A Course Proposal

On

Introduction to Language and Linguistics

(Elective Course for UG)

Submitted by
Dr.DriptaPiplai (Mondal)
Assistant Professor Grade- I
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

September, 2018

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Kharagpur-721 302
Course name:
Introduction to Language and Linguistics (L-T-P: 3-1-0, Credit-4)

Proposed Course Instructors:

1. Dr. DriptaPiplai (Mondal)
Assistant Professor
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Email: [email protected]
2. Dr. JayashreeChakraborty
Associate Professor
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Email: [email protected]
3. Dr. Somdatta Bhattacharya
Assistant Professor
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology
Email: [email protected]

Whether the subject will be offered as compulsory or elective: Elective

The semester in which the subject will be offered: Both

Session, Semester from which the subject is going to be offered: Spring, 2018-19

Course Overview and Objectives:

Studies on language fascinated people for a long time. As a result, different approaches and
different perspectives for the studies on languages have emerged. There have been studies
related to origin of language, language change, use of different scripts, speech sounds, studies
of grammar and lexicon etc. The study of language in the discipline of linguistics has taken a
major turn in last few decades. The study of language is considered as the door to the study of

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human mind. Language is perceived as a computational system, rather than simply a means
of communication or a social object. Different studies on languages are raising
interdisciplinary questions. In today’s world, linguistics is related to the disciplines of
evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

Analysis of language at different levels (sound, word, phrase, sentence, meaning or context)
is becoming indispensable for the studies of language technology. Thus, there is a need to
talk about different perspectives of language (including the structure and variation of
language) for the students interested in different aspects of language technology.

The course tries to give an overview of:

 The idea of the Knowledge of Language and the idea of Grammaticality

 Use of language in different contexts
 Techniques for analysing languages at different levels (sound, word, sentence etc.)
 Typological and areal features of languages
 Use of scripts in Indian context

The objectives of the course are:

 To provide the students with the idea of grammaticality judgments and the structures
of language in terms of analysis at different levels, e.g. sound, word, sentence etc.
 To help the students to make hypothesis on the rules of language and test the
hypothesis.
 To discuss the diversity of languages in relation to the typological features of
languages.

Overlap with any other Subject offered by the Institute:

Speech and Natural Language Processing (CS60057), 5%

Reason for Offering the New Subject in spite of the overlap:

The course Speech and Natural Language Processing talks about analysis of language
from a perspective of computer science. The proposed course titled Introduction to
language and Linguistics talks about the analysis of language from a perspective of
linguistic analysis and theory.

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 Rationale for offering the New Subject:
 Analysis of languages is used in diverse fields in today’s world. Thus it is important
to understand the theoretical perspectives of language analysis.
 The basic concepts of phonetics and some relevant concepts of phonology (e.g.
phonotactic rules) can help students interested in Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech
interface.
 Knowledge of morphological analysis can be helpful for students interested in
shallow parsing. Learning the techniques of morphosyntactic analysis can help to
conduct parsing tasks.
 Students interested in Natural language Processing can use their knowledge of tree
diagram in syntax. If students are interested in Machine/Automatic Translations and
Speech Recognition, learning syntactic analysis can be helpful for them. Ideas on
lexical semantics and basic pragmatics can also be helpful in this regard.
 Students interested in studying Semantic Network can get some help from the
knowledge of basic semantics.
 Knowledge on the use of language in various contexts can help one to understand the
potential variation in language and understand the context dependent factors as a
whole.

Scope as a Discipline:

 The field of Language Technology is becoming more diverse every day. Different
companies (like Google and Microsoft) have been hiring people with knowledge
of linguistic analysis. This is increasing the scope of linguistics as a whole.
 The use of digital dictionaries and digital material are growing very fast with the
growing consciousness on the studies of Endangered Languages worldwide (Foe
example, UNESCO, Foundation for Endangered Languages).

Course Syllabus:
1. Introductory Ideas: The section introduces the notion of Language as an object of
enquiry. The section discusses basic ideas related to the theory of language.
1.1.Features of human language
1.2. Role of linguistics in history

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 1.3.Levels of linguistic analysis
1.4.Knowledge of language
1.5.Langue and Parole, Competence and Performance.

2. Introductory Phonetics and Phonology: The section introduces the production and
classification of Speech Sounds. It also discusses the analysis of Sound Patterns.
2.1.Sound and sound system
2.2.Segments and Suprasegments
2.3.Classification of segments
2.4. International Phonetic Alphabet.

3. Introductory Morphology: The section introduces analysis of Words and Word-

parts.
3.1. Basic morphology
3.2 Inflection and Derivation
3.3 Root, Base and stem
3.4 Morphological analysis
3.5 Word formation processes.
3.6. Basic ideas of Paninian grammar

4. Introductory Syntax: The section talks about analysis of Phrases and Sentences.
4.1. Sentence, Utterance and Proposition
4.2 Acceptability and Grammaticality
4.3 Universal Grammar and Parameters
4.4 Rules of language
4.5 Tree and Linearization
4.6 Constituency tests
4.7 Structural relations
4.8 X-bar theory
4.9 Theta theory and lexicon.

