LING 303/09F
· Instructor: Darin Flynn
· Teaching Assistant: Silke [zɪlkǝ] Weber
· Course description: "Phonology I: Theory and practice of phonological analysis: the classical phoneme; distinctive features and their organisation; methods of analysis; underlying and surface representations; rules and derivations." (Calendar)
· Course prerequisites: LING 201 or 205/207 (A student may not register in any linguistics course unless a grade of at least C- has been achieved in each prerequisite for that course.)
· Class time, location: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays 11:00–11:50, SB 105
· Office hours, location: Tuesdays 10–11am, SS 817 (Silke); Fridays 1-2pm, SS 806 (Darin)
· Telephone: Department: 220-5469; Darin: 220-6110; Silke: 220-2065
· E-mail: Darin: dflynn@ucalgary.ca; Silke: ksuweber@ucalgary.ca
· Questions? Email or call about your questions, if you like.
· Fax:282-3880 (perhaps if you need to fax a doctor's note? But please don't fax assignments...)
· Assignments: A link to each assignment is posted in the schedule section of the website on its due date. But make sure to get started on each assignment at least a few days before it's due.
All must be submitted electronically (preferably pdf or Word document) by midnight of the due date to Silke @ ksuweber@ucalgary.ca. No late assignments will be accepted.
The file name of each assignment must be in the following format: ast#-lastname-preferredemailaddress, for example: ast2-smith-jsmith@shaw.ca.
Moreover, all phonetic characters must be typed in a well-known phonetic font.
· Computers: If you don’t own a computer (or if you don’t like your computer) you can do your assignment on a U of C workstation, say, in the TRI-Lab (SS 018) or in the IC (2nd flr. McKimmie). Note that you probably won’t be allowed to install any special font in your workstation, but on PCs at least you’ll find all phonetic characters in Lucida Sans Unicode (or else in Arial Unicode MS, which is normally installed with Word XP). Word 2007 is installed with fonts that have ALL phonetic symbols (Times New Roman, Arial, etc.). Another good font on PCs for phonetic symbols is Segoe UI. Windows' new default fonts, Calibri and Cambria, as included in Windows 7, are also IPA-compliant.
· Grading system: 3 assignments @ 10% each – Midterm 30% – Final exam 40%
· Assignment of grades: Course grades will be assigned on a distribution that is NOT more restrictive than the one below:
A+ 97-100% B+ 84-88% C+ 69-73% D+ 54-58%
A 93-96% B 79-83% C 64-68% D 50-53%
A– 89-92% B– 74-78% C– 59-63% F 0-49%
If warranted by class performance and exam difficulty, grade cutoffs can be lowered (but not raised) from these levels for any given exam. Course grades will be assigned based on the weighted average of the cutoffs used for the individual exams. Note: Grades will be based on per cent scores to one decimal place, with “rounding up” only in the calculation of the final grade.
· N.B.: The undergraduate advisor for the 2009–2010 academic year is Dr. Martha McGinnis, who can be reached at 220-6119 or ling.undergrad@ucalgary.ca, as well as Dr. Suzanne Curtin, who can be reached at 220-7670 or 220-3927 or ling.undergrad@ucalgary.ca.
· Text: I’ve written a text for this course ("Articulator Theory: An Introduction to Segmental Phonology") which is therefore free, from here.
N.B.: Several other textbooks, background/supplementary materials are available in section P 217 at the MacKimmie library (some on Reserve).
· Course content: This course will examine a variety of phenomena in segmental phonology from a generative perspective, specifically using the “nonlinear” approach (a.k.a. “autosegmental phonology”). (The follow-up course, LING 403 − Phonology II, focuses on a quite different phonology, called prosodic optimality-theoretic.)
The development of various kinds of analytic skills is targeted in this course: the ability to examine linguistic data and extract generalisations from such data, to determine patterns exhibited by sets of data, the ability to analyse data given particular sets of theoretical assumptions, and the ability to compare and evaluate analyses.
The first week provides the foundational concepts for the whole course. The significance of these concepts (such as allophony, positional constraints, assimilation, and dissimilation) will become increasingly clear to you as they get applied over and over to various data sets, each highlighting a particular phonological feature (twenty-one of them).
· Course schedule:
| 1.
