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Linguistics: The Phonetics, Phonology and Sociolinguistics of Liquids in English and Dutch

Vak
2010-2011

Admission Requirements

Students should have passed Linguistics 6: Phonology in the B.A. English Language and Culture (or equivalent course). If in doubt, consult the course tutors before registering.

Description

This course will be concerned with various aspects of the linguistic behaviour of the phonemes /r/ and /l/ in English, and its relation to the situation in Modern Dutch.

Topics will include: are liquids disappearing?; why do liquids (and other sonorant consonants) so readily undergo weakening in postvocalic position? (rhotic vs. non-rhotic dialects, and ‘lateral’ vs. ‘non-lateral’ dialects; the syllabic status of postvocalic /r/ and /l/); the phonology of non-rhoticity and ‘non-laterality’ (deletion or insertion?); the phonetics of the realisations of /r/, and of vocalised and ‘dark’ /l/; – the sociolinguistic status of non-rhoticity and ‘non-laterality’.

Course Objectives

  • Students will acquire an insight into the behaviour of liquids in English and Dutch, and to the challenges this behaviour raises for models of phonological structure and phonetic description.

Timetable

The timetable will be available from July 1 onwards on the Department website.

Mode of Instruction

Two-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

  • Presentation/participation (25%)

  • Final written essay (75%)

Blackboard

This course is supported by Blackboard.

Reading list

To be announced.

Registration

Students can register through uSis.

Contact information

English Department, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 103c. Phone: 071 527 2144, or mail: english@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Remarks