Undergraduate Course Descriptions
LING 200 Introductory Linguistics (3) Not open to students who have completed ANTH 371 or HESP 120. Ways of studying human language; basic concepts of modern linguistic analysis (sound systems, word formation, syntax, meaning). The nature of human language; the social aspects of language; language change; dialects; writing systems; language universals, etc.
LING 210 Structure of American Sign Language (3) Overview of phonology, morphology and syntax of American Sign Language. History of the language and the unique social, political and linguistic situation of the deaf.
LING 240 Language and Mind (3) The study of language as a cognitive phenomenon. Ways of representing people's knowledge of their native language, ways in which that knowledge is attained naturally by children, and how it is usedin speaking and listening. Relevant philosophical literature. Relationship to study of other cognitive abilities: reasoning, perception, sensory-motor development.
LING 311 Syntax I (3) Prerequisite: LING 240. Basic concepts, analytical techniques of generative syntax, relation to empirical limits imposed by viewing grammars as representations of acomponent of human mind. Aspects of current theories.
LING 312 Syntax II (3) Prerequisite: LING 311. Continuation of LING 311. Development of theories of syntax. Criteria for revising theories. Methods and strategies of "scientific" effortsto explain natural phenomena.
LING 321 Phonology I (3) Prerequisite: LING 240. Properties of sound systems of human languages, basic concepts and analytical techniques of generative phonology. Empirical limitsimposed by viewing grammars as cognitive representations. Physiological properties and phonological systems; articulatory phonetics and distinctive feature theory. LING
322 Phonology II (3) Prerequisite: LING 321.Continuation of LING 321. Further investigation of phonological phenomena and phonological theory. Revising and elaborating the theory of the phonological representation; interaction ofphonology and morphology.
LING 330 Historical Linguistics (3) A traditional presentation of language change. Language types and families, sounds and writing systems, grammatical categories. Reconstruction of proto-languages by internal and comparative methods.
LING 350 Philosophy of Language (3) Prerequisite: PHIL170 or PHIL 173 or PHIL 371; or LING 311. The nature and function of language and other forms of symbolism from a philosophical perspective.
LING 410 Grammar and Meaning (3) Prerequisite: LING 312. The basic notions of semantic theory: reference, quantification, scope relations, compositionality, thematic relations, tense and time, etc. The role these notions play in grammars of natural languages. Properties of logical form and relationship with syntax.
LING 411 Comparative Syntax (3) Prerequisite: LING 312. Comparison of data from a variety of languages with respect to some aspect of current versions of syntactic theory in order to investigate how parameters of universal grammar are fixed differently in different languages. Attempts to work out fragments of grammars for some languages.
LING 419 Topics in Syntax (3) Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
LING 420 Word Formation (3) Prerequisite: LING 322. Definition of shape and meaning of possible words, both across languages and within particular languages. Interaction between principles of word formation and other components of a grammar: syntax, logical form and phonology.
LING 421 Advanced Phonology (3) Prerequisite: LING 322. Topics in current phonological theory, as they relate to data from the sound systems of various languages. Segmental and prosodic analysis. Discussion of autosegmental theory, metrical theory, etc.
LING 429 Topics in Phonology (3) Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
LING 430 Language Change (3) Prerequisite: LING 240. Changes in grammars from generation to generation. Consequences for the theory of grammars. Traditional work on historical change.
LING 439 Topics in Diachronic Linguistics (3) Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
LING 440 Grammars and Cognition (3) Relationship between the structure, development and functioning of grammars and the structure, development and functioning of other mental systems. Interpretations of experimental and observational work on children's language, aphasia, speech production and comprehension.
LING 444 Child Language (3) Prerequisite: LING 200 or LING 240. Examines children's language development from the perspective of Chomsky's 'Universal Grammar'. Parts of children's knowledge which are innate, and parts which are learned from the environment. This issue will motivate discussion of a variety of topics including children's knowledge of the lexicon and word meaning, grammatical structure, and semantics.
LING 451 Grammars and Variation (3) Prerequisite: LING 311. Grammars and the use of language in a variety of styles: formal, casual, literary, etc. Consequences for concepts of grammars. Variation theory. Literary styles.
LING 453 Mathematical Approaches to Language (3) Prerequisite: LING 312. The aspects of mathematics used in linguistic discussions: recursion theory, Chomsky's hierarchy of grammars, set theory, Boolean algebra, finite state grammars, context-free grammars, etc. Applications to theories of grammars. Formalizations of grammatical theories.
LING 455 Second Language Learning (3) Relationship between theories of grammars, first language acquisition by children and the learning of second languages by adults.
LING470 Introduction to Programming Linguistics (3) Prerequisite: permission of department. Not open to CMSC students who have completed CMSC 106 or CMSC 114. Introduction to computer programming, intended for linguists and other non-computer-scientists who wish to acquire skills and fundamental programming concepts. The majority of the course will teach Common LISP, with the last section of the course covering Perl if time permits.
LING 487 Computer Science for Cognitive Studies (3) Also offered as PHIL 487. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: LING 487 or PHIL 487. List processing and discrete mathematics. Preparation for the study of artificial intelligence and other mathematicaly oriented branches of cognitive studies. Intended for students of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. LISP computer language, graphs and trees, the concept of computational complexity, search algorithms.
LING 499 Directed Studies in Linguistics (1-3) Prerequisite: permission of department. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs. Independent study or research on language under the supervision of a faculty member.