Meeting time. 12:30–2:00pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, location KCB 104.

Instructor. Paul Hagstrom, 621 Commonwealth Ave., room 105. Email: hagstrom@bu.edu (preferred). Phone: 617–353–6220 (x3–6220). Office hours: T 10:30-11:30, W 2-3, R 5-6.

Prerequisites. CAS LX 250 (Introduction to Linguistics), or consent of instructor.

Course description:

Survey of a range of characteristics that differentiate possible from impossible human languages, which inform modern understanding of the human language capacity. Discussion will center on readings presenting different perspectives on issues of typology, modalities, acquisition, variation, change, and creolization.

Course Requirements. Readings. There is no textbook, but there will be readings assigned from various sources pertaining to each week’s topic. See the “Readings” page. Homework. There will be weekly homework assignments, nearly every week, generally drawing on the readings or course discussion. Midterm. There will be a take-home midterm near the end of October, taking the place of one of the homeworks. Final. There will be a final exam, the specific date and time will be posted when it is known.

 

Homework. Whenever feasible, homework (or project proposals, or final papers) can be emailed to me at hagstrom@bu.edu. Be aware that if you use special fonts, they will sometimes not come through. PDF and text-only documents are safest, but Microsoft Word, RTF, Postscript, LaTeX files will work. Please don’t send a WordPerfect file, I have never managed to find a way to open them properly. Or, you know, just hand in a paper copy. If I can’t read the file you send me, it doesn’t really count as having been handed in, so if there’s a risk of a font problem, try to send it to me early so I can verify that I can read the file.

Late assignments. Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement.

Textbooks. There are no textbooks for this course, readings will be provided.

 

Readings. This course will sometimes rely on outside readings from the linguistics literature (journal articles, manuscripts, and excerpts from books). These readings will be available online from the readings page, contact me if you have difficulty and I can provide something for you to photocopy.

CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. As a member of a CAS course, it is essential that you read and adhere to the CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. In particular, several types of plagiarism (any attempt to represent the work of another as your own) are defined by this academic conduct code. A copy is available in CAS 105.