2023-24

22000 Language and ideology in Modern Greek

Crosslistings
MOGK 32000, MOGK 22000, LING 32000

Within the general area of language and ideology this course addresses issues that relate to Modern Greek dialects and the history of diglossia in the geographical area of Modern Greece. Standardization, language purification and several attempts of language planning of various success in the history of Greek are discussed and compared to other representative examples in the relevant literature, as well as various types of language oppression, which are attested in the history of Greek-speaking communities. The role of Atticism (the artificial mimicking of Classical Greek) in developing and sustaining high (H) forms of the language until today is examined in relation to social inequalities and (un)equal access to education. A brief history of the language and its writing systems are included, in relation also to the role of religious institutions and in particular the role of the Greek Orthodox Church in the issues under discussion. Students will be encouraged to draw parallels to cases of diglossia and language planning in other cultures and other speech communities. Participation and distinction in this course does not require previous knowledge of any stage or variety of Greek.

Tue Thu : 3:30 PM-4:50 PM

Harper, 135

2023-24 Spring

30202 Syntactic Analysis II

This course is a continuation of Syntax I. The emphasis will be on A'-movement and ellipsis operations within the framework of Principles and Parameters and the Minimalist Program. Although we will examine different types of movement and ellipsis constructions, as well as their interactions, the objective will be to understand to what extent we can develop a general theory of syntax. The course will have a strong cross-linguistic aspect to it, examining data from Irish, Austronesian languages, Mayan languages, Wolof, Russian, Romance, Germanic, and others. The topics will include wh-movement in questions, relative clauses, and other constructions, islands and other constraints on movement, sentence fragments (sluicing, split questions), VP-ellipsis, and gapping.

Tuesdays/Thursdays 10:00-11:20

Prerequisites

LING 30201

2023-24 Spring

/50510 Graduate Seminar in Psycholinguistics: Old and New Approaches to Audience Design

When people talk, they tailor their utterances to the needs of their interlocutor(s). The first half of this course will be devoted to reviewing foundational as well as newer approaches to audience design. The second half of the course will be geared towards designing and piloting a novel study addressing an open question in the literature. Depending on class size, this will be done as a whole class project or in student groups.

Note: This course has a different topic each quarter it is offered.

Tuesdays/Thursdays

Prerequisites

 

2023-24 Spring

Psycholinguistics

Crosslistings
COGS 27010

This is a survey course in the psychology of language. We will focus on issues related to language comprehension, language production, and language acquisition. The course will also train students on how to read primary literature and conduct original research studies.

Mondays/Wednesdays 1:30-2:50

2023-24 Spring

42050 Seminar in Speech Perception

Thursdays 12:30-3:20

2023-24 Spring

20001 Introduction to Linguistics

This course offers a brief survey of how linguists analyze the structure and the use of language. Looking at the structure of language means understanding what phonemes, words, and sentences are, and how each language establishes principles for the combinations of these things and for their use; looking at the use of language means understanding the ways in which individuals and groups use language to declare their social identities and the ways in which languages can change over time. The overarching theme is understanding what varieties of language structure and use are found across the world's languages and cultures, and what limitations on this variety exist.

Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50

2023-24 Spring

LING 20301/LING 30310 Intro to Semantics & Pragmatics

This course familiarizes students with what it means to study meaning and use in natural language. By “meaning” we refer to the (for the most part, logical) content of words, constituents, and sentences (semantics), and by “use” we intend to capture how this content is implemented in discourse and what kinds of additional dimensions of meaning may then arise (pragmatics). Some of the core empirical phenomena that have to do with meaning are introduced: lexical (i.e., word) meaning, reference, quantification, logical inferencing, presupposition, implicature, context sensitivity, cross-linguistic variation, speech acts. Main course goals are not only to familiarize students with the basic topics in semantics and pragmatics but also to help them develop basic skills in semantic analysis and argumentation.

Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30-4:50

Prerequisites

LING 20001

2023-24 Spring

24001 Prediction in Language Comprehension

Crosslistings
COGS 24001

Language tends to follow predictable patterns, from what sounds and words are about to be uttered, to what grammatical structures are likely, to be used to what broader implications are about to be suggested, and more. One prevailing hypothesis is that the human mind can take advantage of this predictability to help maintain the rapid pace of language comprehension. This course will explore critical questions surrounding the nature of prediction processes during language comprehension. What do people predict? How are their predictions constrained? How can we study the inherently internal process(es) of prediction? What are the consequences of prediction? Perhaps most importantly, what do the answers to these questions suggest about the mechanisms and computations of prediction? Readings will primarily consist of contemporary articles from peer-reviewed journals, and class meetings will be a mix of lectures and student-led discussions.

Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:20

2023-24 Spring

26520/36520 Mind, Body, and Meaning

Crosslistings
COGS 20001, NSCI 22520, PHIL 26520, PHIL 36520, PSYC 26520, PSYC 36520

What is the relationship between physical processes in the brain and body and the processes of thought and consciousness that constitute our mental life? Philosophers and others have puzzled over this question for millennia. Many have concluded it to be intractable. In recent decades, the field of cognitive science--encompassing philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and other disciplines--has proposed a new form of answer. The driving idea is that the interaction of the mental and the physical may be understood via a third level of analysis: that of the computational. This course offers a critical introduction to the elements of this approach, and surveys some of the alternative models and theories that fall within it. Readings are drawn from a range of historical and contemporary sources in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and computer science. (B) (II)

Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-10:50

2023-24 Spring

58012 Language, Evidence, and Mind

Crosslistings
Phil 58012

The observation that ordinary uses of predicates such as “tasty” and “beautiful” trigger an acquaintance inference—they suggest that the speaker has first-hand knowledge of the item under consideration—has received immense attention by philosophers as well as by linguists in recent years. The goal of this seminar is to arrive at a comprehensive and systematic understanding of this phenomenon. We will explore the significance of the acquaintance inference in semantics and philosophy of language (in particular for our understanding of the interaction between literal meaning and discourse pragmatics) but also for aesthetics and meta-ethics. From the linguistics side, we will explore intricate questions surrounding the projection properties of acquaintance inferences as well as issues surrounding “subjective” attitude verbs. The guiding hypothesis of this interdisciplinary seminar is that natural language predicate expressions lexically specify what it takes for their use to be properly ‘grounded’ in a speaker’s state of mind—what state of mind a speaker must be in for a predication to be in accordance with the norms governing assertion—and that these grounding constraints may compositionally interact with other other natural language expressions in interesting ways. (II)

Wednesdays, 9:30-12:20PM

Chris Kennedy, Malte Willer
2023-24 Spring
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