Ling 831: Language Typology and Documentation

Benjamin Bruening and Peter Cole

Spring 2004

Time and place:

M 12:00-3:00, LIN 202

Instructors:

Peter Cole, LIN 302, Tel: 831-6829, email pcole@udel.edu
Benjamin Bruening, LIN 101, Tel: 831-4096, email bruening@udel.edu

1   Language Typology and Documentation

This course introduces students to the concerns of linguistic typology and the study of language universals. It will also serve to some extent as a practical guide to language documentation.

2  Course Requirements

1. Class Presentations. We intend the course to be run largely by the students. Each week one student will take charge of leading the discussion. This will be based on the reading from one of the two textbooks, plus one extra reading that will be assigned prior to that class. See the schedule below.
2. Final Paper. Students will write a paper treating in-depth some linguistic phenomenon directly related to the topic of the course. It can be any topic at all, but ideally not centered on English, and it should have a typological dimension as well. Students should come to speak to us in advance to let us know what they are working on, and they should also feel free to come to talk to us if they're not sure what to write about. More on this later; the paper will be due sometime during finals week. We will ask for an outline to be handed in to us by May 3.

3  Textbooks

We will be using two textbooks in this course:

1. Song, Jae Jung (2001), Linguistic Typology: Morphology and Syntax. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.
2. Bickford, J. Albert (1998), Tools for Analyzing the World's Languages: Morphology and Syntax. Dallas: SIL.

The first part of the course will follow the Song textbook; see the schedule below. We will also assign additional readings, which we will make available for photocopying.

4  Schedule

This schedule is tentative and is likely to change over the course of the semester. Readings should be done before the class for which they are assigned.

February
16	Introduction; traditional approaches to typology; word order
	Reading: Song chapters 1-2
23	Case marking, Voice
	Reading: Song chapter 3, Bickford chapters 19, 21
	Presentation: Ozge, Benjamin; Practice talk: Satoshi and Chang-yong
March
1	Relative Clauses
	Reading: Song chapter 4, Bickford chapter 23
	Presentation: Yassir
8	Causatives
	Reading: Song chapter 5
	Presentation: Min-Jeong, Peter
15	Historical linguistics and language acquisition
	Reading: Song chapter 6
	Presentation: Karl
22	Spring Break
29	Polysynthesis and Head- vs. Dependent-Marking
	Reading: Baker 1996, Nichols 1986
	Presentation: Karthik, Benjamin
April
5	Reflexives
	Reading: Cole, Hermon, and Huang (Syncom)
	Presentation: Chang-yong, Peter
12	Reflexives
	Reading: Cole, Hermon, and Huang (Syncom)
	Presentation: Chang-yong, Peter
19	Embedded clauses
	Reading: Bickford chapter 22
	Presentation: Sean and Sachie
26	Questions
	Reading: Bickford chapter 16; Cheng 1991, chapters 2-3
	Presentation: Elanna, Peter
May
3	Indefinite pronouns
	Reading: Haspelmath 1997, chapters 1-4, 9
	Presentation: Thuan, Benjamin
10	Language documentation
	Reading: Bickford chapter 25
17	Language documentation
	Reading: Bickford chapter 25