The purpose of this course is twofold. The first goal is to convey an awareness of the range of variation found in the languages of the world, and the limits on that variation. Secondly, the course is designed to introduce some of the principles, goals, findings, and theoretical concerns of the approach to universals and typology research conducted in the Sapir/Greenberg tradition.
The focus will be on morphosyntactic, rather than phonological phenomena. A practical aspect of the first goal above will be to develop the ability to read and extract useful information from reference grammars of languages.
Textbook and Other Readings
The basic text is Comrie, Bernard, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, Second edition (University of Chicago Press). In addition, other assigned and supplementary readings will be made accessible to Rice students. Supplementary readings are placed in parentheses on the course schedule. They can be read if relevant to a student's paper topic or for greater depth on a particular topic.There is a course website at Ling 416 for students enrolled in the course. Please get a WebCT account and periodically check the site for updates. On this site, lecture notes will be made available and well as supplementary information such as grammar references. Please keep up with the lecture notes as they go in to a lot of issues not discussed or discussed only briefly in the textbook, and in a detail which can't be covered during classtime. The course materials on WebCT are considered part of the required course readings.
Course Requirements
Last modified 18 Feb 05
Disabilities
If you have a documented disability that will impact your
work in this class, please contact me to discuss your needs.
Additionally, you should register with the Disability
Support Services Office in the Ley Student Center.
© 2005 Suzanne Kemmer