Revised draft
Syllabus of MA in Linguistics and Language Technology (Total 64 credits: 15 papers and a dissertation)
Semester I (4 papers -16 credits)
1. Philosophical Underpinnings of Modern Linguistics I – 4 credits
2. Phonetics and Phonology I – 4 credits
3. Morphology – 4 credits
4. Syntax I - 4 credits
Semester II (4 papers – 16 credits)
1. Syntax II– 4 credits
2. Phonology II – 4 credits
3. Cognitive Linguistics – 4 credits
4. Field Linguistics – 4 credits
Semester III (4 papers – 16 credits)
1. Language Universals and Language Typology -4 credits
2. Semantics –4 credits
3. Computational Linguistics - 4 credits
4. Elective Courses (any one of the following to be opted for) – 4 credits
(1) Advanced Syntax - I
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –I
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - I
(4) Advanced Phonology - I
Semester IV (16 credits: 3 papers and a dissertation)
1. Historical Linguistics – 3 credits
2. Sociolinguistics – 3 credits
3. Elective Courses (Part II of the one opted for in the previous semester) - 4 credits
(1) Advanced Syntax - II
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –II
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - II
(4) Advanced Phonology - II
4. Dissertation – 6 credits (Students will require to write a dissertation of 6,000 words on a topic
from her are of specialization)
Semester I (4 papers -16 credits)
1. Philosophical Underpinnings of Modern Linguistics I – 4 credits
2. Phonetics and Phonology I – 4 credits
3. Morphology – 4 credits
4. Syntax I - 4 credits
Semester I (4 papers -16 credits)
1. PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF MODERN LINGUISTICS – 4 credits
1. Language as a Natural Object and Contemporary Debates
2. The Metaphor-focused Cognitive Approach
3. The Indian Approach
Text Book(s):
Macaulay, Ronald. Seven Ways of Looking at Language. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Essential Readings:
Lakoff, G., and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980).
Matilal, B. K. The Word and the World: Indian’s Contribution to the Study of Language. (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1990).
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. (London: Penguin, 1995).
2. PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY – 4 credits
Phonetics
1. The Anatomy and Physiology of Speech
2. Initiation of Speech
3. Articulation
4. Obstruents
5. Sonorants
6. Supersegmentals
7. Multiple Articulation and Co-articulation
Double articulation; secondary articulation; co-articulation; parametric phonetics
8. Phonetic Transcription
Principles and method; terminology; relating to transcription; learning skills; phonemic and phonetic
transcription
9. Acoustic Characteristics of Speech
Transmission; frequency; pitch; amplitude; resonance; measuring frequency; pitch
Text book:
Catford, J. C. A Practical Introduction to Phonetics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Essential Readings:
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Ball, M. J. and Rahilly, J. Phonetics: The Science of Speech. (London: Arnold, 2000).
Lodefoged, P. A Course in Phonetics (3rd Edition). (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers,
1993).
Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. The Sounds of the World‟s Languages. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
Phonology
1. Sounds of Speech
Sounds; natural classes; distinctive features; stricture; major class features; laryngeal features;
secondary articulation; prosodic features
2. Distinctive and the Phonemic Principle
Phonemicization; formalization; minimal pairs; complementary distribution
3. Natural Class
The psychological reality of the phoneme; phonetic similarity; variation
4. Morphophonology
Connection to morphology; neutralization
5. Rule Ordering
Rule writing; rule ordering
Text book:
Kenstowicz, M. 1994. Phonology in Generative Grammar. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Essential Readings:
Foley, J. Foundation of Theoretical Phonology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Goldsmith, J. (ed). Phonological Theory: The Essential Readings. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1999).
Goldsmith, J. (ed). The Handbook of Phonological Theory. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995).
3. MORPHOLOGY I – 4 credits
1. Word Classes and Morphemes Classes
Grammatical category, inflection and derivation
2. Analysing Morphological Structure
Complex words
3. Variation in Morphology
Types of variation
4. The Hierarchical Structure of Words
Trees and labelled brackets; heads and hierarchy
5. The Status of Words
Word boundaries and critics; the lexicon.
