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In this course the students learn the skill of writing at the university level. Instructors offer themes for their courses within their own special areas of expertise.

Overview of the science of language, especially its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and major findings. Areas covered include: the relation between sound and meaning in human languages, social variation in language, language change over time, universals of language, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge. Students are introduced to a wide variety of language phenomena, drawn not only from languages resembling English, but also from many that appear to be quite unlike English, such as those native to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

This section is highly recommended for students who are interested in learning about the topics covered in the main course through writing and discussion.

Where do the words we use come from? This course examines the history and structure of the English vocabulary from its distant Indo-European roots to the latest in technical jargon and slang. Topics include formal and semantic change, taboo and euphemism, borrowing, new words from old, learned English loans from Greek and Latin, slang, and society.

This course is a survey of the languages and language families of the world and the people who speak them. We will look at historically, culturally, and linguistically important and interesting languages around the world and ask questions like “What do all languages have in common and how do they differ?”, “How can languages be used to trace different peoples and their past?” Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, at the end of this course, the students will have a good understanding of (i) the nature of the world’s linguistic diversity, (ii) the known history of the world’s major language families, and (iii) the ways in which contact among languages affects language structure.

This course provides an introduction to the science of the mind. Everyone knows what it's like to think and perceive, but this subjective experience provides little insight into how minds emerge from physical entities like brains. To address this issue, cognitive science integrates work from at least five disciplines: Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy. This course introduces students to the insights these disciplines offer into the workings of the mind by exploring visual perception, attention, memory, learning, problem solving, language, and consciousness.

An introduction to the history and theory of writing systems from cuneiform to the alphabet, historical and new writing media, and the complex relationship of writing technologies to human language and culture. Through hands-on activities and collaborative work, students will explore the shifting definitions of writing and the diverse ways in which cultures through time have developed and used writing systems. We will also investigate the traditional divisions of oral vs. written and consider how digital technologies have affected how we use and think about writing in encoding systems from Morse code to emoji.

Provides an introduction to the psychology of language. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the scientific study of psycholinguistic phenomena. Covers a broad range of topics from psycholinguistics, including the origin of language, the different components of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), processes involved in reading, computational modeling of language processes, the acquisition of language (both under normal and special circumstances), and the brain bases of language.

In this writing intensive course, we will explore how language and society affect each other. How do class, age, ethnicity, gender, and geography affect the way people speak? Why are some ways of speaking considered prestigious and others stigmatized? How does increased use of online communication and social media affect how we communicate? How are power relations captured in language? How does national policy-e.g., English-only policies-affect both politics and language use? What are the linguistic issues behind the Ebonics debate? In this course, through extensive discussion and various types of writing, we consider these questions both in the context of the United States and other parts of the world.

This course addresses topics including origins of legal language, linguistics in the courtroom, plagiarism, and language rights. It introduces areas of linguistics such as syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics which explicate a wide range of legal matters where both spoken and written language come to fore.

An introduction to the study of language endangerment and language revitalization. Explores why nearly half of the world's languages are facing extinction over the current century, discusses the issues related to that projection, and introduces approaches to maintaining and revitalizing endangered languages.

Yiddish language and linguistics, including aspects of its morphology, syntax, and phonology. Also the history of the Yiddish language and sociolinguistic topics.

This course explores the wide variety of languages indigenous to the Americas. There were thousands of languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans and hundreds of these languages are still spoken today. We will look at several of these languages in terms of their linguistic structure as well as from social, historical, and political perspectives. No prior linguistic background is required and no previous knowledge of any Native American languages is presumed.

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.

This course is an introduction to both phonetics (the study of the physical properties of the sounds of human language) and phonology (the organization and patterning of those sounds). The first part of the course focuses on the main areas of phonetics: articulation, acoustics, and perception. Students acquire basic skills, such as production and perception of speech sounds, transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet, and instrumental analysis of speech. In the second part of the course students are introduced to key concepts in phonology, including rules, representations, and analysis of sound patterns. Throughout the course aspects of the sound systems of a wide range of world languages are studied.

This course explores both syntax (how words and phrases are combined into sentences) and semantics (how the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences are interpreted). The course aims to give students to the ability to address questions regarding syntactic and semantic properties of languages in a rigorous and informed fashion. Topics covered include phrase structure, grammatical relations, transformations, semantic composition, modification, quantification, and the syntax/semantics interface. Emphasis throughout the course is placed on forming and testing hypotheses.