|
Sept. 9 (W) |
· Syllabus: course content, grades, schedule · Introduction: What is phonology? |
| 2. | Sept. 11 (F) |
· Phonemes, inventories, and sneak-preview of features (read §1.2) · Reflection on "duality of patterning" · FYI: 2pm, Language Research Centre, CHD 428: Talk by Christine Shea, ABD (Linguistics): "Learning and Teaching Pronunciation in the Second Language Classroom" |
| 3. | Sept. 14 (M) |
· Allophones, and the constraints/rules responsible for them (positional restrictions, assimilation/dissimilation) (read §1.3) · Short tutorial on fonts and typing symbols · Short tutorial on transcribing English (see Exercise A, end of §1.3) |
| 4. | Sept. 16 (W) |
· Student questions re: §1 (Foundations), font problems and transcription · First feature: [±consonantal], a “major class feature” (read §2.1.1) [pdf] |
| 5. | Sept. 18 (F) |
· [±consonantal] ctd. · Another “major class feature”: [±sonorant] (read §2.1.2) |
| 6. | Sept. 21 (M) | · [±lateral], a “manner feature” (read first half of §2.2.1) ppt
|
| 7. | Sept. 23 (W) | · [±lateral] ctd. (read second half of §2.2.1) ppt
· problem of contrastive specification of [±lateral] in Latin
· Exercises (end of §2.2.1) |
| 8. | Sept. 25 (F) | · [±strident], another “manner feature” (read first half of §2.2.2) ppt
|
| 9. | Sept. 28 (M) | · [±strident] ctd. (read second half of §2.2.2)
· problem of assibilation
· Exercises (end of §2.2.2) [pdf] |
| 10. | Sept. 30 (W) |
· [±continuant], another “manner feature” (read first half of §2.2.3) · Problem of affricates [pdf] |
| 11. | Oct. 2 (F) |
· [±continuant] ctd. (read second half of §2.2.3) · Exercises (end of §2.2.3) [pdf] |
| 12. | Oct. 5 (M) |
· [±nasal], yet another “manner feature” (read §2.2.4) · Exercises (end of §2.2.4) [pdf] |
| 13. | Oct. 7 (W) | · Assignment 1 [here] due!
· [labial], a Lips feature (read §3.1.1)
· Exercises (end of §3.1.1) [pdf] |
| 14. | Oct. 9 (F) |
· [±round], another Lips feature (read §3.1.2) · Exercises (end of §3.1.2) [pdf] |
| Oct. 12 (F) |
· Thanksgiving Day (no lecture) |
|
| 15. | Oct. 14 (W) |
· [coronal], a Tongue Blade feature (read §3.2.1) · Exercises (end of §3.2.1) [pdf] |
| 16. | Oct. 16 (F) | · [±anterior], another Tongue Blade feature (read first half of §3.2.2) [pdf]
|
| 17. | Oct. 19 (M) | · [±anterior] ctd. (read second half of §3.2.2)
· Exercises (end of §3.2.2)
· [±distributed], another Tongue Blade feature (read §3.2.3) [pdf] |
| 18. | Oct. 21 (W) | · Review for Midterm; click [here] for sample midterm.
|
| 19. | Oct. 23 (F) | · Midterm Exam [pdf]
|
| 20. | Oct. 26 (M) |
· [dorsal], a Tongue Body feature (read §3.3.1) · Exercises (end of §3.3.1) [pdf] |
| 21. | Oct. 28 (W) | · The other Tongue Body features: [±back], [±high], [±low] (read first part of §3.3.2) [pdf]
|
| 22. | Oct. 30 (F) | · Assimilation/dissimilation of [±back] (read §3.3.2 ctd.) [pptx]
|
| 23. | Nov. 2 (M) | · On the relation between [±back] and [±anterior] [pdf] |
| 24. | Nov. 4 (W) |
· Assimilation/dissimilation of [±high] and [±low] (read end of §3.3.2) · Problem of contrastive vs. marked specification [pdf] |
| 25. | Nov. 6 (F) |
· [−ATR] in consonants (read §4.1.1) [pdf] |
| 26. | Nov. 9 (M) |
· [±ATR] in vowels (read §4.1.2)
· Problem of schwa (read §4.1.3) · Practice of vowel trees [pdf] · Assignment 2 [click here] is due.
|
| Nov. 11 (W) | · No class – University Closed
|
|
| Nov. 13 (F) | · No class – University Closed
|
|
| 27. | Nov. 16 (M) |
· [±ATR] continued (finish reading §4.1) · [±voice] (read first half of §4.2.1) [pdf] (lecture by Silke) |
| 28. | Nov. 18 (W) | · [±voice] ctd. (read second half of §4.2.1) [pdf] |
| 29. | Nov. 20 (F) | · [±spread glottis] (read §4.2.2) [pdf]
|
| 30. | Nov. 23 (M) |
· [±constricted glottis] (read §4.2.3) [pdf] |
| 31. | Nov. 25 (W) |
· glottals (read §4.2.4) · [±upper register] (start reading §4.3.1) · level vs. contour tones [ppt] |
| 32. | Nov. 27 (F) |
· [±upper register] ctd. (keep reading §4.3.1) · downstep [pdf] |
| 33. | Nov. 30 (M) |
· [±upper register] ctd. (finish reading §4.3.1) · assimilation/dissimilation [pdf] |
| 34. | Dec. 2 (W) |
· [±raised pitch] (read §4.3.2) [pdf] |
| 35. | Dec. 4 (F) |
· Conclusion (read §5) · Prosodic phonology: Sneak-preview of LING 403 |
| 36. | Dec. 7 (M) |
· Review for Final Exam; Preview of LING 403 [pdf] [key: pdf]
· Assignment 3 (click [here]) due at midnight
|
| TBA * | · Final Exam [*Registrar-scheduled in finals period (Dec. 11-20); check mid-October for exam date] |
Important information:
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