2007-2008 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

1. Introduction to Linguistics
The cognitive organization of linguistic structure and the social nature of language use. Why language learning is difficult. Why computers have trouble understanding human languages. How languages differ from one another. How and why speakers of the same language speak differently. How language is used strategically. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Aut (Eckert, P; Sag, I), Spr (Pereltsvaig, A)

37Q. Forensic Linguistics
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to sophomores.
The use of linguistic techniques to investigate crimes in which language data forms part of the evidence to authenticate police statements, confessions, threats to harm or kill, and suicide notes. Language data including choice of words, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, handwriting, and voice identification. Differences between what is said, what is meant, and what is understood. Variations in language use and practice between authors and within the same author. Case studies.
2 units, Spr (Traugott, E)

44N. Living with Two Languages
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen.
The nature of bi- and multilingualism with emphasis on the social and educational effects in the U.S. and worldwide, in individual versus society, and in child and adult. The social, cognitive, psycholinguistic, and neurological consequences of bilingualism. Participation in planning and carrying out a research project in language use and bilingualism. GER:DB-SocSci
3 units, Spr (Clark, E)

46Q. Slips of the Tongue
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to sophomores.
Linguistic mistakes, using collections of real-life errors as windows on how languages are structured and used.
3 units, Spr (Zwicky, A)

62N. The Language of Food
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen.
The relationship between food and language around the globe. The vocabulary of food and prepared dishes, and crosslinguistic similarities and differences, historical origins, forms and meanings, and relationship to cultural and social variables. The structure of cuisines viewed as meta-languages with their own vocabularies and grammatical structure. The language of menus; their historical development and crosslinguistic differences.
3 units, Win (Jurafsky, D)

63N. Translation
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen.
What is a translation? The increased need for translations in the modern world due to factors such as tourism and terrorism, localization and globalization, diplomacy and treaties, law and religion, and literature and science. How to meet this need; different kinds of translation for different purposes; what makes one translation better than another; why some texts are more difficult to translate than others. Can some of this work be done by machines? Are there things that cannot be said in some languages? GER:DB-SocSci
3 units, Aut (Kay, M)

65/265. African American Vernacular English
(Graduate students register for 265.)
The English vernacular spoken by African Americans in big city settings, and its relation to Creole English dialects spoken on the S. Carolina Sea Islands (Gullah), in the Caribbean, and in W. Africa. The history of expressive uses of African American English (in soundin’ and rappin’), and its educational implications. GER:DB-SocSci, EC-AmerCul
3-5 units, Spr (Rickford, J)

90. Teaching Spoken English
Practical approach to teaching English to non-native speakers. Teaching principles and the features of English which present difficulties. Preparation of lessons, practice teaching in class, and tutoring of non-native speaker.
3-4 units, Spr (Rylance, C)

104/204. Seminar on Grammar and Usage
(Graduate students register for 204.)
Linguistic behaviors as evidence for grammatical models. Inferring categorical grammars from graded data. History of competence/performance debates within generative grammar.
1-4 units, Spr (Wasow, T)

105/205A. Phonetics
(Graduate students register for 205A.)
The study of speech sounds: how to produce them, how to perceive them, and their acoustic properties. The influence of production and perception systems on sound change and phonological patterns. Acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Lab exercises. Prerequisite: 110 or equivalent, or consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Spr (Sumner, M)

110. Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
Differences in the sounds of the world’s languages and how these sounds are made by the human vocal tract. Theories that account for cross-linguistic similarities in the face of differences. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Spr (Anttila, A)

112/212A. Seminar in Phonology: The Phonology of Syntax
(Graduate students register for 212A.)
Variation in the phonology of words according to their contexts within larger expressions. Syntactic, morphological, lexical, and stylistic factors conditioning this variation. The place of these phenomena in a theory of grammar.
2-4 units, Aut (Zwicky, A)

116. Morphology
A survey of words including their structures, pronunciations, meanings, and syntactic possibilities in a wide sampling of languages to provide a laboratory for investigating the nature of morphology.
4 units, Win (Zwicky, A)