Survey of the basic mechanisms of linguistic change, with examples from a variety of languages.

Old Norse is a collective term for the earliest North Germanic literary languages: Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, and Old Swedish. The richly documented Old Icelandic is the center of attention, and the purpose is twofold: the students gain knowledge of an ancient North Germanic language, important from a linguistic point of view, and gain access to the medieval Icelandic (and Scandinavian) literature. The structure of Old Norse (Old Icelandic), phonology, and morphology, with reading of selections from the Prose-Edda, a 13th-century narrative based on the Eddaic poetry.

Old Norse is a collective term for the earliest North Germanic literary languages: Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, and Old Swedish. The richly documented Old Icelandic is the center of attention, and the purpose is twofold: the students gain knowledge of an ancient North Germanic language, important from a linguistic point of view, and gain access to the medieval Icelandic (and Scandinavian) literature. Extensive reading of Old Norse texts, among them selections from some of the major Icelandic family sagas: Njals saga, Grettis saga, and Egils saga, as well as the whole Hrafnkels saga.

The Romance languages are the lasting imprint of all that happened to the Latin language as it moved through time, territories, and people of many ethnicities. While the Latin of antiquity retained its prestige in high culture, the natural untutored usage of ordinary people was always free to go its own way. This course covers the following topics, selected to create a panoramic view: Formation of the general Romance seven-vowel system from Latin. Early and widespread sound changes in popular Latin. Finding and interpreting evidence for trends in popular Latin pronunciation. The comparative method and its limitations. Essential later sound changes, some of which ceate a whole new order of consonants unknown to Latin but conspicuous in Romance. Nouns and adjectives from Latin to Romance. Formation of the present indicative: the competing forces of sound change and analogical adjustment. A brief overview of Portuguese. Variants of the seven-vowel system. Salient features of Romanian. Factors that helped shape the vocabulary of Romance. Medieval diglossia. Emergence of Romance vernaculars newly recognized by their speakers as languages distinct from Latin and from each other. Close analysis of the oldest surviving document written unmistakably in Romance (842 C. E.).

An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.

A continuation of LING 3324, with further exploration of Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') language and culture. Language instruction continues in an immersive learning environment with a focus on plants and growing in the spring.

An introduction to some of the main issues in the philosophy of language. Topics may include names, definite descriptions, belief ascriptions, truth-conditional theories of meaning, pragmatics, and metaphor. Both historical and contemporary readings are considered.

Concepts are properties of individuals that approximately correspond to word meanings. They play a role in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence. The course looks at phenomena and accounts of concepts from these different perspectives. Looks at problems in the semantic analysis of natural languages, critically examining work in linguistics and philosophy on particular topics of current interest. Topics vary. Not taught every year.

How do humans decode sound waves into meaningful utterances? In what respect are humans different from artificial information processing systems? Are signed languages processed similarly to spoken languages? This course offers an introduction to the processes and computations that underlie the human capacity to acquire, produce and understand language. Special focus will be placed on the interface between linguistic theory and theories of language processing. The course will also train students on how to read primary literature and conduct experimental studies.

Super-linguistics is a subfield of linguistics that applies techniques used for analyzing natural language to non-linguistic materials. This course uses linguistic tools from semantics, pragmatics and syntax to study sequential images found in comics, films, and children's books. We will also study multimedia, gestures, and static images such as instruction signs, emoji, and paintings. Linguistic topics include anaphora, implicature, tense and aspect, attitudes and embedding, indirect discourse, and dynamic semantics. We introduce linguistic accounts of each of the topics and apply them to pictorial data.

Independent study of linguistics topics not covered in regular curriculum for undergrads.

This seminar will explore the English language and its literatures in its most diverse centuries, which 19th century philologists saw as the middle span: after the collapse of Old English language, poetic style, and indigenous power-centers at the Norman Conquest (1066), up to printing (1476), the beginnings of standard Modern English, claims to an English literary tradition, and the origins of Atlantic adventurism and imperialism. Between those benchmarks we'll consider multilingualism, English linguistic diversity and changes, social identity, literary forms, and ideas about language and literature, sampling many Middle English works and more fully reading the Katherine Group, Gawain-poet, Piers Plowman, and Julian of Norwich's Showings.

