Prospectus

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Advanced Typology

Course
2024-2025

Admission requirements

BA in linguistics or a language. Knowledge of basic linguistic terminology is required.

Description

Linguistic structures are generally not randomly distributed around the globe: some seem to be universally preferred, others are common in certain parts of the world, or in particular language families. The goal of modern typology is to detect distributional patterns, and to explain them in terms of factors that influence the historical development of languages.

The course focuses on the more practical issues of setting up and carrying out a typological research project. To this end, students carry out a group research project during the course. Questions that we will address include: What is a good research question? How do I determine a good sample? How can I compare between languages? How do I look up the information I want? How can I use exiting databases? We will also discuss ways of exploring and analyzing data (using programming language R) and interpreting results. We focus on one particular area of grammar, in this case the expression of negation in the languages of the world.

This course makes use of support by DataCamp (www.datacamp.com)

### Course objectives

At the end of this course you will be able to:

  • formulate a typological research question

  • design a variable and database system that allows you to capture cross-linguistic variation with respect to a linguistic phenomenon

  • apply different ways to compare sometimes very different languages

  • collect information from grammatical descriptions of languages unknown to you

  • apply some basic methods to explore data and test hypotheses

  • understand explanations for given distributions of linguistic features

  • Work together on a project

    Timetable

The timetables are available through MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

  • Seminar

  • Research

Assessment method

  • Paper (take home)

  • R assignment

Assessment

  • Paper (take home) (70%)

  • R assignment (30%)

Weighing

To complete the final mark, please take notice of the following:
The final mark for the course is established by (i) determination of the weighted average combined with below (ii) additional requirements.

Additional requirements:

  • Contributions to database (requirement, pass-non-pass)

  • Present in problem-sharing sessions (requirement, pass-non-pass)

Resit

There wil be a possibility to resit the written exam and the R assignment.

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

  • Van Gijn, Rik, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Steven Moran (in prep) Typology in Practice, selected chapters (will be made available on Brightspace).

  • Further literature will be announced later. Literature will be made available on Brightspace.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website

Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Reuvensplaats

Remarks

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