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24.900  Introduction to Linguistics

Fall 2018

Instructors: Adam Albright, Deepti Dhir, Janis Melvold

TAs: Christopher James Baron, Fulang Chen, Sherry Yong Chen, Filipe Hisao de Salles Kobayashi, Suzana Fong, Frank Joseph Staniszewski

Lecture:  MW11-12.30  (1-190)        

Course Information: 

Description

This course will provide some answers to basic questions about the nature of human language. Throughout the semester, we will be examining a number of ways in which human language is a complex but law-governed mental system.

During the first two-thirds of the semester, we will examine various aspects of linguistic structure: the structure of words (morphology), the organization of sounds (phonetics, phonology), word order (syntax), and the meaning of sentences (semantics). You will use what you learn to investigate the structure of a language that is unfamiliar to you. We will then look at how linguistic structure influences and is affected by language transmission: how is language acquired? how do languages change over time? how do new dialects and languages arise?

Recitations

Recitation

Time

Location

TA

Writing advisor

R01

F 9-10

56-162

Cater

Deepti

R02

F 10-11

56-162

Suzana

Janis

R03

F 11-12

56-162

Filipe

Janis

R04

F 11-12

66-156

Frank

Deepti

R05

F 12-1

56-162

Christopher

Deepti

R06

F 1-2

56-162

Sherry

Janis

Enrollment and waitlist information

This is a CI-H class, so you must register using the CI-H enrollment system (enrollmenttools.mit.edu). If you would like to take the class, but didn't get placed in via the initial lottery on September 1, don't lose hope! In our experience, we have usually been able to find space for just about everyone who wants to add the class. Put yourself on the waitlist and come to the first lecture, and we'll try to find space for you. Note that even if the waitlist looks long on-line, there's still a good chance we can find space for you! Just let us know that you're still interested, and we'll do our best to get everyone in.

Textbooks

There are two required books for this class:

Additional readings will be available for class participants on the Stellar site.

Announcements

Paper 3 (Research proposal) deadline: now Monday 12/3

Hi all,
As announced in class this morning, we've decided to extend the deadline for Paper 3 to next Monday 12/3. This will give you a chance to take into account feedback from the elevator pitches in recitation this week, and also to take advantage of the optional workshops with the writing advisors later this week. (A scheduling announcement will be coming soon)

As I mentioned in class, please keep in mind that extended deadlines near the end of the semester can create a pile-up of things due at the very last minute, so please do be strategic about planning when it fits best in your schedule to work on Paper 3! The extra time until Monday should give you additional flexibility, but i don't want it to make the assignment more time-consuming.

Best,
--Adam

Announced on 26 November 2018  9:00  p.m. by Adam Albright

Three scheduling adjustments

Hi all,
After taking stock of where we are right now, and what the calendar has in store for us, I have decided that we need to make a few adjustments to the schedule that's in the syllabus.

Here are three changes:

- Nov 12 (Monday): no class (MIT holiday, I missed this when making the syllabus)
- Quiz 2: will be Wed Nov 14, in class (not Nov 7)
- Paper 2, part 2: will be due Mon Nov 19 (not Fri Nov 16)

I hope this takes off some of the pressure for tight deadlines now, and we'll deal with the spacing of deadlines towards the end of the semester later. It's also worth noting that once you've turned in Paper 2, part 2, things do lighten up (the remaining assignments are smaller).

Have a great weekend,
--Adam

Announced on 02 November 2018  9:56  p.m. by Adam Albright

Lecture on Monday (10/29): please bring copies of your HW 4 and Paper 2 syntax draft!

Hi all,
Just a quick reminder that you should bring the current state of your syntactic analysis for Paper 2, part 1, to lecture tomorrow. If you already have a draft of the syntax section (including the trees) that incorporates the material from HW 4, then you should just bring that! If your draft is still in progress, you should bring what you have, along with HW 4 so that you have your proposed trees and analysis handy.

In either case, a paper copy will probably be easiest to work with!
Best,
--Adam

Announced on 28 October 2018  1:57  p.m. by Adam Albright

A note about Quiz 1

Hi all,
I was generally very pleased with how you did on Quiz 1! I do know that some of you struggled with time, however, and missed a fair number of points because you didn't have quite enough time to finish or to work carefully. As I mentioned in class, my goal is not to test how *fast* you can do linguistic analysis, so here is an opportunity that may be of interest:

If you missed more than half of the points on one or more questions (for time or any other reason), you can re-do those questions on another piece of paper, and turn your quiz back in to me, with the re-do stapled to it, for up to half credit. Please turn that in to me by Friday afternoon (10/26), either in lecture or my office (32-D830).

Best,
--Adam

Announced on 20 October 2018  3:16  p.m. by Adam Albright

Additional syntax review posted, and a tool for drawing trees

Hi all,
I've posted an additional outline of syntactic phrase structure, that reviews the arguments from lecture about constituency and X-bar structure. I've also added a link to an on-line tool for drawing trees (phpSyntaxTree), which generates graphics that you can include in your favorite word professor. For LaTeX users, I had included a link to tikz-qtree in the lecture slides.
Best,
--Adam

Announced on 13 October 2018  12:30  p.m. by Adam Albright

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