Graduate Courses for Linguistics (LING)

Schedule of Classes: Fall | Winter | Spring | Summer
(Only current and next semester available)

LING 410 Grammar and Meaning (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 311 or permission of instructor.
The basic notions of semantic theory: reference, quantification, scope relations, compositionality, thematic relations, tense and time, etc. The role these notions play in grammars of natural languages. Properties of logical form and relationship with syntax.

LING 411 Comparative Syntax (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING312 permission of instructor.
Comparison of data from a variety of languages with respect to syntactic theory in order to investigate how parameters of universal grammar are fixed differently in different languages. Attempts to work out fragments of grammars for some languages.

LING 419 Topics in Syntax (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311. Repeatable to 12 credits if content differs.
Topics vary.

LING 420 Word Formation (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311 and LING321.
Examination of shape and meaning of possible words, both across languages and within particular languages. Interaction between principles of word formation and other components of a grammar: syntax, logical form and phonology.

LING 429 Topics in Phonology (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING322. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Advanced seminar in phonology. Topics vary.

LING 430 Language Change (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING240.
Changes in grammars from generation to generation. Consequences for the theory of grammars. Traditional work on historical change.

LING 439 Topics in Diachronic Linguistics (3 credits)
Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.

LING 440 Grammars and Cognition (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311 and LING321.
Relationship between the structure, development and functioning of grammars and the structure, development and functioning of other mental systems. Interpretations of experimental and observational work on children's language, aphasia, speech production and comprehension.

LING 443 Programming for Linguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of department.
A one-semester introduction to computer programming, geared for linguists and others who are not computer scientists. Not intended for students who already have significant programming experience.

LING 444 Child Language Acquisition (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311.
Examines language acquisition in infancy and early childhood: the nature of children's linguistic representations and how these develop naturally. Role of (possible) innate linguistic structure and interaction of such structure with experience. Evaluation of methods and results of current and classic research leading to contemporary models of language development.

LING 451 Grammars and Variation (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311.
Grammars and the use of language in a variety of styles: formal, casual, literary, etc. Consequences for concepts of grammars. Variation theory. Literary styles.

LING 453 Mathematical Approaches to Language (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING312.
The aspects of mathematics used in linguistic discussions: recursion theory, Chomsky's hierarchy of grammars, set theory, Boolean algebra, finite state grammars, context-free grammars, etc. Applications to theories of grammars. Formalizations of grammatical theories.

LING 455 Second Language Acquisition (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING311.
Examines second language acquisition from the perspective of Chomsky's 'Universal Grammar'. Relationship between theories of grammars, first language acquisition by children and the learning of second languages by adults.

LING 460 Diversity and Unity in Human Languages (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING200 or LING240.
Fundamentals of grammatical typology as they relate to issues in social attitudes towards language. Linguistic structure of standard and non-standard languages and dialects. Relationship of different writing systems to linguistic structure. Issues in bilingualism and multilingualism.

LING 487 Computer Science for Cognitive Studies (3 credits)
Also offered as PHIL487. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: LING487 or PHIL487.
List processing and discrete mathematics. Preparation for the study of artificial intelligence and other mathematically oriented branches of cognitive studies. Intended for students of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. LISP computer language, graphs and trees, the concept of computational complexity, search algorithms.

LING 499 Directed Studies in Linguistics (1-3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of department. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Independent study or research on language under the supervision of a faculty member.

LING 610 Syntactic Theory (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 312.
Intensive introduction to transformational syntax.

LING 611 Issues in Syntax (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 610.
Topics of current theoretical interest examined through data from a variety of languages.

LING 617 Comparative Grammar and Psycho-Linguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING610. Recommended: LING640.
Techniques of grammatical analysis and shows how selecting the right grammatical phenomenon is critical for asking the right questions in processing/acquisition and how results using psycho-linguistic techniques can be used to shed light on grammar evaluation.

LING 620 Phonological Theory (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 322.
Topics in current phonological theory, as they relate to data from various languages. Segmental and prosodic analysis. Autosegmental theory, metrical theory, etc.

LING 621 Issues in Phonology (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 620.
Topics of current interest in phonological theory examined through data from several languages.

LING 625 Morphology and the Lexicon (3 credits)
The structure of words and investigation of how word formation processes interact with other components of grammar.

LING 630 Diachronic Linguistics (3 credits)
The ways in which grammars may change from generation to generation and the relevance of such changes for theories of the human linguistic capacity. Consideration of traditional work on historical change.

LING 640 Psycholinguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Core graduate course in psycholinguistics, covering leading theoretical approaches and experimental methods in language acquisition, language processing, and neurolinguistics.

