Download the (tentative) course schedule in PDF 
79100 Prosody and Sentence Processing
Monday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Fodor
We will read the growing research literature on the prosody/syntax interface, as defined by grammatical principles, and as manifested in on-line production and interpretation of prosody. Cross-linguistic comparisons will be of particular interest: in the fit between syntactic and prosodic phrasing, how much is universal, what properties are language-specific?
Questions to be addressed in the course include: Do speakers make prosodic distinctions that disambiguate lexically/syntactically ambiguous utterances? If so, are hearers sensitive to those distinctions, and do they make use of them in normal conversational situations? If prosodic disambiguation occurs, is it only for certain types of ambiguity? If so, which and why? What kinds of formal principles apply at the interface? Is prosody (and/or its interface with syntax) particularly difficult for second language (L2) learners? Does L2 competence in prosody facilitate acquisition of L2 syntax? How prodigious is infants' prosodic ability? Can pre-verbal infants use prosodic properties to set syntactic parameters (e.g. head direction) as has been claimed? Is it true that at a later age, children have trouble integrating prosody and syntax? How strong is the evidence for 'implicit prosody' projected onto sentences in silent reading? What methods can be used for studying this inaudible prosody?
During the semester each participant in the course will select a question (one of the above, or a novel one), will collate the relevant literature, and will present to the class a summary of what is already known and ideas for future studies.
76500 Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis
Monday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Fiengo
Text: Levinson, Stephen. Pragmatics Cambridge University Press.
Reader: Davis, Steven. Pragmatics Oxford University Press.
This course attempts to provide the student with an introduction to the study of language use, concentrating on the seminal books and articles in the field. The readings given below will certainly be covered; other readings will be suggested during the semester. There will be a take-home written exam at the end of the course, consisting of short essays. If, however, the student wishes to write a research paper on some topic covered in the course, that may substitute for the written exam.
1. Preliminaries
Levinson, Chapter 1
Strawson, 'On referring'
2 Speech Act Theory
Levinson, Chapter 5.
Austin, How to do things with words
Austin, 'How to talk - some simple ways' in Austin's Philosophical Papers
3. Conversational Implicature
Levinson, Chapter 6
Grice, 'Logic and Conversation,' Davis 19.
4. Presupposition
Levinson, Chapter 4
Frege, 'On sense and reference'
Russell, 'On denoting'
Stalnaker, 'Pragmatic Presuppositions,' Davis 27.
5 Speaker meaning and speaker reference
Donnellan, Reference and Definite Descriptions, Davis 3
Kripke, Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference, Davis 5
6. Reference, Anaphora, and Deixis
Levinson, Chapter 2
72300 Semantics I
Monday, 4:15 - 6:15 PM, 3 credits, Prof McClure
An introduction to Montague semantics, also known as model-theoretic semantics or truth conditional semantics. The course covers some of the philosophical background as well as the intersection of semantics with syntax and pragmatics. Specific topics include: definitions of truth, predicate logic, quantification, and intensionality. The course assumes a bit of syntax but no mathematical or logical background. The text is Meaning and Grammar, 2nd edition (Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, MIT Press). Students will also be encouraged to look at Logic, Language, and Meaning (L T F Gamut, Chicago Press) as well as other texts. The course is evaluated with a series of assignments during the semester (50%) and a final take-home assignment (50%).
73800 Semantics I Practicum
Thursday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 1 credits, TBA
72200 Syntax II
TBA, 1 credit, Prof Tortora
73800 Syntax II Practicum
Tuesday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 1 credit, TBA
72700 First Language Acquisition
Tuesday, 4:15 - 6:15 PM, 3 credits, Prof Valian
This course emphasizes readings and discussion of: the child's initial state and evidence for it, the role of input, and the syntax acquisition mechanism. We will contrast two broad views of acquisition. In one, the child begins with abstract specifications of syntactic features and the form of the grammar and must learn language-specific details. In the other, the child begins with lexically-specific details and builds abstractions over time. What types of empirical evidence can help us decide between these two views?
Specific topics will include: syntactic categories (ranging from proto-categories in infancy to full-fledged categories in 3-year-olds), the content of early syntactic representations (underspecification vs misspecification), early word combinations, errors of omission and commission, the role of performance limitations, the role of parental input, and models of learning.