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5. Semantics and Pragmatics: This particular section focuses on the role of Meaning and
Contexts in linguistic analysis.

5.1 Introduction to lexical semantics

5.2 introducing basic notions of pragmatics

6. Typology and Universals: The section introduces different types of languages based on
their structure. The section also focuses the common structures that are found across different
languages.

6.1 Language Universals and Typological Classification

6.2 Linguistic Area, India as a Linguistic Area,
6.3 Morphosyntactic features of South Asian languages.
6.4 Language and scripts: The Indian context

Topics for Tutorial:

The tutorial will help the students to reflect on their own language (or any other language
chosen), build hypothesis on the rules of language and test the hypothesis with analysis. It
will also help students to understand the linguistic diversity, multilingualism and language
contact situations around us.

 Experiments on data on grammaticality judgments

 International Phonetic Alphabet, using the IPA interactive websites to learn the
sounds
 Analysis of speech sounds, using Software to cut and preserve sounds: PRAAT and
AUDACITY
 Finding phoneme inventory and phonological rules of a language
 Doing Morphological analysis
 Analysis of sentences and phrases: using tree diagrams
 How to gloss data using Leipzig Glossing Rules

Texts:
1. Carnie, A. 2013. Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

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 2. Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. and Hyams, N. 2003. An Introduction to Language.
Thomson/Heinle.
3. Haegeman, L. 1994. Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Wiley-
Blackwell.
4. Katamba, F. 1993. Morphology. Palgrave-Macmillan.

References:

1. Adger, D. 2003. Core Syntax: A Minimalist approach. Oxford University Press.

2. Bauer, L. 1988. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh University Press.
3. Bhate, S. and Kak, S. 1993. ‘Panini’s Grammar and Computer Science’ in Annals of
the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 72, pp. 79-94.
4. Comrie, B. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of
Chicago Press.
5. Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackwell.
6. Diringer, D. 1996. The Alphabet: The Key to the History of Mankind. South Asia
Books.
7. Emeneau, W.B. 1964. ‘India as a Linguistic Area’ in Dell Hymes (ed.) Language and
Culture in Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. Harper and Row
Publishers.
8. Ladefoget, P. 2001. Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of the
Languages of the World. Blackwell.
9. Levinson, S.C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.
10. Masica, C.P. 2005. Defining a Linguistic Area. University of Chicago Press.
11. Saeed, J. 1997. Semantics. Blackwell.
12. Verma, S.K. and Krishnaswamy, N. 1997. Modern Linguistics: An Introduction.
Oxford University Press.

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Topics for Lecture Classes: Total number Topics for Total
of Lecture Tutorial Classes Number of
Classes Tutorial
Classes
Introduction to the course Experiments 1
1+1+1+1=4 with
Role of linguistics in history Grammaticality
Judgments
Features of Human Language

Levels of Linguistic Analysis

Knowledge of Language Experiments 1
1+1+1=3 with
Langue and Parole, Competence and Grammaticality
Performance Judgments

Universal grammar and Parameter

Sound and sound system Phoneme 1
1+1+2=4 Inventory and
Segments and Suprasegments Phonological
Rule
Classification of segments
Transcription 2+2=4
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 2 with IPA

Using PRAAT
and
AUDACITY
Introduction to morphology, Basic units of Morphological 2
morphology, Root-Base-Stem 1+1+1+1= 4 Analysis with
data set
Inflection, Derivation and Word Formation
processes

Doing Morphological Analysis

Basic ideas of Paninian Grammar

Sentence, Utterance and Proposition Syntactic 1

1+1+1=3 Analysis with
Acceptibility and Grammaticality data set

Universal Grammar and Parameters

Rules of Language Syntactic 1
2+2=4 Analysis.
Tree and Linearization Drawing Trees

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Constituency Test Syntactic 1
1+1=2 Analysis.
Structural Relation Drawing Trees
X-Bar Theory -
2+1=3
Theta Theory and Lexicon
Introduction to Lexical Semantics -
2+1=3
Introducing basic ideas of Pragmatics
Language Universal and Typological How to gloss 1
Classification 1+1+1=3 data (using
Leipzig
Linguistic Area Glossing Rule)

India as a Linguistic Area

Morphosyntactic Features of South-Asian How to gloss 1

Languages 2+2=4 data (using
Leipzig
Language and Scripts: The Indian Context Glossing Rule)
Total number of classes Total Number of 14
39 Tutorials

Short Description of the Course:

The course aims to give an overview of the rules and representations underlying the
structures of languages in general. The course provides some ideas on the analysis of sounds
and sound systems, analysis of sound segments and the International Phonetic Alphabet;
analysis of words in terms of different parts of words; analysis of sentences in terms of
constituents, phrase structure, tree diagrams etc. The course also briefly talks about the
components of meanings associated with words and basic analysis using the context. The
course also discusses different structural types of the world’s languages in terms of the
typological structure and briefly discusses the scripts in Indian contexts.

Names of Departments/Centres/Schools/Programmes whose students are expected to

register for this subject: UG 3rd Year, All Departments