Languages of the world
Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar
Zeit: Tuesday 2-4 p.m.
Raum: SfS, room 1.13
Gerhard
Jäger
office: SfS, room 1.20
secretary: 1.22 (Christine Clauder)
Course description
The course gives in introduction into the diversity of the languages of
the world, the reasons for their differentiation, their geographical
distribution, genetical relationships, and their typological
similarities and differences. The goal of the course is to give a
general impression of the linguistic diversity across the world, but
also to discuss approaches to classify languages according to their
historical relationships or their grammatical similarity. Last but not
least we will focus on recurrent grammatical patterns, so-called
typological universals.
syllabus
| date | topic | literature | homework |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10/27 |
genetic language
classification I |
Ethnologue | |
| 11/6 |
genetic language classification II | Baxter & Manaster Ramer 2000 | |
| 11/10 |
vowel systems |
|
|
| 11/17 |
Typology of color
terms |
||
| 11/24 |
Greenberg's
universals |
Greenberg 1963 |
|
| 12/1 |
Word order typology |
Dryer 2000 Whaley, chapters 5 and 6 |
|
| 12/8 |
Word order typology, morphological
typology |
Whaley, chapters 7 and 8 |
|
| 12/15 |
types of morphological linking | Whaley, chapters 7 and 8 | |
| 1/12 |
types of case marking systems |
Whaley, chapter 9 |
|
| 1/19 |
split case systems, animacy
hierarchy |
Whaley, chapter 10 |
|
| 1/26 |
valency changing devices |
Whaley, chapter 11 |
|
| 2/2 |
tense and aspect |
Whaley, chapter 12 |
|
| 2/9 |
clause types |
König & Siemund
2007 |
|
| 2/16 |
final test |
literature:
- Whaley, L. J. (1997), Introduction to Typology. The Unity and
Diversity of Language.
- Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2001), Genes, Peoples and Languages
- Baxter, William H. and Alexis Manaster Ramer. 2000. Beyond lumping and splitting: Probabilistic issues in historical linguistics. In Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask, editors, Time Depth in Historical Linguistics. The McDonald Institute for Archeological Research, Cambridge, UK, pages 167--188
- Jäger, G. (2006), Das A und O des Sprechens, Gehirn und Geist 11/2006, 20-76. [ask me for the password.]
- Greenberg, J. (1963), Some universals of grammar with special reference to the order of meaningful elements, in J. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Language, Cambridge (Mass.), 73-113.
- König, E. & P. Siemund, Speech act distinctions
in grammar, in T. Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic
description, CUP 2007