6. Problems in Morphological Analysis
Zero derivation; unmarked forms; discontinuous morphemes
7. Morphology and Typology
Syntactic word order and morpheme order
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Text book:
Fromkin, V. (ed.) 2000. Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Essential Readings:
Aronoff, M. Word Formation in Generative Grammar. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1976).
Aronoff, M., and Kirsten Fudeman. What is Morphology. (Oxford: Blackwell,2010).
Booij, G E. The Grammr of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology. (Oxford: OUP, 2007).
4. SYNTAX I – 4 credits
1. Phrase Structure Grammar and Transformational Grammar (the Aspects Model)
Constituency and Constituency Tests – Phrase structure grammar – inadequacy of PS grammar –
transformations – deep structure and surface structure (the Aspects model).
(Jacob & Rosenbaum 1968, Chs. 2-4; Culicover 1976, pp. 7-21)
2. Rules and Constraints on Rules
Types of Rules: Phrase Structure Rules, Transformations, and Interpretive Rules – Types of
transformational operation: movement, deletion, insertion – constraints on rules: the Ross constraints.
(Culicover 1976, pp. 274-284)
3. The Theory of Government and Binding
Universal Grammar, the Innateness Hypothesis – Principles and parameters – D-structure, Sstructure, PF and LF (the GB model) – the –projection principle – movement and trace – anaphors,
pronouns, R-expressions and the binding principles – c-command – thematic (theta) roles: agent,
patient or theme, experiencer, goal etc. – the theta criterion – Case (structural and inherent), Case
assignment, the Case Filter – bounding theory (subjacency) –PRO and control.
(Roberts 1997, „Introduction‟ (for notion of parameters), Ch. 2 (for projection principle and Case
theory), Chapter 3 (for binding principles); Haegman & Gueron 1999, pp. 21-44 (for theta criterion)).
Text book:
Radford, A. et al. 1999. Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Essential Readings:
Culicover, P. W. Principles and Parameters: An Introduction to Syntactic Theory. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997).
Haegman, L. & J. Gueron. English Grammar: A Generative Perspective. (London: Blackwell, 1991).
Riemsdijik, H. Van & E Williams. Introduction to the Theory of Grammar. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986).
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Semester II (4 papers – 16 credits)
1. Syntax II– 4 credits
2. Phonology II – 4 credits
3. Cognitive Linguistics – 4 credits
4. Field Linguistics – 4 credits
Semester II
1. SYNTAX II – 4 credits
1. Phrase Structure
X-bar theory (head, complement, specifier) –binary branching – S as IP, S-bar as CP- the
DP- analysis of Noun Phrases – the head-complement parameter.
2. Some Syntactic Operations and Constructions
Movement and trace – NP Movement (passive, raising) – long distance movement: whmovement (questions, relativization), topicalization – scrambling – adjunction and
substitution: head-to-head movement (Xº movement), movement to SPEC – deletion (VPdeletion, Gapping) – ECM (exceptional case-marking) constructions, small clauses, clefts,
pseudo-clefts.
3. Some Principles of Grammar
Move alpha – constraints on movement: the Ross constraints explained in terms of
subjacency – government – proper government, ECP (empty category principle) – Case
theory, Case as motivation for movement – binding theory (Principles A, B and C) – strong
and weak crossover – theta theory, theta marking – PRO as subject of infinitives – small pro,
the pro-drop parameter – quantifiers, quantifier raising, scope ambiguity.
4. Some Recent Developments
Minimalism – the computational system: Merge, the extension condition, Spell-Out, PF and
LF – “split IP”, AGR phrases – copy theory of movement, shortest move constraint,
procrastinate.
Text book:
Radford, A. Transformational Grammar. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Essential Readings:
Culicover, P.W. Principles and Parameters: An Introduction to Syntactic Theory. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
Haegeman, L. Introducing to Government and Binding Theory (2nd edition). (Oxford: Blackwell,
1992).
Webelhuth, G. (ed.) Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995).
