Global Arc

This course will familiarize concentrators with research questions and practices in various subfields of linguistics, common linguistics research methodologies (including experimental, fieldwork, text-based, and ethnographic), and writing conventions specific to linguistics. Throughout, students will connect with on-campus resources and explore research questions of their own choosing, supported by readings from linguistics textbooks and handbooks. The goal of this course is to prepare concentrators for success in their junior and senior independent work.

This course offers an intensive study of phonological theory and analysis, following the introduction offered in LIN 301. Both rule-based and constraint-based approaches will be introduced. The course will explore the typology of phonological properties and processes (assimilation and dissimilation, vowel and consonant harmony, tonal processes, syllable structure, stress), with examples from geographically, typologically, and genetically diverse languages. The focus will be both on description and theory.

This course builds on the foundation provided by LIN 306 to delve much more deeply into the subfield of morphology. We will compare competing morphological theories, question the basic primitives of morphology (morphemes, words, structure), and contend with challenging data from a wide variety of languages. At least one empirical phenomenon will be explored at length during the semester, e.g., compounding, infixation, reduplication, or mobile affixation. Throughout the course, students will engage directly with advanced scholarship on morphology.

From ordering a cup of tea from a barista to exchanging abstract ideas with coursemates, human interactions are frequently goal-based and collaborative. To achieve shared goals, people exchange information and coordinate joint action using some form of spoken, gestured, or written language. In this course we will cover our current understanding of how people use and learn to use language in situated interactions and how this sheds light on our language abilities and language's relationship to general cognition. We will cover topics that range from speech production and comprehension, word usage, pragmatic inference, and learning.

This course develops students' syntactic reasoning abilities beyond the introductory level, providing new tools for analyzing the syntactic components of linguistics phenomena. We read and discuss both classic and contemporary syntactic research on a variety of topics, including syntactic issues in word order, pronunciation, and interpretation. Students apply these tools to a broad set of linguistic data, from a variety of languages, both in and out of the classroom. The course culminates in each student writing a "squib", in which they test multiple hypotheses on a syntactic phenomenon of their choice.

A broad approach to language that places psychological reality at the top of the list of theoretical desiderata. In this course we will investigate the nature of linguistic semantic categories and the implications for theories of grammar. In the domain of semantic categories, students will study the issues and controversies surrounding frame semantics, decompositional semantics, conceptual metaphor, and exemplar/prototype/connectionist models. Turning its attention to grammar, the seminar will focus on both regularities and irregularities, within and across languages, attempting to explain why languages are the way they are.

Advanced issues in linguistic semantics. Topics will include quantification, vagueness, presupposition, implicature, genericity, information structure, and event structure.

An overview of the history of the Middle East from the rise of Islam to the present day with a focus on the "core" of the Middle East, i.e., the region defined by present-day Turkey and Egypt to the west, Iran to the east, and Arabia to the south. Issues raised include difficulties in the study of foreign cultures, religion and society, the interplay between local and global processes, identity formation, and the Middle East in the broader world. One lecture, two classes.

A survey of the literature of the modern Arab world, starting with the late 19th century and continuing up to within the last five years. Narrative (novel and short story), theater, poetry, as well as (briefly) folk literature will be treated. Works are assigned in English translation, but students who are able to read them in Arabic are welcome to do so. Two lectures, one preceptorial. Offered in alternate years.

This course introduces students to the study of Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East (with special emphasis on the Arab World) by examining its rise, teachings, practices, metamorphoses, debates, and polemics. The approach will be historical, comparative, and explanatory. Formal lectures will be combined with discussion of selected texts. The shape of the course will be flexible in order to take student interests into account. Class discussion will be strongly encouraged.