Studies the basic question of contemporary linguistics. Attempts to formalize universals of morphosyntax and to characterize the total repertory of constructions available to natural languages.

Provides an introduction to phonological theory. The empirical basis, theoretical approaches, and relevant literature are explored through extensive data analysis and critical reading.

An advanced introduction to syntactic theory within the principles and parameters/minimalist frameworks. Topics include phrase structure, argument structure (unaccusative verbs, unergative verbs, double object constructions), principles of word order, and the binding theory.

This course offers an overview of sign language linguistics, including the core areas of linguistics and how they apply to ASL and other signed languages. Topics covered will include, but not be limited to: arbitrariness and iconicity, non-manual signals, plurality, derivation of nouns and verbs, acquisition, sociolinguistic variation, emergence of new sign languages, and bilingualism in the Deaf community. The course will be co-taught by a native ASL signer and an English speaker and will be taught in both ASL and English. ASL/English interpretation will be provided.

Overview of the history of the Japanese language followed by intensive examination of issues of interest to participants. Students should have reading knowledge of Japanese.

This course covers the history, varieties, phonology, morphology and syntax of the Japonic language family.

This course provides advanced instruction in phonetic analysis and experimental methodology. Students learn about various theories of speech perception, production, and cognitive representation. This provides a background in which students develop an original research project. The goals of this course are for students to gain a conceptual understanding of phonetic analyses and to acquire practical experience in using phonetic analyses to explore cognitive dimensions of speech.

Introduces methods for theorizing about meaning within generative grammar. These techniques allow the creation of grammars that pair syntactic structures with meanings. Students look at several empirical areas in detail, among them complementation (combining heads with their arguments), modification, conjunction, definite descriptions, relative clauses, traces, bound pronouns, and quantification. An introduction to logical and mathematical concepts used in linguistic semantics (e.g., set theory, functions and their types, and the lambda notation for naming linguistic meanings) is included in the course.

Addresses the basic issues in the study of words and their structures. Provides an introduction to different types of morphological structures with examples from a wide range of languages.

Computational models of natural languages. Topics are drawn from: tree syntax and context free grammar, finite state generative morpho-phonology, feature structure grammars, logical semantics, tabular parsing, Hidden Markov models, categorial and minimalist grammars, text corpora, information-theoretic sentence processing, discourse relations, and pronominal coreference.

What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used? What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning? Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance. However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics. In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference (including entailment and implicature), the pragmatics and compositional semantics of presupposition, anaphora and dynamic semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of focus, indexicals, and speech acts.

An in-depth exploration of modern computational linguistic techniques. A continuation of LING 4424 - Computational Linguistics I. Whereas LING 4424 covers foundational techniques in symbolic computational modeling, this course will cover a wider range of applications as well as coverage of neural network methods. We will survey a range of neural network techniques that are widely used in computational linguistics and natural language processing as well as a number of techniques that can be used to probe the linguistic information and language processing strategies encoded in computational models. We will examine ways of mapping this linguistic information both to linguistic theory as well as to measures of human processing (e.g., neuroimaging data and human behavioral responses).

This course is intended as an opportunity for advanced linguistics majors to put to use the analytical skills they have acquired in foundation courses on real world research questions. A seminar theme is identified which is sufficiently broad in scope to encompass problems in all of the major subfields of linguistic analysis, and students are guided by the instructor to individual research topics within its scope which correspond to their individual linguistics interests. The instructional format alternates between group meetings and small group/individual meetings with the instructor. The topic area will change from year to year.

This course will be a survey of the phonology, morphology, syntax and historical linguistics of the languages of the Iroquoian family. The focus will be on Northern Iroquoian (the Haudenosaunee languages plus Wendat/Huron), but comparison with Southern Iroquoian (Tsalagi/Cherokee) will also be made. After completing this overview, the course will focus on selected topics: stress/accent, noun incorporation, voice, and information structure.

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of ancient Greek as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of Classical Latin as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

The language of the Homeric epics: dialect background, archaisms, modernizations. The special language of epic as a synchronic system: its constitution, use, and internal consistency. Phonological and morphological aspects of Homeric diction and compositional technique.

