B004642 - GENERAL LINGUISTICS

Italian

Faculty of language and natural languages. Main linguistic domains: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Introduction to the themes of variation and to the endogenous and exogenous processes of change of languages, to the phenomena of multilingualism and interference.

G. Berruto e M. Cerruti, La linguistica. Un corso introduttivo, Torino, UTET, edizione 2017.

G. Soravia, Le lingue del mondo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014, cap. 2 “Le tipologie”.

A. De Dominicis, Fonologie comparate, Roma, Carocci, two chapters of your choice in one of the following groupings: cap. 3 e cap. 5; cap. 3 e cap. 6; cap. 3 e cap. 7; cap. 8 e cap. 9; cap. 8 e cap. 10; cap. 11 e cap. 12; cap. 13 e cap. 14; cap. 15 e cap. 16.

The course aims to provide a basic training on the principles and methods of linguistic analysis. More specifically, students will learn about: specialized terminology; properties of human language; basic knowledge and analytical skills at different levels (phonetic and phonology, morphology and lexicon, syntax, semantics, pragmatics). The course aims also to provide basic notions about: the variation and the endogenous/exogenous processes of change of languages; the phenomena of multilingualism and interference. Students will also learn to communicate in a clear way the knowledge acquired during the course, to develop the learning abilities needed for solve linguistic issues, and to carry on more advanced studies in the field. The extra-disciplinary goal of the course is to stimulate students to develop: (a) an informed use of the academic environment, the CdS, the assistance facilities for managing the student careers; (b) a conscious participation and an effective student-teacher collaboration; (c) an aware use of the learning resources provided by both CdS and Scuola.

Basic knowledge of Italian grammar.

Lectures where examples of linguistic phenomena are shown and discussed, highlighting the theoretical models used to explain them and the categories used to describe them.

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Written test that includes: exercises and multiple choices questions (whose purpose is to evaluate students' knowledge on linguistic terminology and the ability to use it to describe linguistic data); open questions, in order to evaluate student's expository and argumentative skills regarding the concepts and the phenomena studied.

Theoretical foundations: communication schema; animal languages; properties of human language; linguistic sign; sense and reference; compositionality; structure of predication; written and spoken language. Phonetics and phonology: the sounds of speech; phonetic transcription; vowels and consonants; phonology; phonological features and processes. Morphology and lexicon: words, morphemes and inflection; morphological typology; word formation; grammatical categories and parts of speech. Syntax: constituents and structure; the sentence: grammatical functions and thematic roles; subordinate clauses. Semantics and pragmatics: perspectives on the lexical meaning; lexical relations; semantic features; linguistic categorization; speech acts; the Gricean model. Introduction to the themes of variation and to the endogenous and exogenous processes of change of languages, to the phenomena of multilingualism and interference.