LGCS186 PO - Topics in Linguistics: Investigating Child Language with Quantitative/Corpus Methods

When Offered: Fall 2021.
Instructor(s): M. Diercks
Credit: 1

This course is a research seminar investigating a particular theory of children’s acquisition of syntactic structures. The first half of the course will consist of an introduction to language acquisition, an introduction to Tomasello’s Construction Grammar (a theory of the child acquisition of syntax), and an introduction to Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (a theory of adult language syntax). The second half of the course will introduce a new theory that offers an acquisition-based explanation for some core properties of adult syntax. We will read and discuss these new proposals, consider predictions of these proposals, and students will test those predictions using already existing child language data (CHILDES). The expectation is that students will have some background in relevant issues so that everything is not entirely new, and as such a variety of prerequisites are included (with the expectation that students will have taken at least one). But it is unlikely that any student will have background in all the areas that the course covers. Students ought not be deterred if they don’t have exposure in some areas that the course touches on: all necessary background will be provided during the course through readings and lectures, including technical skills for using the CHILDES corpora. Letter grade only. Prerequisites: LGCS 105 PO or LGCS 118 PO or LGCS 124 PO or permission from instructor.

Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 2