LING 641 Issues in Psycholinguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 640.
Topics of current interest in psycholinguistics, including both theoretical approaches and experimental and analytical issues in language acquisition, language processing, and neurolinguistics.

LING 644 Language Acquisition (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 640.
Interpretations of observational and experimental work on children's language development, and relationship between developmental stages and theories of human language faculties.

LING 645 Introduction to Computational Linguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Also offered as CMSC 723.
Introduction to statistical and symbolic approaches to Computational Linguistics. Automatic methods for tasks involving human language understanding, production or learning.

LING 646 Cognitive Neuroscience of Language (3 credits)
Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Overview of classical and recent work on the neural basis of speech and language, with a goal of introducing contemporary methods and results to prepare the student to read the neurolinguistics and cognitive neuroscience literature. An emphasis will be placed on current techniques.

LING 647 Computational Linguistics II (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 645 or permission of instructor.
Further exploration of statistical and symbolic techniques in computational linguistics.

LING 650 History of Linguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 312.
Different ways in which people have thought about language. Cartesian and neogrammarian theories. Development of the generative research program.

LING 658 History of a Language (3 credits)
Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Detailed examination of the history of a single language or language family.

LING 659 Structure of a Language (3 credits)
Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Detailed examination of a particular language or language family.

LING 660 Introduction to Semantics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Basic concepts and methods of contemporary semantic theory including basic set theory, elementary propositional and predicate calculus, the structure of predicates and propositions, quantification binding. Prepares students for study of more advanced topics in semantics.

LING 661 Issues in Semantics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 660 or permission of department.
A second course in semantic theory. Application of basic concepts and methods to topics of current theoretical interest.

LING 689 Independent Study (1-3 credits)
Prerequisite: permission of instructor. For LING majors only. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Independent studies in grammatical theory.

LING 698 Directed Study (1-3 credits)
Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.

LING 723 Computational Linguistics I (3 credits)
Prerequisite: CMSC421 or equivalent; or permission of instructor. Also offered as CMSC723. Not open to students who have completed LING645. Formerly LING645.
Fundamental methods in natural language processing. Topics include: finite-state methods, context-free and extended context-free models of syntax; parsing and semantic interpretation; n-gram and Hidden Markov models, part-of-speech tagging; natural language applications such as machine translation, automatic summarization, and question answering.

LING 773 Computational Linguistics II (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING723 or CMSC723; or permission of instructor. Also offered as CMSC773. Not open to students who have completed LING647. Formerly LING647.
Natural language processing with a focus on corpus-based statistical techniques. Topics include: stochastic language modeling, smoothing, noisy channel models, probabilistic grammars and parsing; lexical acquisition, similarity-based methods, word sense disambiguation, statistical methods in NLP applications; system evaluation.

LING 798 Research Papers in Linguistics (1-6 credits)
Prerequisites: LING 611 and LING 621. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.

LING 799 Master's Thesis Research (1-6 credits)

LING 819 Seminar in Syntactic Theory (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 611. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Current topics in research on syntactic theory.

LING 829 Seminar in Phonological Theory (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 621. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Current topics in research on phonology and morphology.

LING 839 Seminar in Language Change (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 630. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Topics in research on historical change in language.

LING 848 Seminar in Computational Linguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 645 or permission of instructor.
Current topics in research in computational linguistics.

LING 849 Seminar in Psycholinguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 640, LING 641 or permission of instructor. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs.
Current topics in research on psycholinguistics.

LING 859 Seminar in Language Acquisition (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 640, LING 641, or permission of department. Repeatable to 06 credits if content differs. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: LING 859 or LING 889A. Formerly LING889A.
Current topics in research on language acquisition.

LING 869 Seminar in Neurolinguistics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 640, LING 641, or permission of department. Repeatable to 06 credits if content differs. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: LING 869 or LING 889A. Formerly LING889A.
Current topics in research on neurolinguistics.

LING 879 Seminar in Semantics (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 660 or LING 661. Repeatable to 09 credits if content differs. Formerly LING889.
Current topics in research in semantics.

LING 889 Directed Research (1-8 credits)

LING 895 Doctoral Research Paper (6 credits)

LING 896 Research Paper in Minor Area (3 credits)
Prerequisite: LING 895.
This course is designed to strengthen the students' ability to do research in a minor area of expertise, and to help them create a publishable piece. In addition, the course constitutes part of a set of requirements to advance to doctoral candidacy.

LING 898 Pre-Candidacy Research (1-8 credits)

LING 899 Doctoral Dissertation Research (1-8 credits)