Courses

Students with no previous background in American Sign Language (ASL) will be introduced to basic conversational techniques in ASL, including both expressive and receptive skills.  Basic grammar and vocabulary will be covered, including explanations of the fundamental parts of a sign, proper use of fingerspelling, and the significance of non-manual features. Instruction will be supplemented with videos, allowing students to begin exploring the visual literature of the Deaf community in the United States. Readings and class discussions will acquaint students with American Deaf culture, history and education, and the historical development of ASL.

Full details for ASL 1101 - American Sign Language I

This intermediate level course will focus on rigorous development and expansion of ASL vocabulary, non-manual signals, and grammar features through communicative activities. Students will develop ASL presentations to increase communicative fluency. The course provides continued development and discussion related to intercultural competence, ASL literature, ASL linguistics and American Deaf culture/community.

Full details for ASL 2201 - Intermediate American Sign Language I

Full details for ASL 3201 - ASL Literature

In this course the students learn the skill of writing at the university level. Instructors offer themes for their courses within their own special areas of expertise.  

Full details for LING 1100 - FWS: Language, Thought, and Reality

Overview of the science of language, especially its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and major findings. Areas covered include: the relation between sound and meaning in human languages, social variation in language, language change over time, universals of language, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge. Students are introduced to a wide variety of language phenomena, drawn not only from languages resembling English, but also from many that appear to be quite unlike English, such as those native to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

Full details for LING 1101 - Introduction to Linguistics

This section is highly recommended for students who are interested in learning about the topics covered in the main course through writing and discussion. 

Full details for LING 1104 - WIM: Introduction to Cognitive Science

This course provides an introduction to the science of the mind. Everyone knows what it's like to think and perceive, but this subjective experience provides little insight into how minds emerge from physical entities like brains. To address this issue, cognitive science integrates work from at least five disciplines: Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy. This course introduces students to the insights these disciplines offer into the workings of the mind by exploring visual perception, attention, memory, learning, problem solving, language, and consciousness. 

Full details for LING 1170 - Introduction to Cognitive Science

In this writing intensive course, we will explore how language and society affect each other. How do class, age, ethnicity, gender, and geography affect the way people speak? Why are some ways of speaking considered prestigious and others stigmatized? How does increased use of online communication and social media affect how we communicate? How are power relations captured in language? How does national policy-e.g., "English-only" policies-affect both politics and language use? What are the linguistic issues behind the Ebonics debate? In this course, through extensive discussion and various types of writing, we consider these questions both in the context of the United States and other parts of the world.

Full details for LING 2221 - Language and Society

An introduction to the study of language endangerment and language revitalization. Explores why nearly half of the world's languages are facing extinction over the current century, discusses the issues related to that projection, and introduces approaches to maintaining and revitalizing endangered languages.

Full details for LING 2224 - Introduction to Language Endangerment and Revitalization

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

Full details for LING 2261 - Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics

In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.

Full details for LING 3150 - Language and Power

This course explores both syntax (how words and phrases are combined into sentences) and semantics (how the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences are interpreted). The course aims to give students to the ability to address questions regarding syntactic and semantic properties of languages in a rigorous and informed fashion. Topics covered include phrase structure, grammatical relations, transformations, semantic composition, modification, quantification, and the syntax/semantics interface. Emphasis throughout the course is placed on forming and testing hypotheses.

Full details for LING 3303 - Introduction to Syntax and Semantics

Old Norse is a collective term for the earliest North Germanic literary languages: Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, and Old Swedish. The richly documented Old Icelandic is the center of attention, and the purpose is twofold: the students gain knowledge of an ancient North Germanic language, important from a linguistic point of view, and gain access to the medieval Icelandic (and Scandinavian) literature. The structure of Old Norse (Old Icelandic), phonology, and morphology, with reading of selections from the Prose-Edda, a 13th-century narrative based on the Eddaic poetry. 

Full details for LING 3315 - Old Norse I

The Romance languages are the lasting imprint of all that happened to the Latin language as it moved through time, territories, and people of many ethnicities.  While the Latin of antiquity retained its prestige in high culture, the natural untutored usage of ordinary people was always free to go its own way.  This course covers the following topics, selected to create a panoramic view:  Formation of the general Romance seven-vowel system from Latin.  Early and widespread sound changes in popular Latin.  Finding and interpreting evidence for trends in popular Latin pronunciation.  The comparative method and its limitations.  Essential later sound changes, some of which ceate a whole new order of consonants unknown to Latin but conspicuous in Romance.  Nouns and adjectives from Latin to Romance.  Formation of the present indicative: the competing forces of sound change and analogical adjustment.  A brief overview of Portuguese.  Variants of the seven-vowel system.  Salient features of Romanian.  Factors that helped shape the vocabulary of Romance.  Medieval diglossia.  Emergence of Romance vernaculars newly recognized by their speakers as languages distinct from Latin and from each other.  Close analysis of the oldest surviving document written unmistakably in Romance (842 C. E.).

Full details for LING 3321 - History of Romance Languages I

An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ) people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.

Full details for LING 3324 - Cayuga Language and Culture

Independent study of linguistics topics not covered in regular curriculum for undergrads.

Full details for LING 3390 - Independent Study in Linguistics

Provides an introduction to phonological theory. The empirical basis, theoretical approaches, and relevant literature are explored through extensive data analysis and critical reading.

