MWF 10:10-11:00
Bartlett 212 (How do I get to class? Where is the linguistics department?)

... 12 May 2008

The final exam for this class will take place on Friday, May 16th, 8:00am, in Bartlett 61 (downstairs). You are welcome to come to my office hours on Wednesday with questions, or make an appointment for another time.

... 9 May 2008

The allomorphy we found with the English plural /-z/ led us to discuss assimilation and insertion/epenthesis. Together with dissimilation and deletion, they account for the four major types of phonological processes. We then took a broader look at the phonological structure of words and identified the intermediate layer of the syllable. Syllable structure is the basis for the B-language, the Hebrew language game we heard at the end of class.

Note the timeline from today until the final exam:

• Monday, May 12th: morphology/phonology problem set due (with at least 20 sound segments in it!); I return assignment 10, describe the material on the final, and answer your questions.
• Wednesday, May 14th: office hours 12-2.
• Friday, May 16th: final exam, 8:00am!

... 7 May 2008

Phonology meets morphology in problems of allomorphy (handout). Both the Cree /k/-[g] alternation and English /-z/ allomorphy are examples of the phonological process of assimilation. We'll talk more about the nature of phonological processes next time.

... 5 May 2008

Today we saw evidence from Hindi and English showing that a given phonetic feature (aspiration in this case) may have a different status in different languages. We also learned how to go about choosing the underlying representation of a phoneme among all its various allophonic pronounciations.
Reminders: assignment 10 is due on Wednesday, and you should begin thinking about your phonology-morphology problem set if you plan to hand one it.

... 2 May 2008

Interesting examples of phonological rules are found in cases of allophonic variation. We learned the difference between phonemes and allophones today, and saw the first instance of an allophonic variation (in Brazilian Portuguese). On Monday we will pick up the discussion by confronting the question: when a phoneme has more than one allophone, how do we represent that phoneme (handout)?
Note: assignment 10 is now posted. It's the last one!

... 30 April 2008

Today's discussion (and physical experimentation!) of the phonetics of vowels marks the end of our introduction to phonetics. We also did our first phonology problem today on one phonological difference between British and American English.

... 28 April 2008

Except for diphthongs, which we will talk about next time, we have as of today learned the phonetic features and IPA symbols of all the sounds of English (consonants and vowels). I recommend re-reading pages 3-6 of the course text by way of summary.

... 25 April 2008

Language is basically a continuous stream of sounds that we produce as air comes out of the lungs through the vocal tract. We use everything in there to produce segments/phones of our language: vocal folds, tongue, lips, and both nasal and oral cavities. The only reliable way to write down speech sounds is by using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Note: assignment 9 is now posted. It's due next Wednesday.

... 23 April 2008

After the little morphology workshop we did today, we are ready to move on to phonology.
The pdf version of chapter 5 is already online, and the reading for this week is sections 5.1 and 5.2.

... 18 April 2008

We wrapped up the discussion of morphology by learning about nonconcatenative morphological processes such as ablaut and root-template combinations. Data from English, Berber, and Arabic is presented in this handout.
After Patriot's Day, we will begin the final unit of our introduction to linguistic theory: phonetics and phonology. Please read sections 5.1 and 5.2 of the course text for Wednesday.

... 16 April 2008

We learned two rules that seem to be operating in English morphology: the right hand head rule, and the Law of Morphology. Related to the latter, we discussed the distinction between inflectional and derivational morphemes. On Wednesday, we'll pick up with the exercise at the end of the handout.
Note: assignment 8 is now posted. It's due next Wednesday.

... 14 April 2008

Today's in-class exercises held several important lessons: morphemes can be discovered only in the context of other morphemes, they combine while respecting each other's selectional restrictions, and there are sometimes multiple ways to combine them (resulting in morphological ambiguities).
We ended with a definition of allomorphy and an example, namely the three English plural allomorphs.
[Note: here is a direct link to the experimental sign up database.]