2. PHONOLOGY – II 4 credits
Feature Geometry
Distnctive features; articulator theory, feature tree; characterizing phonological rules;
spreading, delinking, insertion and deletion; spreading of terminal features; consonant-vowel
interaction.
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Cyclic phonology
Derived environment rules; strict cycle; lexical phonology; elsewhere condition; structure
preservations; multistratal rules; word level
The syllable
Syllabification; quantitative approach to syllable; moraic theory; compensatory lengthening;
timing tier
Text book:
Rocca, I., and W. Johnson. A Course in Phonology. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
Suggested Reading:
Goldsmith, J. (ed.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell,
1995).
Kaye, J. Phonology: A Cognitive View (2nd edition). (London: LEA, 1989). Goldsmith, J. (ed.) The
Handbook of Phonological Theory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell,
1995).
Kenstowicz, M. Phonology in Generative Grammar. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994).
3. COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS – 4 credits
1. Prototypes and Categories
Early empirical research into lexical categories – the internal structure of categories:
prototypes, attributes, family resemblance and gestalt – context-dependence and cultural
models
2. Levels of Categorization
Basic level categories of organisms and concrete objects; superordinate categories and
experiential hierarchies; Subordinate categories, composite terms and word-formation; Basic
level categories and basic experiences; actions , events, properties, states and locations
3. Conceptual metaphors and metonymies
Metaphors and metonymies: from figures of speech to conceptual systems; metaphors,
metonymies and the structure of emotion categories; metaphors as a way of thinking: examples
from science and politics.
4. Figure and ground
Figure and ground, trajectory and landmark: early research into prepositions; figure, ground
and two metaphors: a cognitive explanation of simple clause patterns; Other types of
prominence and cognitive processing
5. The Frame and attention approach
Frame and scripts; Event-frames and the windowing of attention; Language-specific framing
and its use in narratives
6. Other issues in cognitive linguistics
Iconicity; Grammaticalization; Lexical change and prototypicality; Effects on foreign language
teaching
Text book:
Taylor, John R. Cognitive Grammar. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Essential Readings:
Radden, G., and Rene Dirven. Cognitive Grammar of English. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007).
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Taylor, John R. Linguistic Categorization (3rd ed). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Ungere, F., H J Schmid. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. (2nd ed). (London: Pearson
Longman, 2006).
4. FIELD LINGUISTICS – 4 credits
In this course, a language which is relatively under described or so far completely un-described is
chosen for linguistic analysis. Students are first introduced to the basic techniques of the data
collection and transcription. They then collect data from an informant(s) on various aspects of
language being investigated such as phonology, morphology and syntax and work out the basic
structural patterns in the language. Students also examine the pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of
the language being analyzed.
Text book:
Crowley, Terry & Nick Thieberger. Field Linguistics: A Beginner’s Guide. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007).
Essential Readings:
Abbi, Anvita. A Manual of Linguistics Field Work and Indian Language Structures. (Munich: Lincom
Europa, 2001).
Briggs, Charles L. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social
Science Research. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Burling, Robbins. Learning a Field Language. (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 2000).
Semester III (4 papers – 16 credits)
1. Language Universals and Language Typology -4 credits
2. Semantics – 4 credits
3. Computational Linguistics - 3 credits
4. Elective Courses: 3 credits each
(1) Advanced Syntax - I
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –I
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - I
(4) Advanced Phonology - I
Semester III
1. LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS AND LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY - 4 credits
1. Language universals and language typology
Language typology and language universals; types of universals; genetic, typological and
typological classifications of language; formal and substantive universals; implicational and
non-implication universals. Morphological universals. Morphological types of languagesagglutinative, analytical (isolating), synthetic fusional (inflecting), infixing and polysynthetic
(incorporating) languages. Aspiration; nasalization; retroflexion; Trubetzkey‟s typology of the
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vowel systems; person; number; gender; case; aspect and tense. Contribution of typological
research to Linguistic theory.
