LING 181 - Special Studies in Linguistics A-ZSemester Hours: 1-3
Periodically
Directed investigation of topics in any of the various subfields of linguistics such as phonological rules and representations, syntactic change, semantics, language and social/psychological behavior, and artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Current Special Topics
LING 181F: Gothic Language
With the exception of a few runic inscriptions, Gothic is, for all intents and purposes, the oldest attested Germanic language. A knowledge of Gothic is absolutely vital, not only for those interested in historical linguistics, but also for those who want to have a better understanding of Gothic’s importance with respect to Indo-European. Furthermore, for those specializing in German, English, or any other Germanic language, a knowledge of Gothic helps better realize the etymological connection with the other Germanic languages, thus facilitating language learning.
It is hoped that by the end of the course, students will have obtained a good grounding in the Gothic language from a historical perspective so that they may be able to do further work in comparative linguistics. In addition, through the vehicle of the Gothic language, students will learn regular phonological changes (Ablaut, Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law, etc.) as well as morphological ones when compared to Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic. Furthermore, other older Germanic languages such as Old Norse (Icelandic), Old English, Old Saxon, etc., will be often discussed to illustrate Gothic’s conservatism in comparison with these other languages.
NB: There will be no required paper for this course as students will need to develop a thorough study of the language from a linguistic standpoint and understand well (diachronic) the grammar.
Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
Subjects to be announced yearly. May be repeated when topics vary.
View Course Offering(s):
Summer I 2025
Summer II 2025
Summer III 2025
Fall 2025
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