This course constitutes an introduction to natural language processing (NLP), the goal of which is to enable computers to use human languages as input, output, or both. NLP is at the heart of many of today's most exciting technological achievements, including machine translation, question answering and automatic conversational assistants. The course will introduce core problems and methodologies in NLP, including machine learning, problem design, and evaluation methods.This class satisfies the practicum/project requirement for CS majors. As a consequence, expect each of the roughly four connected programming assignments to take tens of hours, although this time is distributed over multiple weeks; to require writing code to massage raw-ish data into different formats and other accessory functions as well as to implement core algorithms; and to necessitate much independent examination of documentation.

The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.

Current topics in computational linguistics.

This course provides structure and guidance to students doing an honors thesis in linguistics. The course consists of biweekly meeting of all honors thesis writers with the course instructor. Students will prepare presentations and written materials including topic, background, outline, methodology for honors project for class presentation and discussion. The course also covers aspects of linguistics research methodology.

This course provides structure and guidance to students doing an honors thesis in linguistics. The course consists of biweekly meeting of all honors thesis writers with the course instructor. Students will submit drafts of the introduction, methodology, results, and conclusions. Students will comment on each others drafts. Students will also work on presentation skills.

Directed honors thesis research for students working on an honors thesis, taken with the student's honors thesis chair or other committee member.

Directed honors thesis research for students working on an honors thesis, taken with the student's honors thesis chair or other committee member.

A course on change in language structure, beginning with an overview of widely attested types of syntactic change and proceeding to an introduction of current theoretical treatments. Topics covered include grammaticalization, word order, and the interplay between morphological and syntactic change.

An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.

This seminar will explore the English language and its literatures in its most diverse centuries, which 19th century philologists saw as the middle span: after the collapse of Old English language, poetic style, and indigenous power-centers at the Norman Conquest (1066), up to printing (1476), the beginnings of standard Modern English, claims to an English literary tradition, and the origins of Atlantic adventurism and imperialism. Between those benchmarks we'll consider multilingualism, English linguistic diversity and changes, social identity, literary forms, and ideas about language and literature, sampling many Middle English works and more fully reading the Katherine Group, Gawain-poet, Piers Plowman, and Julian of Norwich's Showings.

This course explores the wide variety of languages indigenous to the Americas. There were thousands of languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans and hundreds of these languages are still spoken today. We will look at several of these languages in terms of their linguistic structure as well as from social, historical, and political perspectives. No prior linguistic background is required and no previous knowledge of any Native American languages is presumed.

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

Survey of the basic mechanisms of linguistic change, with examples from a variety of languages.

An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.

A continuation of LING 6324, with further exploration of Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') language and culture. Language instruction continues in an immersive learning environment with a focus on plants and growing in the spring.

Concepts are properties of individuals that approximately correspond to word meanings. They play a role in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence. The course looks at phenomena and accounts of concepts from these different perspectives. Looks at problems in the semantic analysis of natural languages, critically examining work in linguistics and philosophy on particular topics of current interest. Topics vary. Not taught every year.

Studies the basic question of contemporary linguistics. Attempts to formalize universals of morphosyntax and to characterize the total repertory of constructions available to natural languages.

Provides an introduction to phonological theory. The empirical basis, theoretical approaches, and relevant literature are explored through extensive data analysis and critical reading.

A continuation of LING 6401 with a focus on developing research skills.

An advanced introduction to syntactic theory within the principles and parameters/minimalist frameworks. Topics include phrase structure, argument structure (unaccusative verbs, unergative verbs, double object constructions), principles of word order, and the binding theory.

A continuation of LING 6403, focusing on syntactic dependencies, including the theory of control, an examination of locality constraints on movement, covert versus overt movement, and the syntax of quantification. The purpose of the course is to develop the background needed for independent syntactic research.

This course provides advanced instruction in phonetic analysis and experimental methodology. Students learn about various theories of speech perception, production, and cognitive representation. This provides a background in which students develop an original research project. The goals of this course are for students to gain a conceptual understanding of phonetic analyses and to acquire practical experience in using phonetic analyses to explore cognitive dimensions of speech.

Introduces methods for theorizing about meaning within generative grammar. These techniques allow the creation of grammars that pair syntactic structures with meanings. Students look at several empirical areas in detail, among them complementation (combining heads with their arguments), modification, conjunction, definite descriptions, relative clauses, traces, bound pronouns, and quantification. An introduction to logical and mathematical concepts used in linguistic semantics (e.g., set theory, functions and their types, and the lambda notation for naming linguistic meanings) is included in the course.

