Study of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and culture of a less-taught language. Possible offerings include Finnish, Hungarian, and other non-Indo-European languages.

Two sections of Less-Taught Languages will be offered during the spring 2025 semester focusing on two different languages.

Korean Language and Culture: This course offers an introduction to the basic linguistic analyses of Korean. It starts with an overview of the typological features of the Korean language. After a brief survey overview, this course covers the writing systems including both the Korean Alphabet and the Romanization system. It also examines sound patterns, word structures, and grammatical structures of Korean. This course is designed to provide general linguistic characteristics of modern Korean to both undergraduate and graduate students. No knowledge of the Korean Language is required to take this course. 

CRN 71124/71125        MWF 3:00-3:50                         Instructor: Dr. Mi-Ran Kim

Navajo Language and Culture: This course provides an in-depth exploration of Diné Bizaad (Navajo), an Athabascan/Dene language spoken in the Southwestern United States. Students will develop a comprehensive understanding of the language’s fundamental structures while examining its rich historical and cultural significance. Topics include Navajo phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, with additional discussions on its historical linguistic development, sociolinguistic context, and acquisition processes. Course materials will include scholarly articles, textbook excerpts, and references from the Young and Morgan dictionaries.

CRN 71126/71127       TR 9:35-10:50                            Instructor: Dr. Lukas Denk

Forensic Linguistics

This course will be offered during the Summer 2024 semester.

This course will only be offered at the Undergraduate level.

Forensic linguistics is fundamentally how the science of language interfaces with the law. The term forensic linguistics has meant many things from consulting the courts on interpretation of statutory laws to the analysis of evidence to capture serial killers. This course serves as a survey of the field and will introduce students into the world of the forensic linguist as a scientist, an analyst, and an expert witness. Students will get hands-on experience analyzing acoustic and textual data from past cases and providing expert witness testimony. 

Goals and objects: Introduce students to the field of forensic linguistics and give a broad survey of linguistic techniques with a focus on practical application with a case study approach.

CRN 70647   MTWRF 12:00-2:00

The synchronic and diachronic grammar of an older Indo-European language. Possible offerings include Avestan, Hittite, Lithuanian, or topics such as Indo-European phonology, morphology, or syntax.

The study of language as a cultural and social phenomenon. Topics include language and meaning, language and world view, language and social behavior, and language and social issues.

An interdisciplinary study of language use, text analysis, and evaluation. The course will provide students with the ability to investigate and evaluate structural features of language and to identify the strategies used by different writers based on style and cultural backgrounds.

Traditional methods of historical linguistics are reviewed, with examples from several different language families. Various kinds of possible phonological and syntactic changes are investigated in relation to modern linguistic theory.

Continued studies in both the synchronic and diachronic grammar of classical Sanskrit.

The phonology, morphology, and syntax of the classical Sanskrit language, emphasizing the position of Sanskrit within the Indo-European language family and its importance for Indo-European linguistics.

Formal semantics for sentential and first-order predicate logic, including both soundness and completeness results for first-order logic. Additional topics may include Goedel's incompleteness results, the Skolem-Lowenheim theorem, or possible world semantics for modal logics.

Symbolic-mathematical logic, examining the propositional and predicate calculi, with emphasis on problems in translation and formalization and topics in the philosophy of logic and mathematics.