Course schedule 2022

An introduction to sound patterns in language, with special reference to African languages. This course will introduce students to formal analytical techniques of assessing sound distribution and alternations. Students will learn to identify natural classes and features, and to analyze vowel harmony, syllable structure and tone patterns. We will also discuss the phonology of sign languages. Students will gain an understanding of phonological typology and the nature of phonological argumentation.  

In this course, students will learn how to justify constituent structure, how to diagram sentences, and how to diagnose the presence of movement (wh-movement, passive, verb movement, etc.). They will learn the basics of structure building in minimalism, including external Merge, internal Merge (movement) and Spell-Out. Examples will be mainly drawn from various African languages. You don’t need to have prior knowledge of minimalist syntax but it helps if you are curious about underlying rules governing clause structure and which forms these rules may take cross-linguistically.

This is an introductory course to semantics, the study of how humans communicate meaning through words. Humans are capable of transforming their thoughts into linguistic expressions and also of recognizing the intended meanings of other people’s words. We will examine how this occurs, discuss what constitutes meaning, and develop a set of tools for understanding all of these notions. While the toolbox we will construct is somewhat formal, the mathematics will enable us to develop precise and testable theories about what things mean and how humans employ those meanings in language.  Along with gaining these formal tools, this course will teach you how to think like a semanticist: how to recognize the different types of meanings an expression might have, how they work, and how to construct analyses of linguistic phenomena and argue for (or against!) those analyses. 

You don't need any prior knowledge of semantics; you just need to be interested in the subject.

In this course, students will be introduced to key concepts in morphology and its interactions with phonology, with a specific focus on tonal and segmental phenomena common in African languages. Topics covered will include allomorph selection, affix order, reduplication, grammatical tone, morphologically conditioned phonological alternations, and locality domains in phonology. We will explore how data from African languages has and can continue to bear on theoretical debates on the morphology/phonology interface. No background in morphology is necessary. Some familiarity with basic phonological analysis will be useful but is not necessary.

This course introduces students to various facets of the syntax of questions from a comparative Generative framework, highlighting the many contributions made by African languages to both linguistic theory and typology. The following topics will be covered: polar questions, wh- in-situ, intervention effects, anti-contiguity analysis of long-distance wh- in-situ, the typology of wh- movement strategies, long-distance and partial wh- movement, embedded questions, island effects (and their absence in African languages), superiority effects (and their absence in African languages), and sluicing. Students will complete a small group research project on interrogative syntax based on the material introduced in the class and present their findings at the end of the course.   

Sociolinguistics examines the role of language in society and seeks to explain the ways in which language serves to define and maintain social relationships among speakers. This course introduces students to sociolinguistic theory and the various social factors that influence language use. Through interactive class sessions, students will learn about multilingualism and language contact phenomena in relation to languages spoken in Africa and the rest of the world. In addition, students will be introduced to different qualitative and quantitative research methods used in sociolinguistics. A central aim of this course is to get students to think critically about language, identity, and power, while recognizing the value of all linguistic varieties. 

This course focuses on an integral aspect of many African languages: tone. In addition to its best-known lexical and phonological roles, tone is often deeply intertwined in a language’s morphosyntax. As renowned tonologist Larry Hyman once wrote, “Tone can do everything that segmental and metrical phonology can do, but the reverse is not true.” In this class, we build a firm foundation for tonal analysis, including tonal representations, common phonological processes, different manifestations of grammatical tone, and how these analyses intersect with current phonological and morphological theory. 

Question formation strategies at the morpho-syntactic level vary considerably across languages but they seem to show convergence in meaning. In this short course we will look at how single-pair and pair-list readings can be modelled in three distinct approaches to question semantics: the generalized quantifier approach, the choice functional approach, and the focus-based approach. Connections between the morpho-syntax of a few chosen languages and each of the three semantic approaches will be made to see which aspects of the mapping follow naturally and which require extensions of core theoretical principles. Attention will also be paid to the theoretical implications of the availability of single-pair and pair-list answers within and across clauses.

Background Reading: Dayal, V. 2016. Questions, OUP. Chapters 1 and 2.  

This course is an introduction to the study of language contact and language change. We will survey a wide variety of contact situations and examine case studies in the context of the African continent. Topics to be discussed include bilingualism, diglossia, code switching, lexical borrowing, structural convergence, and the emergence of new contact varieties. Students will develop a brief research proposal to explore the mechanisms and outcomes of a language contact situation that is of interest to them. 