Uses the techniques introduced in Semantics I to analyze linguistic phenomena, including quantifier scope, ellipsis, and referential pronouns. Temporal and possible worlds semantics are introduced and used in the analysis of modality, tense, and belief sentences. The phenomena of presupposition, indefinite descriptions, and anaphora are analyzed in a dynamic compositional framework that formalizes the idea that sentence meaning effects a change in an information state.

Addresses the basic issues in the study of words and their structures. Provides an introduction to different types of morphological structures with examples from a wide range of languages.

Computational models of natural languages. Topics are drawn from: tree syntax and context free grammar, finite state generative morphophonology, feature structure grammars, logical semantics, tabular parsing, Hidden Markov models, categorial and minimalist grammars, text corpora, information-theoretic sentence processing, discourse relations, and pronominal coreference.

What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used? What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning? Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance. However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics. In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference including entailment, presupposition, and implicature), anaphora, indexicals, and speech acts.

An in-depth exploration of modern computational linguistic techniques. A continuation of LING 6424 - Computational Linguistics I. Whereas LING 6424 covers foundational techniques in symbolic computational modeling, this course will cover a wider range of applications as well as coverage of neural network methods. We will survey a range of neural network techniques that are widely used in computational linguistics and natural language processing as well as a number of techniques that can be used to probe the linguistic information and language processing strategies encoded in computational models. We will examine ways of mapping this linguistic information both to linguistic theory as well as to measures of human processing (e.g., neuroimaging data and human behavioral responses).

This course will be a survey of the phonology, morphology, syntax and historical linguistics of the languages of the Iroquoian family. The focus will be on Northern Iroquoian (the Haudenosaunee languages plus Wendat/Huron), but comparison with Southern Iroquoian (Tsalagi/Cherokee) will also be made. After completing this overview, the course will focus on selected topics: stress/accent, noun incorporation, voice, and information structure.

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of ancient Greek as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of Classical Latin as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

The language of the Homeric epics: dialect background, archaisms, modernizations. The special language of epic as a synchronic system: its constitution, use, and internal consistency. Phonological and morphological aspects of Homeric diction and compositional technique.

The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.

Current topics in computational linguistics.

Elicitation, recording, and analysis of data from a native speaker of an understudied non-Western language. Provides basic experience in linguistic fieldwork.

Examination of recent developments in the core areas of phonetics and phonology as well as its interfaces with other components of the grammar (e.g., morphosyntax, semantics or pragmatics). Topics covered include current approaches and relevant theoretical and historical perspectives.

Provides a forum for presentation and discussion of ongoing research, and development of professional skills.

Provides a forum for presentation and discussion of ongoing research, and development of professional skills.

A course on change in language structure, beginning with an overview of widely attested types of syntactic change and proceeding to an introduction of current theoretical treatments. Topics covered include grammaticalization, word order, and the interplay between morphological and syntactic change.

This course covers the history, varieties, phonology, morphology and syntax of the Japonic language family.

An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.

An assortment of subjects intended for students with previous training in Indo-European linguistics: problems in the reconstruction of Proto Indo-European, topics in the historical grammars of the various IE languages, reading and historical linguistic analysis of texts, and grammatical sketches of minor IE languages.

The phonetics data analysis workshop provides students with practice in analysis and visualization of phonetic data, using Matlab, R, and Praat. Experiment design and statistical methods are emphasized.

This seminar provides a venue for feedback on research projects, invited speakers, and paper discussions within the area of computational psycholinguistics.

This seminar provides a venue for discussion of ongoing research, technical tutorials, invited speakers and paper discussions of topics related to experimental and computational approaches to natural language meaning.

An independent study for graduate students.

An independent study for graduate students.

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in computational linguistics.

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in semantics.

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in syntax.

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in phonetics.

Seminar discussing linguistic theory, field methodology and language documentation.

The class offers an overview of the theoretical pragmatics questions that have been addressed using experimental methods. Special emphasis will be placed on the issue of how to translate theoretical claims into sound experimental hypotheses. Students will get hands-on experience by developing an original research project on a topic relevant to the class.

Topics in Current Linguistic Theory: topics of current research that cross sub-disciplinary boundaries.