120. Introduction to Syntax
Grammatical constructions, primarily English, and their consequences for a general theory of language. Practical experience in forming and testing linguistic hypotheses, reading, and constructing rules. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Aut (Wasow, T)

124A/224A. Introduction to Formal Universal Grammar
(Graduate students register for 224A.)
A formal model of universal grammar designed to explain crosslinguistic variation in syntactic structure: nonconfigurationality in Australian aboriginal languages, incorporation in native American languages and the Bantu languages of Africa, scrambling and head movement in European languages. Issues such as universal grammar design, and analytic problems from a variety of natural languages. Prerequisites: introduction to syntax and familiarity with logic or other symbolic systems, or consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Spr (Bresnan, J)

130A. Introduction to Linguistic Meaning
Linguistic meaning and its role in communication. How diagnostic tests can be used to categorize and separate semantic phenomena such as ambiguity and vagueness, entailment, and presupposition. How basic set theory and logic can be used to specify meanings and explain semantic phenomena. Pragmatic complications involving the assumptions and intentions of language users. Those who have not taken logic, such as PHIL 150 or 151, should also enroll in 130C. Pre- or corequisite: 120, or consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Spr (Brasoveanu, A)

130B. Introduction to Lexical Semantics
Issues in the study of word meaning. Focus is on the core semantic properties and internal organization of the four major word categories in natural languages: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Win (Fong, V)

130C. Logic Laboratory
Typically taken in conjunction with 130A/230A.
1 unit, Spr (Brasoveanu, A)

140/240. Language Acquisition I
(Graduate students register for 240.)
Processes of language acquisition in early childhood; stages in development; theoretical issues and research questions. Practical experience in data collection. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Aut (Clark, E)

142. Bilingualism, Language Attrition, and Heritage Languages
Linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of first language loss among emigrants; consequences for language teaching. GER:DBSocSci
3-4 units, Spr (Pereltsvaig, A)

144. Introduction to Cognitive Science
(Same as PHIL 190, PSYCH 130, SYMBSYS 100.)
The history, foundations, and accomplishments of the cognitive sciences, including presentations by leading Stanford researchers in artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Overview of the issues addressed in the Symbolic Systems major. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Spr (Davies, T)

150. Language in Society
How language and society affect each other. Class, age, ethnic, and gender differences in speech. Prestige and stigma associated with different ways of speaking and the politics of language. The strategic use of language. Stylistic practice; how speakers use language to construct styles and adapt their language to different audiences and social contexts. GER:DB-SocSci, WIM
4 units, Win (Rickford, J)

152/252. Sociolinguistics and Pidgin Creole Studies
(Graduate students register for 252.)
Introduction to pidgins and creoles, organized around the main stages in the pidgin-creole life cycle: pidginization, creolization, and decreolization. Focus is on transformations in the English language as it was transported from Britain to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Resultant pidginized and creolized varieties such as Nigerian Pidgin English, Chinese Pidgin English, New Guinea Tok Pisin, Suriname Sranan, and the creole continua of Guyana, Jamaica, and Hawaii. Also French, Dutch, Portugese, Chinook, Motu, and Sango.
2-4 units, Spr (Rickford, J)

180. Introduction to Computational Linguistics
Machine translation, web-based question answering, conversational agents, speech recognition and synthesis, parsing, computational semantics and pragmatics. Foundation for other language processing courses; focus is on using available online implementations of algorithms. Prerequisite: CS 106B or X. GER:DB-EngrAppSci
4 units, Aut (Jurafsky, D)

187/287. Grammar Engineering
(Graduate students register for 287.)
Hands-on. Techniques for implementation of linguistic grammars, drawing on grammatical theory and engineering skills. The implementation of constraints in morphology, syntax, and semantics, working within a unification-based lexicalist framework. Focus is on developing small grammars for English and at least one other language. Prerequisite: basic syntactic theory or 120. No programming skills required.
1-4 units, Win (Flickinger, D; Oepen, S)

