Linguistics

This course provides an overview of the evolution of the English language from its origins to the 15th century. Topics include: the emergence of English; appearance of Old English varieties; Old English spelling, sounds, and grammar; resurgence of a new English; lexical influx in the late Middle Ages-- innovations and change; English texts from the early Middle Ages; consolidation of English.

Pre-requisites: The student must have a basic knowledge of the main linguistic concepts and a level of general skills suitable for reading and interpreting articles, analyzing data or extracting and communicating relevant conclusions. 

This course discusses how languages are related to one another and how they change over time. It provides familiarization with reconstruction and the comparison method, as well as the importance of analogy in the shaping of language histories. The course gives an introduction to descriptive and theoretical aspects of historical linguistics, covering phonetic, phonological, morphological and syntactic change with data from European and non-European languages.