This course is tailored to enable students to acquire knowledge on how to obtain information structure (focus, topic) in African languages, with inclination to Bantu and Grassfields Bantu. It follows the methods envisaged for Bantu Syntax and Information Structure (BaSIS). The BaSIS project uses diagnostics for information structure and nominal licensing, as gathered in a methodology document. To this methodology, a basic explanation of information structure has been added in text-book style, so that those unfamiliar with the field and its terminology can find an easy way into it. The resulting document, ‘The BaSIS basics of information structure‘, is primarily intended for fieldworkers on Bantu languages, but may be of use to others too. 

In this course we focus on the status of noun phrases with demonstrative, definite, indefinite determiners as well as noun phrases that are bare (either because they lack a D projection altogether or because they have a null determiner). We start with a discussion of the nominal paradigm in Akan where not only do we find determiners that can be classified as definite and indefinite, we also find interesting combinations of the two. In addition, Akan also has noun phrases with demonstratives and bare noun phrases. In discussing the meanings associated with this range of lexical options, we introduce students to current theories of how to model the various aspects of (in)definiteness that play a role in descriptions of the Akan noun phrase. We end by broadening the discussion to provide a set of diagnostics that can be used to semantically classify noun phrases in any language in terms of (in)definiteness. 

The past decade has seen an explosion of African language use in digital communication. There was already some use of African languages in SMS/chats, but the rise of blogs (whose frequency seems now to have already declined), YouTube, and podcasts means that the use of African languages on the Internet is now widespread and ever-growing.

In this course, we examine the linguistic principles that govern digital communication, with particular reference to African languages. We begin with an examination of SMS/chats, looking at constraints and conventions in texting. Moving to the Internet, we explore African language use on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. We look at spoken platforms like YouTube and podcasts and also consider written media like Wikipedia, which currently has templates in 43 African languages.  We consider the representation of African languages in Internet commands and functions such as translation. We will examine the ethics of using material found on the Internet—on social media and elsewhere—as a source of linguistic data.

Crucially, we will consider how participants in the course use the Internet and explore ways for them to be greater contributors to it. 

The course will start by looking at the information-structural import of focus (marking) as in the English (1a) and the cleft structures in (1b):

(1a) KODJO solved all the exercises (answering 'Who solved all the exercises)

(1b) It is KODJO that ate the fufu. / C'est Kodjo qui a mangé le fufu.

Structures comparable to those in (1b) are found with focus fronting in many West African languages, such as Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Igbo, etc. Other languages (e.g., Grassfield Bantu Medumba) employ morphological focus markers. The discourse function of focus is to evoke a salient set of alternatives against which the focused constituent is highlighted (Krifka 2008). On Day1, We will show how this applies to instances of contrastive and so-called new information focus alike. On Day2, we will model the contribution of focus as inherently contrastive, following Rooth (1992). We will also compare the Roothian account to the framework of structured propositions. On Day3, we will look at Association with Focus, as typically encountered with exclusive ('only'), additive ('also') and scalar ('even') particles. In such cases, focus directly affects the core meaning of sentences. On Day4, we will conclude by looking at the exhaustive interpretation of focus constructions, as which is frequently found with instances of focus-fronting and clefting, as in (1b).

Objectives of the course:  To be able to acquire, describe, and explain speech phenomena (phonetics & phonology) using experimental methods. To master the acquisition and the analyses of phonetic data using various tools. To be able to use adequate software and scripts for the acquisition and processing of data. Aerodynamic measurements (With the EVA workstation); EGG; Video and high-speed movies will be used in classes

This course overviews issues in comparative syntax as they relate to African languages, including:

(i) Word order variation and clause structure

(ii) Serial verb constructions

(iii) Pronominal systems (full pronouns vs. clitics, logophoricity)

(iv) Case, agreement, and licensing questions

(v) The syntax of nominal expressions

(vi) Negation and negative dependents (NPIs, negative concord)

In this course, we address selected aspects of the development of, and variation within, natural sign languages used by members of Deaf communities. As for the emergence of sign languages and the development of lexical and syntactic structure, we will, in the first part of the course (Pfau), focus on the role of gestural substrates. Gesture has not only been argued to have played an important role in language evolution, gestures are also commonly integrated into the lexicons and grammars of sign languages by means of lexicalization and grammaticalization. Our focus will be on the latter type of diachronic change, including evidence from homesign and emerging sign languages.

In the second part of the course (Tamene), we then turn to the use of sign languages and aspects of synchronic variation by exploring the relationship between signed languages and the Deaf communities. How do the languages develop within the communities in which they are used; how are they nurtured and sustained; what beliefs and attitudes surround them; and what are the predictions for the future? In addition, questions relating to the use of the languages by different members of signing communities in Africa and beyond, and in different circumstances, as well as sign languages policies and planning, will be addressed.

Background in sign language linguistics is not required.