Meeting: Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 4:00 in Room 3012 Frieze Building.
Instructor: Peter Edwin Hook
Phone: 769-9045 (Please call before noon or between 8 and 10 pm)
Office hour: Friday, 1:30 to 2:30 pm, in 1084 Frieze Bldg. Or by appointment
e-mail: pehook@umich.edu
Website: http://www.umich.edu/~pehook
Human languages, especially those spoken by members of unfamiliar and distant cultures, appear on the surface to be very different from one another. But closer examination reveals that languages differ in systematic ways and that more than half of them can be divided into a relatively small number of basic types. In this course we will identify and study some of these basic patterns and explore possible reasons for their existence, seeking explanations where possible in the communicative function of language as well as in the historical evolution of languages.
The course will introduce students to basic grammatical structure and function by (1) having them investigate unfamiliar languages through study of published descriptive grammars and (2) relating this direct experience to the principle findings of contemporary typological research. Coursework will consist of (1) readings and lectures on the major parameters which are used to define language types, (2) the completion of a number of short assignments or reports on given phenomena as they are manifested in the languages that students will adopt, (3) discussion and comparison of these individual findings in class, (4) a midterm exam, and (5) a 15-20 page term paper examining a particular typological parameter in one or more languages. Toward the end of the course students will make a fifteen to twenty minute oral presentation to the class of a pre-final version of their term papers.
........Evaluation:.......................Short reports:.............30%
............................................Midterm exam: ...........30%
............................................Oral presentation:........10%
............................................Coursepaper:.............30%
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6 Jan: Introduction.
11 and 13 Jan: Choosing of grammars. The methods, purposes and limits of linguistic typology. Readings: Chapters 1-3 in LULT (pp 1-85). Bring in two pieces of data on basic word order and adpositions from your language and from Poguli.
18 Jan: Martin Luther King Day.
20 Jan: Word order (Greenberg 1963 and LULT, chapter 4, 86-103). Preliminary version of report #1 (word order) due.
25-27 Jan: More on word order (Dryer). Markedness (Greenberg 1966). Second version of report #1 (word order) due.
1-3 Feb: Subject and object marking, ergativity/accusativity. (LULT , chapter 5 and Dixon). Report #2 (word order in Kashmiri or other problem) due.
8-10 Feb: Case/adpositional systems. Experiencer datives. (LULT, chapter 6). Report #3 (subject and object marking) due.
15-17 Feb: Relativization. (Keenan and Comrie 1977 and LULT, chapter 7). Report #4 (actants) due.
22-24 Feb : Causatives. (LULT, chapter 8). Report #5 (relative structures) due. Outline of coursepaper due.
27 Feb - 7 Mar: Winter Break.
8 Mar. Freezes (Cooper and Ross 1975) and review.
10 Mar: Midterm exam.
15-17 Mar: Noun classes (Lakoff) and agreement. Report #6 (causatives) due.
22-24 Mar: Tense and aspect. Report #7 (option to #8, on noun classes and agreement) due.
29-31 Mar: Iconicity (Bybee). Report #8 (option to #7, on tense and aspect) due. Oral presentation.
5-7 Apr: Scalar phenomena and grammatical categories (Hopper and Thompson). Oral presentation.
12-14 Apr: Typology and historical linguistics (LULT, chapter 9). Oral presentation.
19 Apr: Assumptions and explanations. ( Perkins). Oral presentation. Course Evaluation.
26 Apr: Final version of coursepaper due.
1. Text: Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. 2nd. edition. University of Chicago Press. Available at Shaman Drum Bookstore.
2. A grammar of a language that you do not already know.
. Additional readings (in 518 folder in 1084 Frieze Bldg.)
..I. January and February.