Class:  T/Th 12:30 p.m.- 1:45 p.m., WMBB 132 (moved to Linguistics Program lounge)

The main focus of this course is, of course, linguistic theory, and the readings, discussion, and research that will be pursued in this class are aimed at helping its participants to become knowledgable consumers of linguistic research.  This is important, whether or not your ultimate research goals re theory-oriented. 

You will also find that many of the requirements listed for this course are specifically designed to develop skills that are essential to an academic career, regardless of whether your research career is likely to involve work in linguistic theory.  Accordingly you will find yourself writing article and lecture summaries (to come in handy when you begin writing your thesis or dissertation) and conference style abstracts, and presenting the research that you do for this course.
 

Other policies:

The grade for late assignments will be reduced by one-half of a letter grade for each day that they are late.

Students will be required to write a term paper as a final project.  You may write on any aspect of the history of linguistics.  During the eighth week of class, an abstract that will account for 10% of your course grade will be due.  This abstract will undergo at least one revision.  Students should get their topics approved in advance of that time. During the final week of class, each student will present their paper to the class. The presentation is 15% of the class grade. Papers should be 15-20 pages.

Term paper topics might include doing one of the following:
1. take up some linguistic concept, such as the phoneme or syntactic command relations, and trace its origins and development
2. take some empirical linguistic phenomenon, such as neutralization of sound contrast or the interpretation of quantifiers, and explore how it has been analyzed in linguistic theory and how the theoretical treatment of it has changed over time
3. take some linguistic subfield, such as syntax or phonology, and explore a period of its evolution (for instance, you might trace the rise and demise of Generative Semantics or the transition from rule-governed phonology to optimality theoretic constraint-based theory)

Students will write three article summaries over the course of the first eight weeks. Each student should take an article of their choice and write a 3-5 page summary of the main ideas. These can be articles from the reading list or from some other area of syntax, but students should think of this as an opportunity to begin exploring possible paper topics. Articles must be at least the length of a conference proceedings paper (that is, 12 journal pages).

The tentative reading schedule is attached. Students will be responsible for having read the assigned reading prior to class. The readings will be available to you electronically

To facilitate the reading, students are required to submit at least one discussion question or comment prior to each lecture, based on the readings for that lecture.  These must be received by 8:00 a.m. the day of the lecture.  Discussion questions and comments received after that are welcome and will also be posted, but will not receive credit toward a grade in this requirement.