(Comrie 1981, pp. 1-29, 39-50; Subbarao & Saxena 1987; Butt et al. 1994)
2. Inductive vs. Deductive Approaches
Chomsky‟s concept of language universals and parametric variations; word order typology.
Greenburg‟s word order universals for verb-final and verb-medial languages and related
features in terms of South Asian languages.
(Lehman 1978, pp. 57-138, 169-222)
3. Syntactic Typology
Word order within a sentence and a noun phrase. Anaphora, monomorphemic vs
polymorphemic anaphors, emphatics, verbal reflexives and reciprocals; long distance
binding; pronouns: inclusive-exclusive. The Principles of Binding of Chomsky; relativecorrelative clauses; complementation and the quotative; verb be; pro-drop; agreement;
conjunctive participles; the identical subject constraint on CP formation; lexical subjects in
CPs; scope of the negative in the CP Construction; ergativity, dative-genitive subjects.
(Gair et al. 2000; Subbarao et al. 1989; Bhaskararao 2001; Masica 1974; Masica 1991)
4. Phonological and Morphological Typology
An in-depth study of retroflexion; vowel harmony; aspiration; nasalization; reduplication;
echo formation; onomatopoeia; morphological, lexical and periphrastic causatives.
(Abbi 2001; Masica 1991)
5. Convergence and Typology
Linguistic Area, a critical evaluation of the evidence in support of „India as a Linguistic
Area‟ (with special reference to the notion developed by Chatterjee, Emeneau, Hock); the
verb say construction; synchronic evidence for diachronic evidence problems.
Convergence: constraints on convergence; constraints in syntactic change in linguistic
contact situations; phonetic, phonological, morphological and syntactic features of IndoAryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman language families of South Asia.
(Bhaskararao & Subbarao 2001; Arora & Subbarao 1989; Subbarao & Arora 1989;
Emeneau 1964; Hock 1975)
Text book:
Croft, W. Typology and Universals. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Essential Readings:
Abbi, A. Semantic Universals in Indian Languages. (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced
Studies, 1994).
Comrie, B. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981).
Masica, C. P. Indo-Aryan Languages. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
2. SEMANTICS – 4 credits
1. Preliminaries
Semantics in Linguistics; Meaning, Thought, and Reality
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2. Semantic Description
Word meaning; Sentence Relations and Truth; Sentence Semantics: Situations;
Sentence 3.
3. Semantics
Participants; Context and Inference; Function of Language: Speech as Action
4. Theoretical Approaches
Meaning Components; Formal Semantics
Text book:
Saeed, John I. Semantics (2nd ed). (Oxford: Basil Blackwel, 2003)l.
Essential Readings:
Cruse, Alan. Meaning in Language. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Goddard, Cliff. Semantic Analysis. (Oxford: OUP, 1988).
Keith, Allan. Natural Language Semantics. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
3. COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS – 4 credits
1. Man-machine interface
Concept of artificial intelligence (AI) – information system and information processing –
concept of formal language - natural language (NL) and real language; natural language as
man-machine interface
2. Natural language processing
Basic characteristics of NL – knowledge representation – three models – fame model, script
model, information-format model – function of natural language
3. Computer
Computer in historical perspective – calculating machine – computer for information stages –
electric computer – computer with brain analysis – computer language – Basic, Fortan, Algol
4. Computational linguistics
Relationship between linguistics and NLP – project Grammarama (Miller) – parsers and NLP,
computational model for linguistics
5. Language Engineering
Computer application – speech synthesis – machine translation – associative information
retrieval – testing linguistic hypothesis – computer aided language teaching (CALT)
Text book:
Grishman, R. Computational Linguistics. (Cambridge: CUP, 1986).
Essential readings:
Andrew, A M. Artificial Intelligence. (Kent: Abacus Press, 1983).
Jurafsky, D., J H Martin. Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language
Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition. (London: Prentice Hall,
2000).
Mitlkov, R. (ed). The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics. (Oxford: OUP, 2003).
