Linguistics 318

Types of Languages

TuTh 6-7:30

Prof. Jeff Heath, 4088 FB

tel.: direct office 647-2152, dept. 764-0353

jheath@umich.edu

 

This course introduces students to the range of grammatical structures found in languages, especially those native to the Western Hemisphere, Australia, and Africa. The emphasis is on morphosyntax as opposed to (morpho-)phonology. Two complementary approaches are used: a) looking at individual languages to see how their various features work together; and b) cross-linguistic surveys of many languages with reference to specific grammatical topics. Issues covered include lexical classes (is the noun-adjective-verb distinction universal?), linear ordering, case and agreement, pronouns and the animacy scale, verb categories (tense, aspect, mood), negation and conditionals, conjunction, relative-clause formation, focalization, and clause subordination. Each student will "adopt" a language he/she has no previous knowledge of and will draw on a reference grammar of that language for short reports (some of which will be presented to the class). Brief collective work with a native speaker of a "mystery" language is planned at the end of the semester. Designed for students with some prior preparation in Linguistics (e.g. Linguistics 210), or a good background in the study of a (preferably non-European) language.

 

Grades:

 

one in-class exam

20%

 

short reports (5)

40%

 

attendance/participation

10%

 

final research project

30%

         

textbook: Whaley, Introduction to Typology: The Unity and Diversity of Language (at the usual 3 bookstores)

 

Tu 9.6

Introductory meeting

 

 

Th 9.8

Universals and relativism; absolute and implicational universals

 

Reading: Whaley 3-53.

 

 

Tu 9.13

Lexical classes (verb, noun, adjective)

 

Reading: Whaley 54-64.

 

Benjamin Lee Whorf. 1941. "Languages and logic." In: Whorf (ed. by John Carroll), Language, Thought, and Reality, 233-46.

 

 

Th 9.15

Lexicalization

 

Reading: Leonard Talmy. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics, vol. 2, Chapter 1 ("Lexicalization patterns"), 21-69.

 

 

Tu 9.20

Basic categories and grammatical relations

 

Reading: Whaley 64-75.

 

Francesca Merlan. 1985. "Split intransitivity: functional oppositions in intransitive inflection." In:  Johanna Nichols and Anthony Woodbury (eds.), Grammar Inside and Outside the Clause, 324-62.

 

 

Th 9.22

Constituents and their linear ordering

 

Reading: Whaley 79-107.

 

 

Tu 9.27

Greenbergian typology

 

Reading: Joseph Greenberg. 1970. "Some generalizations concerning glottalic consonants, especially implosives." International Journal of American Linguistics 36:123-45. also online:

 

http://www.jstor.org/view/00207071/ap040128/04a00060/0

 

Matthew Dryer. 1992. "The Greenbergian word-order correlations." Language 68(1):81-138. also online:

 

http://www.jstor.org/view/00978507/ap020274/02a00030/0

 

 

Th 9.29

Morphological typology

 

Reading: Whaley 111-148.

 

 

Tu 10.4

Case marking

 

Reading: Whaley 151-182.

 

 

Th 10.6

Agreement

 

Reading: Christian Lehmann. 1988. "On the function of agreement." In: Michael Barlow and Charles Ferguson (eds.), Agreement in Natural Language, 55-65.

 

William Croft. 1988. "Agreement vs. case marking and direct objects." In: Barlow and Ferguson (eds.), op. cit., 159-79.

 

 

Tu 10.11

Numerals, quantifiers, and numeral classifiers

 

Joseph Greenberg. 1978. "Generalizations about numeral systems." In: Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Human Language, vol. 3, 249-97.

 

 

Th 10.13

Verb derivation

 

Reading: Whaley 183-200

 

 

[Tu 10.18

study break]

 

 

Th 10.20

Tense and aspect

 

Reading: Whaley 202-218

 

Lloyd Anderson, "The 'perfect' as a universal and as a language-particular category" (1982), in Paul Hopper (ed), Tense-Aspect, 227-264

 

 

Tu 10.25

Mood, negation, and conditionals

 

Reading: Whaley 219-232

 

Barnes. 1984. "Evidentials in the Tuyuca verb," International Journal of American Linguistics 50(3):255-271

 

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7071%28198407%2950%3A3%3C255%3AEITTV%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G

 

 

Th 10.27

Types of sentences

 

Reading: Whaley 233-244

 

 

Tu 11.1

Possession and compounding

 

Marianne Mithun. 1986. "On the nature of noun incorporation." Language 62(1):32-38. also online:

 

http://www.jstor.org/view/00978507/ap020250/02a00040/0

 

 

Th 11.3

Verb serialization

 

Whalen 274-79 (on "cosubordination")

 

Talmy Givón. 1991. "Serial verbs and the mental  reality of 'Event': grammatical versus cognitive packaging." In: Elizabeth Traugott and Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization, vol. 1, 81-127

 

 

Tu 11.8

Clausal subordination (embedding)

 

Reading: Whaley 247-266

 

 

Th 11.10

Switch-reference and other reference-tracking systems

 

Robert Oswalt. 1983. "Interclausal reference in Kashaya." In: John Haiman and Pamela Munro (eds.), Switch Reference in Universal Grammar, 267-90.

 

 

Tu 11.15

Relativization and focalization

 

Bertnard Comrie and Edward Keenan. 1979. "Noun phrase accessibility revisited." Language 55:649-664, also online:

 

http://www.jstor.org/view/00978507/ap020222/02a00050/0

 

 

Th 11.17

Coordination (conjunction and disjunction)

 

Whaley 267-74

 

Liane Jeschull. 2004. "Coordination in Chechen." In: Martin Haspelmath (ed.), Coordinating constructions, 241-65.

 

 

Tu 11.22

Nonconfigurational languages (life without phrase structure)

 

Jeffrey Heath. 1986. "Syntactic and lexical aspects of nonconfigurationality in Nunggubuyu (Australia)", Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 4:375‑408

 

 

[Th 11.24

Thanksgiving break]

 

 

Tu 11.29

Exam

 

 

Th 12.1

projects

 

Reading: David Gill. 2001. "Escaping Eurocentrism: fieldwork as a process of unlearning." In: Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff (eds.), Linguistic Fieldwork, 102-132.

 

 

Tu 12.6

projects

 

 

Th 12.8

projects

 

 

Tu 12.13

projects