188/288. Natural Language Understanding
(Graduate students register for 288; same as CS 224U.)
Machine understanding of human language. Computational semantics (determination of sense, event structure, thematic role, time, aspect, synonymy/meronymy, causation, compositional semantics, treatment of scopal operators), and computational pragmatics and discourse (coherence relations, anaphora resolution, information packaging, generation). Theoretical issues, online resources, and relevance to applications including question answering, summarization, and textual inference. Prerequisites: one of LINGUIST 180, CS 224N,S; and logic such as LINGUIST 130A or B, CS 157, or PHIL150).
2-4 units, Aut (Jurafsky, D; Manning, C)

191/291. Linguistics and the Teaching of English as a Second/ Foreign Language
(Graduate students register for 291.)
Methodology and techniques for teaching languages, using concepts from linguistics and second language acquisition theory and research. Focus is on teaching English, but most principles and techniques applicable to any language. Optional 1-unit seminar in computer-assisted language learning.
4-5 units, Win (Hubbard, P)

197. Undergraduate Research Seminar
Research goals and methods in linguistics and related disciplines. Students work on a small project to define a focus for their linguistic studies and prepare for honors research. Presentations; final paper.
2 units, Win (Clark, E)

198. Honors Research
1-15 units, Win, Spr (Staff)

199. Independent Study
1-15 units, Aut, Win, Spr, Sum (Staff)

207. Seminar in Phonetics: Phonetic Variation and Speech Perception
How variation is accommodated in current models of speech perception. Systematic and more random types of variation; the effect of variation on perception. How perceptual models need to be altered to accommodate phonetic variation encountered by listeners. May be repeated for credit.
2-4 units, Win (Sumner, M)

210A. Phonology
Introduction to phonological theory and analysis based on cross-linguistic evidence. Topics: phonological representations including features, syllables, metrical structure; phonological processes including assimilation and dissimilation; and phonological typology and universals.
4 units, Aut (Anttila, A)

210B. Advanced Phonology
The phonological organization of the lexicon. Topics include lexical phonology, phonological subregularities, gradient phonotactics, and lexical frequency effects.
4 units, Win (Anttila, A)

212B. Seminar in Phonology: Intonation and Stress
May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Spr (Leben, W)

214. Phonology Workshop
May be repeated for credit.
1-2 units, Aut, Win, Spr (Anttila, A)

217. Morphosyntax
The role of morphology in grammar: how word structure serves syntax in the expression of meaning. Universal properties and typology of morphological categories; proposals towards their principled explanation in a restrictive theory of language.
2-4 units, Win (Levin, B)

222A. Foundations of Syntactic Theory I
The role of the verb and lexicon in the determination of sentence syntax. The argument/adjunct distinction, subcategorization and argument structure, motivation for a lexicalist approach, principles governing argument expression, operations on argument structure and grammatical function changing rules, unbounded dependencies, and the approach to unbounded dependencies rooted in principles of lexical expression and subcategorization satisfaction.
2-4 units, Aut (Levin, B)

222B. Foundations of Syntactic Theory II
The nature of unbounded dependency constructions and their treatment in modern grammatical theories. Filler-gap dependencies, island constraints, and the relation between grammar and processing. Prerequisite: 222A.
2-4 units, Win (Sag, I)

223. Introduction to Minimalist Syntax
Focus is on phrase structure, movement, functional categories, features, the nature of economy conditions, and parametric differences. More general issues of the architecture of the grammar and the nature of crosslinguistic variation.
2-4 units, Win (Pereltsvaig, A)

225A. Seminar in Syntax
May be repeated for credit.
1-2 units, Spr (Sag, I)

225B. Seminar in Syntax: Word Order
Recent research on core word order variation. Topics include VO-OV, verb second, verbinitial, and free word order languages. May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Aut (Pereltsvaig, A)

227C. Projects in Syntax
Group research projects using quantitative syntactic data from texts, recordings, experiments, or historical records. Skills in extracting, graphically exploring, and analyzing naturalistic syntactic data, and in presenting results. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 229A, B, or D, or equivalent.
2-4 units, Spr (Bresnan, J)

229D. Empirical Syntax Research Seminar
Recent work in syntax that employs data-rich methods like corpora and laboratory studies, emphasizing research by seminar participants. May be repeated for credit.
1-2 units, Aut (Sag, I)