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4. ELECTIVE COURSES – 4 credits each
(1) Advanced Syntax - I
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –I
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - I
(4) Advanced Phonology - I
Semester IV (16 credits: 3 papers and a dissertation)
1. Historical Linguistics – 3 credits
2. Sociolinguistics – 3 credits
3. Elective Courses (part of II of the one opted for in the previous semester) - 4 credits
(1) Advanced Syntax - II
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –II
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - II
(4) Advanced Phonology - I I
3. Dissertation – 6 credits (Students will require to write a dissertation of 6,000 words on nay topic
from her area of specialization)
Semester IV
1. HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS - 3 credits
1. Historical linguistics: An outline of its area.
2. Sound Change: Preliminaries of sound change; Natural Processes; Phonetic change and
phonetic change.
3. Social motivations of sound change: studies by Labov and Trudgill; Lexical Diffusion.
4. Phonological Processes; merger and split. Sound shift: Sound Laws: Grimm‟s Law;
Grassmann‟s Law; Verner‟s Law; the Law of the Palatals; Fortunatov‟s Law.
5. Reconstruction: External and Internal; Reality of Reconstruction; Abstractness of reconstruction;
Internal Reconstruction: Synchronic or Diachronic.
6. Language Contact Phenomena: Borrowing types of borrowing: phonological, morphological and
syntactic; Pidgins and Creoles; code-switching and code-mixing; Grammatical Change:
Analogy: Proportional analogy; analogical leveling, analogical shift; analogical creation; laws
and tendencies of analogy.
7. Semantic change: Causes and effects of semantic change; directions of semantic change.
Text book:
Crowley, T. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics (2nd edn). (Auckland: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
Essential Readings:
Bhat, D.N.S. Sound Change (2nd edn). (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2001).
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Hock, H. H. Principles of Historical Linguistics. (Berlin: Mouton de Grueyter, 1986).
Labov, W. Principles of Linguistics Change. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS – 3 credits
1. What do sociolinguists study?
What is a sociolinguist? – why do we say the same thing in different ways? – what are the
different ways we say things? – social factors, dimensions, and explanations
2. Multilingual speech communities
Language choice in multilingual communities: choosing one‟s variety or code – diglossia –
code switching and code mixing
Language maintenance and shift: language shift in different communities – language death
and language loss – factors contributing to language shift – how can a minority language be
maintained – language revival
Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations: vernacular languages – standard languages –
lingua francas – pidgins and creoles
National languages and language planning: national and official languages – planning for a
national official language – the linguist‟s role in language planning
3. Language variation: focus on users
Regional and social dialects: regional variation – social variation – social dialects
Gender and age: gender exclusive speech differences: highly structured communities gender preferential speech features: social dialect research – gender and social class –
explanations of woman‟s linguistic behaviour – age graded features of speech – age and social
dialect data – age grading and language change
Ethnicity and social networks: ethnicity – social networks
Language change: variation and change – how do changes spread? – how do we study
language change? – reasons for language change
4. Language variation: focus on uses
Style, context, and register: addressee as an influence on style – accommodation theory –
context, style and class - style in non western societies
Speech functions, politeness and cross-cultural communication: the functions of speech –
politeness and address forms – linguistic politeness in different cultures
Gender, politeness and stereotypes: women‟s language and confidence – interaction – gossip
– the construction of gender – sexist language
Language, cognition and culture: language and perception – Sapir and Whorf – linguistic
categories and cultures – discourse patterns and cultures – language, social class and
cognition
Analysing discourse: pragmatics and politeness theory – ethnography of speaking –
interactional sociolinguistics – conversation analysis (CA) – critical discourse analysis (CDA)
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Attitude and application: attitudes to language – sociolinguistics and education –
Sociolinguistic competence – dimension of sociolinguistic analysis – sociolinguistic universal
Text book:
Holmes, J. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (3rd ed). (London: Pearson Longman, 2008).
Essential Readings:
Aitchison, J. Language Change: Progress or Decay? (3rd ed). (Cambridge: CUP, 2000).
Cameron, D. The Myth of Mars and Venus. (Oxford: OUP, 2007).
