GENERAL LINGUISTICS
Stampa
Enrollment year
2017/2018
Academic year
2017/2018
Regulations
DM270
Department
DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES
Course
MODERN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
Curriculum
Linguistico-filologico-letterario
Year of study
Period
1st semester (25/09/2017 - 10/01/2018)
ECTS
12
Language
Italian
Prerequisites
The main requirement is a basic knowledge of grammar and syntax concerning parts of speech and constituent structure of sentences. As examples and exercises will be mainly based on Italian, a basic knowledge of Italian is a prerequisite.
Learning outcomes
The course aims at a basic training in linguistics in order to give students of the humanities a deeper understanding of language in general and of languages of the world. Essential scientific tools are provided for the analysis of phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of natural languages, for the analysis of meaning and for the genetic and typological classification of languages.
Course contents
Course parts:

The course consists in two distinct parts: the first part will deal with phonetics, phonology and morphology, the second part will concern general aspects of language , syntax and semantics.

In the first part of the course genetic, anatomic and physiological aspects of human language will be introduced. Fundamental themes that will be taken into consideration are: the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), parameters for describing a phone (manner and place of articulation and type of phonation for consonants; place on the front-back axis and on the vertical axis, position of the lips for vowels), characteristics of vowel quadrilateral, three conditions for vowel lengthening in Italian, syllabic structure (with tree diagram), open vs. closed syllable, types of accent in languages of the world (stress vs. pitch), sentence intonation, definition of phoneme, minimal pair, allophones, definition of morpheme, allomorphs, types of affixes, lexical, flectional and derivational morphemes, types of morphemes (cumulative, portmanteau or amalgam in French, subtractive in Russian, ablaut and umlaut in English and German, introflexion in Arabic), types of compounds (endocentric vs. exocentric).

The second part of the course will focus attention on the constituent properties of human language. Essential elements of syntactic analysis will be dealt with (phrases and heads, syntactic functions, argument structure, semantic roles, clauses and clause linkage), as well as semantic and textual analysis (lexemes, semantic features, prototypes; pragmatic functions, anaphora, deixis) and linguistic typology, in particular with regard to morphological and word order typology.
Teaching methods
Lectures
Reccomended or required readings
(for full time and part time students)
1) Berruto, Gaetano - Cerruti, Massimo, 2011, La linguistica. Un corso introduttivo, Torino, UTET.
2) (duplicated lecture notes:) Manzelli, Gianguido, 2004, Fonetica e fonologia con elementi di morfologia, appunti di supporto al modulo di Linguistica generale a/Fonetica e fonologia e Fonetica e fonologia (progredito), only sections in connection with languages studied by the student (unless fundamental concepts can be exemplified only by such languages as e.g. Chinese or Arabic), small type size sections and footnotes excluded.

3) (duplicated lecture notes:) Roma, Elisa, 2014, Linguistica generale (modulo b). The notes will be provided at the beginning of the course on the website Kiro, http://elearning4.unipv.it/umanistici/.
Assessment methods
Oral examination preceded by a written test.
Both parts of the examination need to be passed.
The written test includes (for part a) phonetic and phonemic transcriptions and morphological analyses of Italian words and (for part b) classification of arguments and semantic roles, clauses, sentences and phrase structure trees of Italian sentences. Specimens of written tests will be uploaded on the website Kiro, http://elearning4.unipv.it/umanistici/. The oral examination consists in the discussion of the written test and of some theoretical issues.

NB: Students will be provided with tutorials one-to-one or in small groups during the whole academic year.
Further information
Oral examination preceded by a written test.
Both parts of the examination need to be passed.
The written test includes (for part a) phonetic and phonemic transcriptions and morphological analyses of Italian words and (for part b) classification of arguments and semantic roles, clauses, sentences and phrase structure trees of Italian sentences. Specimens of written tests will be uploaded on the website Kiro, http://elearning4.unipv.it/umanistici/. The oral examination consists in the discussion of the written test and of some theoretical issues.

NB: Students will be provided with tutorials one-to-one or in small groups during the whole academic year.


The activity is split
501110 - GENERAL LINGUISTICS - B