Classes will use a combined lecture-seminar format. Students will read original theoretical, empirical, and computational articles. Students will also a) perform some transcription and data analysis, b) write a 5-10 page midterm paper – a critical review of a recent journal article, c) make one class presentation, and d) write a final paper or take a final examination. Students are encouraged to think of their final paper as preparation for a qualifying paper.
An important goal of the course is for students to think like researchers in language acquisition. By transcribing and analyzing child data, students will learn how to ask and answer questions in language acquisition.
71300 Phonology I
Tuesday, 4:15 - 6:15 PM, 3 credits, Prof Bradley
This course, assuming no more than general familiarity with phonological concepts, offers an intensive introduction to the formal apparatus of modern generative phonology, with an emphasis on the development of fluency in analyzing phonological data. The presentation of material in class therefore assumes concurrent registration in the associated practicum (Ling 73600, Phonology I Practicum).
The basics of phonological description and theory -- inventories, distinctive features, natural classes, alternations, levels of representation, rule or constraint formulation -- are first introduced within the linear framework of classic generative phonology. With these basics in place, we motivate additions to the formalism -- feature geometry, autosegmental architecture, notions of underspecification, metrical representation -- in terms of their better capture of typologically common phonological phenomena. Finally, we review an altogether different analytic framework, Optimality Theory.
Textbooks
Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.
Roca, I., & Johnson, W. (1999). A Workbook in Phonology. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Preliminary Reading
Although a course in linguistic phonetics is not a prerequisite for the course -- because phonology is not phonetics -- students without prior exposure may benefit from a review of basic notions and terminology. To this end, copies of Chapters 1, 3 and 5 of Roca and Johnson's (1999) "A Course in Phonology" (an undergraduate text) are recommended. See the E-Reserves webpage for the course.
Course Assessment
Regular homework assignments (phonology problem sets, small writing assignments), plus mid-term and final take-home examinations.
73600 Phonology I Practicum
Friday, 4:15 - 6:15 PM, 1 credit, TBA
73100 Phonological Structure of Malay
Wednesday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Delilkan
This course will present a description and analysis of the phonological structure and various phonological rules/processes in Malay. We will start with the basic facts of (a) the segmental inventory (consonants and vowels), (b) and the syllable structure and stress and (c) the morphological structure of words (affixation, reduplication, compounding). The major focus of this course will then be on presenting an integrated analysis of the relationship between syllable structure, metrical structure ('stress'), morphological structure and a set of specific processes: high vowel syllabification, cluster resolution strategies, nasal assimilation, nasal substitution, glottal stop insertion, gemination and glide formation. A crucial (and controversial) aspect of our account involves a specific prosodic asymmetry between prefixes and suffixes, which, as will be argued, is such that prefixes form prosodic domains with the stem, whereas suffixes form their own prosodic domains. This analysis makes Malay typlogically interesting because prosodic asymmetries usually go in the other direction. Thus, it will be demonstrated that Malay phonology plays an important role in theories of the morphology-prosody interface relationship.
Participation in the seminar is open to all students with a basic background in phonology (successful completion of Phonology I is a formal requirement; familiarity with the material covered in Phonology II is a plus but not a prerequisite). There will be no coursebook for this seminar; literature (published or unpublished papers) will be made available in due time. Students taking the seminar for credit will be expected to participate actively in class discussions, and to produce a short term paper at the end of the course.
(NOTE: this class can be used to fulfill a language requirement by writing a scholarly paper. Please make sure you let Prof. Delilkan know this is your intention.)
79300 Neurolinguistics of Bilingualism
Wednesday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Obler
79500 Studies in Spanish Linguistics -- Language and Intercultural Communication
Wednesday, 4:15 - 6:15 PM, 3 credits, Prof Callahan
This seminar will focus on the role of language and linguistic behavior in intercultural communication. Using politeness theories as a point of departure, we will examine seminal work in the discipline, case studies of pragmatic variation between various languages, between Spanish and other languages, and across varieties of the same language, as well as issues involving the teaching and learning of intercultural pragmatics. Classes will be conducted in Spanish. Individual class participation and presentations may be in Spanish or English. Written work will be accepted in Spanish, English, Portuguese, or French.