Phillipson, Robert. Linguistics Imperialism. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
2. ELECTIVE COURSES – 4 credits each
(1) Advanced Syntax - II
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –II
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - II
(4) Advanced Phonology - II
3. DISSERTATION – 6 credits
Elective Courses
(1) Advanced Syntax - II
(2) Advanced Cognitive Linguistics –II
(3) Advanced Field Linguistics (mainly on Tibeto-Burman Languages) - II
(4) Advanced Phonology - II
(1). ADVANCED SYNTAX (I & II)
a. Basic issues in the principles and parameters theory
Interaction of principles within certain parameters; Language specific examples and the
question of basic word order; problems with the theory.
b. From principles and parameters theory to the minimalist program
Reasons for discarding D- Structure and S-structure. How does the computational system
work in the minimalist program? Functional categories and the significance of DP analysis; AGR o p ,
AGR P and Tense phrase, scope for innovation to account for language specific phrasal categories.
c. Some key concepts in the minimalist program
Spell-out, greed, procrastination, last resort, AGR-based case theory, multiple-spec
hypothesis, strong and weak features; interpretable and non-interpretable features.
d. Transformational components
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The copy theory of movement, its properties, motivation for move alpha, LF and PF
movement, checking devices and features of convergence.
e. Logical form
Question of semantic interpretation in the minimalist program; how does it differ from that in the
principles and parameters theory?
(The Advance Syntax course will be taught over two semesters: a, b, and c will be taught in the 3rd
Semester, while d and e will be taught in the 4th semester).
Text book:
Webelhuth, G. (ed.). Government and Binding Theory and the MinimalistProgram. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995).
Essential Readings (for both I & II):
Chomsky, N. Lectures On Government and Binding. (Dordrecht: Foris, 1981).
Chomsky, N. The Minimalist Program. (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1995).
Hornstein, N. Logical Form: From GB to Minimalism. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Radford, A. Syntactic Theory and the structure of English: A Minimalist Approach.
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Radford, A. 1997. An Introduction to English Sentence Structure. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009).
Roberts, I. Comparative Syntax. (London: Arnold, 1997).
(2). ADVANCED COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS (I & II)
a. Overview of the Cognitive Linguistics Enterprise
What does it mean to know a language? The nature of cognitive linguistics: assumptions and
commitments; Universals and variations in language, thought and experience; Language in
use: knowledge of language, language change and acquisition.
b. Cognitive Semantics (I)
What is cognitive semantics? Embodiment and conceptual structure; The Encyclopedic view of
meaning; Categorization and idealized cognitive models.
Metaphors and metonymy; Word meaning and radial categories; Meaning construction and
mental spaces; Conceptual blending; Cognitive semantics in context.
c. Cognitive Semantics (II)
Metaphors and metonymy; Word meaning and radial categories; Meaning construction and
mental spaces; Conceptual blending; Cognitive semantics in context.
d. Cognitive Approaches to Grammar
What is a cognitive approach to grammar? The conceptual basis of grammar; Cognitive
Grammar: world classes; Cognitive Grammar: constructions; Cognitive Grammar: tense,
aspect, mood and voice; Motivating a construction grammar; The architecture of construction
grammars; Grammaticalisation; Cognitive approaches to grammar in context.
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[The Advanced Cognitive Linguistics course will be taught over two semesters: a and b will be taught
in Semester III; c and d in Semester IV].
Text book:
Vyvyan, E., Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics. (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press,
2006).
Essential Readings (for both I & II):
Hamawand, Z. Morphology in English: Word Formation in Cognitive Grammar. (London:
Continuum, 2011).
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to
Western Thought. (Ny: Basic Books, 1999)
Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind.
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987).
Langacker, Ronald. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vols 1 & 2. Stanford: CA: Stanford
University Press, 1987).
Nathan, Geofrrye S. Phonology: A Cognitive Grammar Introduction. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
2008).
Turner, Mark. The Literary Mind. (Oxford: OUP, 1996).