Full details for LING 4401 - Phonology I

An advanced introduction to syntactic theory within the principles and parameters/minimalist frameworks. Topics include phrase structure, argument structure (unaccusative verbs, unergative verbs, double object constructions), principles of word order, and the binding theory.

Full details for LING 4403 - Syntax I

This course provides advanced instruction in phonetic analysis and experimental methodology. Students learn about various theories of speech perception, production, and cognitive representation. This provides a background in which students develop an original research project. The goals of this course are for students to gain a conceptual understanding of phonetic analyses and to acquire practical experience in using phonetic analyses to explore cognitive dimensions of speech.

Full details for LING 4419 - Phonetics I

Introduces methods for theorizing about meaning within generative grammar. These techniques allow the creation of grammars that pair syntactic structures with meanings. Students look at several empirical areas in detail, among them complementation (combining heads with their arguments), modification, conjunction, definite descriptions, relative clauses, traces, bound pronouns, and quantification. An introduction to logical and mathematical concepts used in linguistic semantics (e.g., set theory, functions and their types, and the lambda notation for naming linguistic meanings) is included in the course.

Full details for LING 4421 - Semantics I

An in-depth exploration of modern computational linguistic techniques. A continuation of  LING 4424 - Computational Linguistics I. Whereas LING 4424 covers foundational techniques in symbolic computational modeling, this course will cover a wider range of applications as well as coverage of neural network methods. We will survey a range of neural network techniques that are widely used in computational linguistics and natural language processing as well as a number of techniques that can be used to probe the linguistic information and language processing strategies encoded in computational models. We will examine ways of mapping this linguistic information both to linguistic theory as well as to measures of human processing (e.g., neuroimaging data and human behavioral responses).

Full details for LING 4434 - Computational Linguistics II

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of ancient Greek as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

Full details for LING 4451 - Greek Comparative Grammar

This course provides structure and guidance to students doing an honors thesis in linguistics. The course consists of biweekly meeting of all honors thesis writers with the course instructor. Students will prepare presentations and written materials including topic, background, outline, methodology for honors project for class presentation and discussion. The course also covers aspects of linguistics research methodology.

Full details for LING 4491 - Honors Research Workshop I

Directed honors thesis research for students working on an honors thesis, taken with the student's honors thesis chair or other committee member.

Full details for LING 4493 - Honors Thesis Research

An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.

Full details for LING 4712 - Topics in the Philosophy of Language

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

Full details for LING 6261 - Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics

An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ) people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.

Full details for LING 6324 - Cayuga Language and Culture

Provides an introduction to phonological theory. The empirical basis, theoretical approaches, and relevant literature are explored through extensive data analysis and critical reading.

Full details for LING 6401 - Phonology I

An advanced introduction to syntactic theory within the principles and parameters/minimalist frameworks. Topics include phrase structure, argument structure (unaccusative verbs, unergative verbs, double object constructions), principles of word order, and the binding theory.

Full details for LING 6403 - Syntax I

This course provides advanced instruction in phonetic analysis and experimental methodology. Students learn about various theories of speech perception, production, and cognitive representation. This provides a background in which students develop an original research project. The goals of this course are for students to gain a conceptual understanding of phonetic analyses and to acquire practical experience in using phonetic analyses to explore cognitive dimensions of speech.

Full details for LING 6419 - Phonetics I

Introduces methods for theorizing about meaning within generative grammar. These techniques allow the creation of grammars that pair syntactic structures with meanings. Students look at several empirical areas in detail, among them complementation (combining heads with their arguments), modification, conjunction, definite descriptions, relative clauses, traces, bound pronouns, and quantification. An introduction to logical and mathematical concepts used in linguistic semantics (e.g., set theory, functions and their types, and the lambda notation for naming linguistic meanings) is included in the course.

Full details for LING 6421 - Semantics I

The prehistory and evolution of the sounds and forms of ancient Greek as reconstructed by comparison with the other Indo-European languages.

Full details for LING 6451 - Greek Comparative Grammar

Examination of recent developments in the core areas of phonetics and phonology as well as its interfaces with other components of the grammar (e.g., morphosyntax, semantics or pragmatics). Topics covered include current approaches and relevant theoretical and historical perspectives.

Full details for LING 6601 - Topics in Phonetics-Phonological Theory

An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.

Full details for LING 6634 - Topics in the Philosophy of Language

The phonetics data analysis workshop provides students with practice in analysis and visualization of phonetic data, using Matlab, R, and Praat. Experiment design and statistical methods are emphasized.

Full details for LING 6692 - Phonetic Data Analysis Workshop

This seminar provides a venue for feedback on research projects, invited speakers, and paper discussions within the area of computational psycholinguistics.

Full details for LING 6693 - Computational Psycholinguistics Discussion

An independent study for graduate students.

Full details for LING 7701 - Directed Research

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in computational linguistics.

Full details for LING 7710 - Computational Seminar

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in semantics.

Full details for LING 7711 - Semantics Seminar

Addresses current theoretical and empirical issues in phonetics.

Full details for LING 7713 - Phonetics Seminar

Topics in Current Linguistic Theory: topics of current research that cross sub-disciplinary boundaries.

Full details for LING 7727 - Topics in Current Linguistic Theory