open to graduate students who have had at least one course in programming. Grades will be based on homework assignments, most involving programming, and a term project, which will consist of a proposal, an oral presentation in class, and a written project report.

Required text:
Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing
Christopher D. Manning & Hinrich Schutze
MIT Press, 1999

Language is one of the most important resources in the conduct of our social life. Linguistic behavior is the central focus of many social settings, and it is also on linguistic evidence that we base many of our evaluations of the world around us. Yet attitudes toward language and how we use language are highly dependent on social and cultural factors, which also influence how and why language changes. This course is an introduction to linguistic anthropology (the study of the relationship between language and culture and of the use of languages in socio-cultural context). We will examine the nature of language, its role in our social life, and linguistic and anthropological theory and methodology through reading ethnographic and sociolinguistic case studies and discourse analyses. Topics examined include: linguistic and communicative competence, linguistic structure and use, language universals, linguistic relativity, language acquisition and socialization, verbal politeness, the relationship between language change and variation, gender, ethnicity and nationalism, language and political economy, bilingualism, and linguistic ideology.

The objectives of this course are to examine and evaluate research methods used in second language acquisition studies and apply these to particular research topics of interest to the students. Class lectures and discussions will cover various approaches to research design and methodology in the field; methods of reviewing and evaluating existing research related to a given topic; formulating a coherent research question; defining a testable hypothesis; designing an empirical study; a discussion of data collection, management and analysis; abstract writing. The course will be conducted like a workshop in which students will learn to apply the principles and issues reviewed in class to their own ideas so as to develop them into a research question, select an appropriate methodology and design and carry out their own research project.

Readings will be chosen from the following texts:
Brown, Understanding Research In Second Language Learning.
Nunan, Research Methods in Second Language Learning.
Woods, Fletcher and Hughes, Statistics in Language Studies.
Tarone, Gass and Cohen, Research Methodology in Second Language Acquisition.

This course will focus on problems of reference and anaphora in natural language. Among the topics considered will be the regulation of co-reference by Binding Theory, and the distinction between deictic pronouns, bound-variable pronouns, and anaphoric pronouns. Various asymmetries between 3rd person pronouns and 1st and 2nd person pronouns will also be considered, as well as 'de se reference.' The readings will include both traditional and current authors. The goal throughout will be to determine the relative contributions of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics to the treatment of reference in natural language. A term paper will be required.

This seminar discusses the role that language policies play in the production and reproduction of group identities. It focuses on the strategies through which language policies aim at intervening in the configuration of linguistic markets, that is, in the determination of the value assigned to different linguistic practices as well as to the beliefs held by members of a given community. Finally, the seminar hopes to assess the extent to which concepts central to language policy studies - such as power, solidarity, social networks, intergenerational transmission, or strict compartimentalization - are still valid or need to be reformulated in the context offered by the many phenomena associated with globalization. We will approach globalization through the work of Garc’a Canclini and Anthony Giddens, and will discuss views of language and community through the theoretical work of authors such as Pierre Bourdieu, Joshua Fishman, James Milroy, Christina Bratt Paulston, Robert Philipson, or Bernard Spolsky, and through studies of language policies designed and/or implemented in a number of specific communities in Latinamerica and Spain. (Classes will be conducted in Spanish, readings will be in English and Spanish, students will be allowed to use either Spanish or English in class as well as in written assignments.)