(3). ADVANCED PHONOLOGY I & II
A. Generative Phonology: Linear Model
a. Goals of phonological theory
Phonetics and phonology; the concept of phoneme; prosodic phonology and generative phonology;
distinctive features vs. Phoneme; levels and models of representation of sounds; simplicity, natural
class, linguistically significant generalization, explanation and language universals.
b. Distinctive feature theory
Prague school on distinctive oppositions binary principle and Jakobson‟s theory of distinctive
features; the distinctive features in SPE; controversy on value specification; unary, binary, or
multinary; boundaries as features; diacritic features.
c. Rule formalism and rule ordering
Ms\.S. rules, M.S. constraints, abbreviatory conventions, braces, bracket, parenthesis, angled bracket
and alpha notation; P-rule tyles; rule ordering hypothesis; feeding vs. bleeding, counter feeding vs.
counter bleeding, disjunctive vs. conjunctive.
d. Constraint on phonological rules
Abstractness of underlying representations; the alteration condition; strength hierarchy; principles of
markedness; the role of morphology, lexicon and syntax in phonology.
e. Post SPE linear models
Natural generative phonology; ban on absolute neutralization, true generation condition; no ordering
condition; role types; p-rules, MP-rules, well-formedness rules; spellout rules, syllable rules; via rules.
Natural phonology; natural phonetic constraints; language acquisition as unlearning of process;
processes and rules. Atomic phonology; limited the rules of P-rules; atomic rules and its variants;
forms of atomic.
B. Generative Phonology: Non-linear Model
a. Phonological representations
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Advantage of non-linear models over linear models; tiers and representations – skeletal tier and
many-to-one-mapping, timing tier; skeletal shape as morphological element; C/N slots vs. x slots;
prosodic templates.
b. CV – Phonology
Syllable and representation of syllable structure; CV-tier-syllabification, disyllabification; universal
association convention; the onset first principles; sonority hierarchy; syllable and word formation
condition; syllable weight; light, heavy, extra-heavy; ambisyllabicity, extrasyllabicity, syllable
typology.
c. Metrical phonology
Syllable structure, word stress and prosodic levels; branching feet; left branching, right branching;
metrical trees; notation and interpretation; lexical category prominence rule; nuclear stress rule;
metrical grids; trees and grids.
d. Markedness, underspecification and optimality
Markedness in current phonology; context free and context sensitive markedness; underspecification;
theory of optimality.
e. Morphology/Syntax – phonology interface
Interaction of phonology and morphology; concept of strict cyclicity in lexical phonology – irregular
inflection, class I derivation, class II derivation, compounding, regular inflection; lexical and postlexical rules. Impact of syntactic structure on phonological structure; relation-based mapping and
end-base mapping; prosodic hierarchy.
(The Advance Phonology course will be taught over two semesters: A will be taught in the 3rd
Semester, while B will be taught in the 4th semester).
Text book:
Lass, R. Phonology: An Introduction to Basic Concepts. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984).
Essential Readings (for both I& II):
Chomsky, N. And Halle, M. The Sound Pattern of English. (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).
Dresher, B.E. The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009).
Durand, J. Generative and Non-linear Phonology. (London: Longman, 1990).
Foley, J. Foundation of Theoretical Phonology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1977)
2008).
Hooper, J.B. An Introduction to Natural Generative Phonology. (New York: Academic Press, 1976).
Mohanan, K.P. The Theory of Lexical Phonology. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986).
(4) ADVANCED FIELD LINGUISTICS (I & II)
With the (theoretical) knowledge of techniques of data collection and transcription, as already
acquired in the second semester, students, in this Elective course, will make a comprehensive
linguistic analysis of a (Tibeto-Burman) language which is relatively under described or so far
completely undescribed. They also examine the pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of the language
being analyzed. During the third semester, each student chooses a specific topic and prepares himself
to write a dissertation on it over the 3rd and 4th semesters. Students go on a field trip to the area in
which the language under investigation is spoken and collect extensive data in order to verify their
hypotheses. The dissertation includes a brief typological sketch of the language and a discussion
about the salient features of the language in terms of the topic chosen by the student. Dissertations
follow a standard style sheet and will be submitted before the Final Exam is held.
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