1030 Syllabus Fall 19 PDF

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8/26/19

Andrea Calabrese

LING 1030: The Diversity of Languages

SYLLABUS Instructor: Andrea Calabrese [email protected] Office: Oak Hall 363 Office hours: Thursday: 12:30-3:30 (or by appointment) Teaching assistants: Karina Bertolino [email protected] Office hours: Wednesday 12:00-2:00 Pasha Koval [email protected] Office hours: TBA Kangzheng Gao [email protected] Office hours: Wednesday 1:30-3:30 1/ 64

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Course description There are thousands of languages in the world (7,099, https://www.ethnologue.com) and, as any adult human being has probably experienced, they may be quite different from each other. Still any human can potentially learn any language. Language is an intrinsic part of being human. There is a fundamental unity behind language diversity: the unity of human nature. In this course we will study and explain language diversity, but we will search for our common nature. Goals of the course: It offers basic linguistic notions that are necessary to talk about languages and their grammatical properties. It provides an overview of the languages of the world, where they are spoken, how they emerged and changed over time. It shows how languages differ from each other and at the same time how they are similar to each other.

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Required Readings: Pereltsvaig, A. Languages of the World, An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2017. Excerpts from Plag, I. et al. (2009). Introduction to English linguistics. Walter de Gruyter (posted on HuskyCT) lecture slides (posted on HuskyCT)

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Evaluation Midterm Exam (10/31/19)

(40% of your final grade)

Final Exam (TBA)(during final exam week)

(40% of your final grade)

Weekly Quizzes in discussion sections)

(20% of your final grade; no make-up)

Bonus Final Project: A brief description and analysis of a language other than English (5 pages, double spaced)

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The bonus project is a brief linguistic description of a language of your choosing. Find a language (ideally a non-Indo-European language) and pick a (number of) grammatical aspects of it to investigate. The description should be done in theoretical terms, i.e. the way we discuss the grammars of different languages in class. When choosing the language, take into consideration access to language data, grammar books etc. The bonus project is due on December 14. If you are unhappy with your grade on the mid term exam, the bonus final project can be used to replace your grade on one of those exams. There are no make-ups for the final exam.

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8/26/19 Syllabus

Grading scale 95-100=A, 90-94=A-, 85-89=B+, 80-84=B, 75-79=B-, 70-74=C+, 65-69=C, 60-64=D, below 60=F Grading key for quizzes: There will be 10 quizzes during the semester (given in section on Fridays). Your grade for each quiz is based on the scale above (0100%). At the end of the year, the worst two grades will be discarded, so your final grade for quizzes will be the average of 8 quizzes, not 10. If you miss a section, you will get 0% for that week’s quiz – a grade you will likely want to discard at the end.

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Extra credit You can earn up to 3 extra credit points for participating in experiments that are being conducted within the Linguistics department. You will receive 1 point for every 1 hour of participation, with partial hours rounded up. These points will be added directly to your final grade. You can sign up for experiments by going to this website and creating an account using your UConn email address: https://uconn-ling.sonasystems.com. Experiments will be posted on this site as they become available. (We cannot tell you exactly when, because it is up to the individual experimenters to post them). The online system keeps track of your credits, so you can check your balance at any time. The instructor of the course for which you are completing the extra credit is notified of your credits automatically at the end of the semester, at which point the credits will be added to your final grade. 7/ 64

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You must complete the experiments by Friday, December 6th at 5pm (the last day of classes this semester). Please be sure to allocate your points to this class (LING 1030 – Prof. Calabrese) in the system. This will ensure that I am notified of your credits. I will post the points to your grade at the same time that I post the final exam scores. Many experiments have restrictions (e.g., “must be a native speaker of English”). Please do not sign up for experiments that you are not qualified for. Experimenters verify the requirements at the beginning of the experimental appointment, so this wastes your time and theirs. Please do not worry if you don’t qualify for the experiments that you see. The administrator of the pool will make sure that there are experiments for everybody by the third to last week of the semester.

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We cannot predict when experiments will be available, because it is up to individual researchers to post experiments. You should check the website above regularly to see if new experiments have become available. However, it is guaranteed that there will be enough experiment slots for everyone in the class to earn the full 3 points if they want. Do not worry if it seems as though there aren’t very many experiments early in the semester. The administrator of the Linguistics department participant pool will make sure that there are enough experiments before the end of the semester, and that the experiments appear before the third to last week of the semester, so that you don’t have to rush at the end. That being said, we do suggest that you sign up for experiments when they arise so that you can get your extra credit out of the way early.

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Please note that other departments on campus also have experiments (e.g. Psychology). Their experiments do not count in this class. You must complete experiments that are posted by the Linguistics department to earn extra credit for this course. The website above only contains experiments by the Linguistics department, so this is very easy. Just go to that website, create an account, and complete 3 hours worth of experiments listed there. Participation in experiments is completely voluntary. If you do not wish to participate in experiments, you can instead write a 3 page paper on a topic related to this course for extra credit. You must clear the paper topic with your instructor in advance. The paper must include original research beyond the course material. The paper will be graded, and you will receive 0-3 points based on the grade

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Academic Integrity – “The Student Code” Academic dishonesty or misconduct of any type will not be tolerated in this class. Please refer to the Student Code (http://community.uconn.edu/academic-misconduct/) for specific guidelines. Accommodations Please contact me during office hours to discuss academic accommodations that may be needed during the semester due to a documented disability. If you have a disability for which you wish to request academic accommodations and have not contacted the Center for Students with Disabilities (CSD), please do so as soon as possible. The CSD is located in Wilbur Cross, Room 204 and can be reached at (860) 486-2020 or at [email protected].

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Schedule TOPIC 1: Introduction Read: Relevant lecture slides Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 1 TOPIC 2: Morphology: the structure of words Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Plag (2009) Chapter 3: Morphology TOPIC 3: Phonetic and Phonology: the structure and diversity of speech sounds Read: i. Relevant lecture slides i. Plag (2009) Chapter 1: Phonetics ii. Plag (2009) Chapter 2: Phonology TOPIC 4: Syntax: the structure of sentences Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Plag (2009) Chapter 4: Syntax 12 / 64

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TOPIC 5: Historical linguistics Read: i. Relevant lecture slides TOPIC 6: The Indo-European languages Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 2 Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 3, pp.57-67. TOPIC 7: The languages of Eurasia and Siberia: Basque, Uralic, and Chukotko-Kamchaktan. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltvsaig (2017) Chaper 4 TOPIC 8: The languages of the Caucasus Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 5 13 / 64

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TOPIC 9: The languages of Central Asia and the Middle East: Altaic (Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic) and Afro-Asiatic. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 6 TOPIC 10: The languages of Sub-Saharan Africa: Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kongo and Khoisan . Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 7 TOPIC 11: The languages of South and East Asia: Dravidian, TaiKadai, Hmong-Mien, Mon-Khmer, Sino-Tibetan. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltvsaig (2017) Chapter 3, pp.67-70. ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 8

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TOPIC 12: The languages of the Pacific: Austronesian. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 9 TOPIC 13: The aboriginal languages of Papua-New Guinea and Australia. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 10 TOPIC 14: The native languages of the Americas. Read: i. Relevant lecture slides ii. Perereltsvaig (2017) Chaper 11 NOTA BENE: NO DISCUSSION SECTION ON 8/30/19 (I.E. DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES). 15 / 64

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8/26/19 Introduction

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