2017/2018

2017/2018

DM270

L-LIN/01 (GLOTTOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS; LINGUISTICS AND MODERN LANGUAGES

PERCORSO COMUNE

1°

2nd semester (26/02/2018 - 01/06/2018)

6

36 lesson hours

English

WRITTEN TEST

CRISTOFARO SONIA (titolare) - 6 ECTS

Students are expected to be able to follow lectures in English, and use techcnical literature in this language. Knowledge of the
fundamentals of general and historical linguistics is a bonus, but is not strictly required.

Students are expected

- to be able to describe the structure of languages they are not familiar with, and analyze this structure with regard to the grammatical phenomena discussed in the lectures;

- to become familiar with the current debate on the structural diversity of the world's languages and the theoretical implications of this diversity.

The course aims to provide an overview of the theoretical premises,
methodology, and major research results of so-called functional-
typological approach to the study of language. Several languages will be
compared from different families all over the world, and it will be shown
that, while languages differ to a great extent in their grammatical
structures, the latter can be accounted for in terms of a number of
general principles that are presumably valid for all languages. The
theoretical implications of these facts will be discussed, with particular
focus on a number of notions that are at the forefront of the current
debate on linguistic diversity, such as that of language universals
(particularly implicational universals and implicational hierarchies),
functional motivations, and competitions thereof.

Lectures

Classroom materials will be presented providing a detailed description of
all course topics and relevant references (these materials will also be
made available on the web). References will include a number of
standard textbooks covering exam topics, as well as several reference
works that can optionally be used for in-depth study of specific topics.
Classroom materials can be used as a basic reference, and should be
combined with one or more of the textbooks indicated in the reference
list. Students are welcome to chose any of the latter, through the
following are particularly recommended Comrie, Bernard 1989 Universali
del linguaggio e tipologia linguistica. Bologna: Il Mulino. Croft, William
1990 Typology and Universals. 1st Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Song, Jae Jung (Ed.) 2001 The Oxford handbook of
linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whaley, Lindsay 1997
Introduction to typology : the unity and diversity of language. Thousand
Oaks, California ; London : Sage Publications.

Student assessment is made through exam papers consisting of
exercises and questions on course topics. Some of the course lectures
will be devoted to solving exercises of the same type as those in the
exam papers.