... 11 April 2008

English has a (family of) infixes and a process we called, for fun!, infucksation. Mostly, though, it has prefixes (like un1- and un2-) and suffixes (like -less; if you're interested, you can watch Erin McKean explain why dictionaries are like vodka). We define each affix according to its form and its meaning, along the lines shown this handout.
Note: assignment 7 is now posted. It's due next Wednesday.

... 9 April 2008

We began our discussion of morphology by locating it in the overall theory (or grammar) with respect to syntax and semantics. We defined key concepts in morphology: the morpheme, morphological compositionality, and morpheme classifications. Use this handout as a guide when reading sections 1-5 of chapter 4.

... 7 April 2008

On Wednesday we begin a new topic: morphology. Please read the first five sections of the recently uploaded chapter 4 in preparation.

... 4 April 2008

Our second exam (topics in syntax) will take place next class, on Monday, April 7th.
Email me if you didn't come to class today and need the list of topics to be covered in the test. Also, feel free to email me questions about the material as you prepare.

... 2 April 2008

Our discussion of syntax culminated today by examining constructions in which words are either missing, or not in the order delivered by the PSRs (relative clauses and questions, respectively). Again, we saw that the deviation from the "basic" structure varies cross-linguistically (recall relative clauses in Hebrew and questions in Chinese).

... 31 March 2008

This handout contains the final set of PSRs for English, as well as discussion of sentence embeddings (in particular, Complementizer Phrases). Bring the handout again on Wednesday, and don't forget your syntax problem set too.
Note: we have an exam next week. Come see me during my office hours on Wednesday if you have any question whatsoever about what we've covered in syntax!

... 28 March 2008

How do phrase structure rules vary across languages? We saw how to derive VOS and OVS word orders by minimally changing our English PSRs. In particular, here is a summary of our conclusions about Yoda's speech.

... 26 March 2008

We spent most of class today evaluating our syntactic rules of English. We saw that they are massively recursive (both directly and indirectly), and also pointed out an imperfection which we can call the "too many trees" problem. We then moved away from English and started talking about the syntax of other languages. Bring today's handout again on Friday.
Note: assignment 6 is due on Monday (not Wednesday), and - for those interested - the syntax problem set is due on Wednesday.

... 24 March 2008

After braving through a 5-way (structurally!) ambiguous sentence today, the sentences on the handout and on assignment 5 must look easier. Our discussion today was dense, and the best way to clarify things may be to read the relevant portions of Kyle Johnson's notes on syntax (especially pages 15-20).
Reminder: assignment 5 is due on Wednesday.

... 14 March 2008

Sometimes it is possible to fit the words in a given sentence into more than one tree. When that happens, each tree often corresponds to a different meaning of the sentence. These cases, which we call structural ambiguities, are the topic of today's handout.
Over the break, find some time to puzzle over these and also read Kyle Johnson's notes on syntax (finally!). You may focus at first on pages 1-15.

... 12 March 2008

Today we finally plotted some full sentences using all the rules we have so far. Make sure you understand the trees we came up with for the practice sentences on the handout.
Assignment 5 was distributed (it's due on the first Wednesday after the break).

... 10 March 2008

We finally arrived at phrase structure rules (PSRs) for noun phrases that we feel happy with. These are the ones used on the question in the assignment (reminder: assignment 4 is due on Wednesday).
[Update: check your email for some Q&A regarding the homework.]

... 7 March 2008

In the process of writing phrase structure rules for noun phrases, we discovered recursion (and recursive rules) as a way of introducing as many adjectives as we want in these phrases. Make sure to read through section 3.7 in the course notes before Monday.

... 5 March 2008

We learned four tests that uncover constituents in sentences: the pronoun test, the then/there test, the do-form test, and the movement test. Now that we can identify where the boundaries of constituents go, we will write rules that capture their internal structure.
I handed out assignment 4; it's due next Wednesday.