79600 History of the Spanish Language
Wednesday, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, 3 credits, Prof Delvalle
This course traces the external and internal history of Spanish (standard and non-standard dialects as well as contact varieties). The historical frame is wide, spanning from the spread of Latin in the Iberian Peninsula to present-day issues associated with the unity and prestige of Spanish throughout the world. One component of the course will outline the traditional description of the language's history as a linear evolution of forms (phonetic, morphological, syntactic) from Latin to Spanish. A second component will present sociolinguistic and cultural phenomena (bilingualism, diglossia, standardization, language death) relevant to the understanding of the emergence of Spanish as a "language" and of its spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas.
An important goal of the course is for students to think like researchers in language acquisition. By transcribing and analyzing child data, students will learn how to ask and answer questions in language acquisition.
79200 The Syntax / Phonology Interface
Thursday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Kaufman
In this class we will be examining several phenomena which lie at the intersection of syntax and phonology. One of the most fundamental questions of this interface regards the way in which morphological and syntactic constituents translate into prosodic constituents. After reviewing proposals from several different frameworks, we will examine particular syntactic phenomena which appear to make crucial reference to prosodic structure. Among these, we will investigate second position clitics in Serbo-Croatian, Tagalog and Chamorro, rightwards focus movement in Romance languages, and prosodic aspects of object shift in Germanic languages.
70600 Introduction to Psycholinguistics
Thursday 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Bradley
This introductory course is designed for students in linguistics with no necessary background in experimental psychology. It is intended to acquaint them with the questions that psycholinguists ask about language phenomena, and the research techniques through which answers to those questions are pursued. It surveys current research and theory in human language processing, construed broadly.
The core concerns of psycholinguistics lie in the mechanisms by which speaker-hearers deploy their abstract knowledge of a language's grammar to produce the remarkably fluent performance that characterizes everyday language use. And, since our uses of language routinely invoke our construal of an external world, we concern ourselves also with how the language faculty interfaces with other cognitive domains. We focus primarily on the variety of mental structures and processes supporting the adult monolingual speaker's primary language behaviors -- comprehension and production -- and on the coordination of these processes in real time. This provides the basis for considering illustrative examples of performance in, e.g., bilingual speakers.
Every class emphasizes the issues of experimental design and method that are standard in research gathering evidence about language behaviors. The aim is to equip students for careful and considered reading of current research reports in the field, and to build towards the skills set required for conducting their own research projects.
The course will make occasional use of opportunities offered by the 23rd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing (March 18 - 20, 2010), hosted this year by our colleagues at New York University. See here.
Assigned Reading There is no prescribed textbook for the course. Instead, readings are assigned to accompany each class throughout the semester; these are made available through the E-Reserves webpage for the course. Typically, there is one obligatory reading plus at least one optional reading in support of each meeting of the class.
Course Assessment Regular (short) writing assignments, plus final term-paper on a topic approved by the instructor.
79400 Speech Perception Development
Thursday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Shafer
83600 Language Technology
Friday, 10:45 - 12:45 PM, 3 credits, Prof Huenerfauth
Applications of speech and language processing are found everywhere today. Automated telephone systems, for example, incorporate voice recognition and synthesis. This seminar will explore how computers deal with natural language in such areas as speech recognition, speech generation, and machine translation. Intended as an introduction to the field, the course will survey a range of methodologies in speech and language processing and will cover the basic components of natural language systems, including the lexicon, syntax and parsing, semantic analysis and representation, discourse processing, and pragmatics.
83800 Methods in Computational Linguistics II
Friday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof Sakas
This is the second of a two- part course sequence to train students with a linguistics background in the core methodologies of computational linguistics. Successful completion of this two-course sequence will enable students to take graduate-level elective courses in computational linguistics; both courses are offered by the Graduate Center's Linguistics Program, as well as courses offered by the Computer Science Program. This course (Methods in Computational Linguistics II) will provide training in: the use of computational libraries built specifically for computational linguistics, the techniques used in performing computational analyses of electronic natural language corpora, and the foundational mathematics, probabilistic methods and statistics that are the backbone of modern computational linguistics. The course will go significantly beyond a survey of these topics. By completing the Methods in Computational Linguistics sequence, at the end of the first year, Computational Linguistics Master's students will have the skills they need to engage in further study of state-of-the-art topics in natural language processing.
89900 Independent Research, 1-6 credits
90000 Dissertation Supervision, Level 3 PhD Students Only, 1 credit