Linguistics 290: Introduction to Language
Linguistics 290: Introduction to Linguistics Spring 2002
Scott DeLancey Straub 227 346-3901 delancey@darkwing
Office hours: Tues 1-3 or by appointment (use e-mail)
Mitzi Barker
Text: Finegan: Language: Its Structure and Use
Course Web page:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/courses/290/290page.html
Course requirements:
Exams: Midterm 35%, Final 40%
Homework: 15%
Subject pool: 10%
Exams: The midterm will be on Friday, May 3. The final
will be given in this room at 10:15 on Monday, June 10.
Homework: Weekly homework assignments (see the last page
of this handout) are due in class every Monday, and will be
returned and discussed in section each Thursday. DO go to
discussion section; if you are not getting the assignments right
you'll want to know before you encounter similar problems on the
exams.
Experimental Subject Pool: Since much of the research
carried out in the Linguistics Department involves experimental
work, the Department cooperates with Psychology in maintaining a
"subject pool" for experiments. To encourage participation in
this pool, students in this and certain other Linguistics and
Psychology courses receive credit for participation in
experiments. The system works as follows: you are expected,
during the course of the term, to do ONE of the following:
Write a short research paper (due 10 June). See me for
details.
Attend 4 Linguistics Department Colloquia (every Tuesday at
3:30 in Straub 145), and turn in a short (1-2
paragraph) summary of what you heard. (It is not
expected that you will necessarily understand
everything you have heard).
Participate in 4 hours of research as part of the human
subject pool
Chances are, for most of you participation in the subject pool is
the least strenuous way of fulfilling this requirement. It's
also a painless way of learning how some of the information you
learn in these courses is obtained. For further information
about the human subjects pool consult:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~hscoord/.
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Course Outline
Date Lecture topic Read Ch:pages
Apr 1 Language and Linguistics 1:1-24
Lexicon & Morphology
3 word classes 2:31-41
5 derivation & word structure 2:41-54
8 inflection & inflectional categories 2:54-64
10 typology
Phonetics
12 Basics, need for transcription 3:74-81
15 consonants 3:81-90
17 vowels 3:90-96
19 stress, intonation, tone
Phonology
22 allophones & the phonemic principle 4:104-113
24 rules & rule interaction 4:113-121
26 syllable structure 4:121-125
29 morphophonemics 4:125-132
Syntax
May 1 Outline of syntax 5:141-145
Friday, May 3 MIDTERM EXAM
6 Constituency & tree representations 5:145-155
8 PS rules 5:155-160
10 Word order typology
13 Grammatical relations 5:160-164
15 Transformations 5:164-173
19 Relative clauses & RC typology 7:237-243
Semantics
20 Features & prototypes 6:182-190
22 Metaphor 6:190-202
24 Deictic categories 6:202-216
27 MEMORIAL DAY
Historical linguistics
29 Language families, common descent 13:451-471
Jun 3 Comparative method, sound change 13:471-497
5 Morphology & word formation 14:502-512
7 Grammaticalization LING 290 Spring 2002
Homework assignments:
The numbers refer to problems at the end of each chapter in the
Finegan text book. Later in the course these may be supplemented
with additional problems which will be posted on the course Web
site.
Homework is to be turned in in class on Mondays. Late homework
will not be accepted without a VERY convincing excuse.
Apr 8 2-1, 2-6, 2-8, 2-14
Apr 15 2-3, 2-17, 2-19
Apr 22 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-5, 3-6
Apr 29 4-1, 4-4, 4-7, 4-9, 4-10, 4-11
May 6 relax
May 13 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-13, 5-14
May 20 5-7, 5-9, 5-11
May 30 6-2, 6-3, 6-7, 6-8
Jun 3 13-4, 13-6