... 3 March 2008

How would you explain the grammar of English to a Martian? We convinced ourselves that a good place to start would be to have a list of words (a lexicon), parts of speech (to make generalizations over word categories), and phrases. We'll continue learning about phrases on Wednesday (bring the handout then, and read through section 3.4 in the course text).

... 29 February 2008

Ready to move on to syntax? Make sure to read the first two sections of the syntax chapter for Monday.

... 27 February 2008

Our first midterm is coming up on Friday. The list of topics I gave you today summarizes everything we've done in semantics and defines the material you will be responsible for on the test.

... 25 February 2008

I returned assignment 2 to you today. We discussed the solutions in class (I'll also put up an answer key soon).

... 22 February 2008

9:00am: we're having class as usual today (but note that campus closes officially at noon).
From the examples on the handout we concluded that not all aspects of the meaning of a conjunction are captured by the truth table for "and". We defined pragmatics as the theory of language use in context and discussed how certain aspects of meaning can be pragmatically enriched.

... 20 February 2008

We talked about the semantics of sentential connectives like "and", "but", "or" in terms of truth tables. You brought up many interesting connectives that we will not be able to discuss in 201: keep them in mind if you end up taking advanced classes in semantics in the future!
Assignment 3 was distributed today. Hand it in on Monday if you want it graded before the exam, otherwise I'll take it on Wednesday.
[Note: somebody left a maroon binder in the classroom. It's with me.]

... 19 February 2008

Formalizing determiner meanings led us to consider the question "what is the meaning of a sentence?" We distinguished between truth conditions (which correspond to the meaning of a sentence) and the truth value it has (true or false) in a particular situation.
I returned the first assignment today. Take a look at what I wrote on your assignment, and check out the key to assignment 1.

... 15 February 2008

Today we went back to thinking compositionally about sentence meanings. We saw that determiners play an important role in bringing together nouns and verbs and stated their semantic contribution in terms of relations between sets.
I also handed out Assignment 2, which is due next Wednesday.

... 13 February 2008

8:30am: class will be cancelled today due to the late opening of campus. No cancellation of office hours, I'll be there from 12-2 as usual.
Bring your homework assignments to class on Friday, and take care!

... 11 February 2008

To conclude our discussion of adjective meanings, we looked at the syntactic and semantic rules of adjective-noun combinations in French (handout).
Reminder: it's time! The first homework assignment is due on Wednesday.

... 8 February 2008

Adjectives may all be able to combine with a noun, but they do so in different ways: a "big fake diamond" is not really a diamond, and also not big at all if compared to a "big building". We categorized the different adjective meanings into 3 types and saw how far sets can take us in describing their meanings.

... 6 February 2008

Today we officialy began our discussion of semantics by setting a non trivial goal: to have a compositional theory of linguistic meaning. I also handed out Assignment 1, which is due in a week (February 13th).

... 4 February 2008

We defined the major word categories, or parts of speech (POS), in morphological and syntactic terms.
Sounds like something you could teach a computer? If you're interested, check out some automatic POS taggers! (Browse to the list of computational resources on the "links" page).

... 1 February 2008

To wrap up our introduction to language and linguistics, we gave a definition of grammar as a discrete combinatorial system which is the result of a natural process of language acquisition. We'll start learning about the parts of this system and their meanings next week. Don't forget to bring today's handout on Monday.

... 30 January 2008

Today we did our first exercise in linguistic analysis and discovered that we have an amazing but totally unconcious grammar of English in our heads. We talked a bit about the process of language acquisition that has shaped our knowledge of language. Here are the notes I handed out in class.

... 28 January 2008

It was nice meeting everybody on the morning of the first day of the semester! You should take a look at the syllabus distributed in class, and for Wednesday please begin reading Chapter 1 (sections 1.1 to 1.6) - both things are found on the "materials" page on this website.