Provisional Syllabus
© 2001 Suzanne Kemmer
Week 1
Oct 9
Introduction; the breadth and diversity of English. (Ch. 1)
Week 2
Oct 16 The beginnings of English. In-class video.
(Ch. 2)
Week 3
Oct 23 The English vocabulary: Layers of borrowings.
Word structure and word analysis.
(Ch. 3-4)
Week 4
Oct 30 Phonetics and assimilation (Ch. 5). Polysemy
and Semantic Change (Ch. 7)
Week 5
Nov 6 The linguistic relatives of English. The Indo-European language family. Earlier antecedents. (Ch. 10)
Week 6
Nov 13 Usage and variation. Slang. (Ch. 8)
Sources of new words. Language attitudes.