230A. Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics
Meaning in natural language. Topics: elementary set theory; propositional logic, predicate logic, and lambda calculus, and their relation to semantic analysis; model theoretic characterizations of meaning and semantic properties of English conjunctions and determiners. Grice’s theory of implicature, speech acts, Davidson’s theories of logical form, and Montague grammar. Recommended: elementary logic and set theory.
2-4 units, Win (Peters, S)

232A. Lexical Semantics
Introduction to issues in word meaning, focused primarily around verbs. Overview of the core semantic properties of verbs and the organization of the verb lexicon. Approaches to lexical semantic representation, including semantic role lists, proto-roles, and causal and aspectual theories of event conceptualization.
2-4 units, Spr (Levin, B)

232C. Lexical Semantics Research Seminar
May be repeated for credit. By arrangement.
1-2 units, Aut, Win, Spr (Levin, B)

236. Seminar in Semantics: Indefinites
Static and dynamic approaches. Their referential versus quantificational status, scopal properties, and interaction with modal anaphora and quantification. Indefinites cross-linguistically, types of indefinites, and their semantic and pragmatic properties. Indefinite-like items in modal, temporal/aspectual, and degree domains. May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Aut (Brasoveanu, A)

237. Seminar in Semantics: Semantics of Questions and Commands
Semantics of interrogatives and imperatives; propositional semantics of declaratives. Research emphasizing the meaning of questions. May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Spr (Peters, S)

241. Language Acquisition II
May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Win (Clark, E)

245. Experimental Design for Linguistics
Hypothesis formation, confound avoidance, power, general methods, and analysis of results. Students complete a pilot experiment; write-up; peer review; presentation.
4 units, Spr (Sumner, M)

250. Sociolinguistic Theory and Analysis
Methods of modeling the patterned variation of language in society. Emphasis is on variation, its relation to social structure and practice, and its role in linguistic change. Intersection between quantitative and qualitative analysis, combining insights of sociology and linguistic anthropology with quantitative linguistic data. Prerequisite: graduate standing in Linguistics or consent of instructor.
4 units, Aut (Rickford, J)

257. Seminar in Sociolinguistics: Community Studies of Variation
May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Win (Eckert, P)

258. Analysis of Variation
The quantitative study of linguistic variability in time, space, and society emphasizing social constraints in variation. Hands-on work with variable data. Prerequisites: 105/205 and 250, or consent of instructor.
4 units, Spr (Eckert, P)

280. Natural Language Processing
(Same as CS 224N.)
Methods for processing linguistic information and the underlying computational properties of natural languages. Syntactic and semantic processing from a linguistic and an algorithmic perspective. Focus is on modern quantitative techniques in NLP: using large corpora, statistical models for acquisition and interpretation, and representative systems. Prerequisites: CS 121/221 or LINGUIST 180, programming experience, familiarity with logic and probability.
3-4 units, Spr (Manning, C)

289. Quantitative, Probabilistic, and Optimization-Based Explanation in Linguistics
Capturing the soft constraints inherent in linguistic systems, based on quantitative evidence obtained from linguistic corpora. Computer tools for collecting and modeling data. Emphasis is on syntax.
3-4 units, Aut (Manning, C)

294. Linguistic Research Discussion Group
Restricted to first-year Linguistics Ph.D. students.
1 unit, Aut (Levin, B)

390. M.A. Project
1-3 units, Aut, Win, Spr, Sum (Staff)

394. TA Training Workshop
For second-year graduate students in Linguistics.
1 unit, Aut (Levin, B)

395A,B,C. Research Workshop I, II, III
Restricted to students in the doctoral program. Student presentations of research toward qualifying papers.
1-2 units, A: Spr (Clark, E), B: Spr (Anttila, A), C: Sum (Staff)

396. Research Projects in Linguistics
Mentored research project for first-year graduate students in linguistics.
2-3 units, Win (Staff)

397. Directed Reading
1-15 units, Aut, Win, Spr, Sum (Staff)

398. Directed Research
1-15 units, Aut, Win, Spr, Sum (Staff)

399. Dissertation Research
1-15 units, Aut, Win, Spr, Sum (Staff)