Linguistics 320
Prof. Suzanne Kemmer
Course Schedule
Books, Websites,
and other Sources
As far as we can tell, only one species has a communicative system of the complexity of human language, and that is humans. By comparing full-blown human language with other systems, we can learn something about how human language arose in prehistory. Recent advances in primate cognition and social behavior, infant cognition and social behavior, archeology, and other fields allow us to adduce various sorts of evidence, of various degrees of directness, to make hypotheses about the origin and development of human language. In doing so, we can also learn more about human language itself and the nature of the human species.
Some questions we will deal with are:
We will also deal with the geographic spread of Homo Sapiens Sapiens and the accompanying spread and divergence of human languages in paleolithic and post-paleolithic times. The recent hypotheses based on mitochondrial DNA and other genetic information derived from modern human populations will be considered.
There are a number of primary texts that we will read from selectively. Selected articles and portions of the texts will be placed on Owlspace for download, or you will be told how to otherwise get access to them. Any of the following texts can be obtained from Amazon.com as well. A few other books from the Books, Websites and other Sources page linked below are items that can be selected for Student Reviews. (Students should also get these from the library, Amazon, or otherwise borrow them.)
If you have a documented disability that will impact your work in this class, please contact me to discuss your needs. Additionally, you will need to register with the Disability Support Services Office in the Ley Student Center.