Phonology

Linguistics 3020, code # 60297, Phonology, Fall, 2015 e-mail: renisong@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Instructor: Rennie Gonsalves Tel.: 718-951-5827
Class Meets on Tuesdays from 2:15-3:30 in 3150 Boylan
And on Thursdays from 1:25-3:30 in 3150 Boylan
Office Hours: 12:00-1:00 on Tuesdays & Thursdays, (and by appointment) in 1216 Boylan

 

 

     Syllabus                

 

General Description of the Course:

Description: This class will be an introduction to phonology, with emphasis on giving you the ability to isolate the phonemes and phonological rules of a language given linguistic data. Our text for the course will be The Sounds of Language; An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, by Elizabeth C. Zsiga (2013). We will be concerned with developing the ability to identify different speech sounds, to describe how they are produced, and to transcribe them. Throughout the semester, however, our main focus will be on analyzing language data in order to find the phonemes and allophones of a language, and to derive the corresponding phonological rules. We will study the distinctive features of speech sounds, phonotactics, phonological alternations, morphophonemics, syllable structure, prosodic domains, and a host of other related phenomena and issues in phonology. Though much of our work will focus on the area of derivational generative phonology, we will take a brief look at constraint-based phonology, or Optimality Theory. By the end of this course you will be able to identify different speech sounds, provide articulatory descriptions of them, transcribe human speech, and analyze unfamiliar language data to find the phonemes and the phonological rules of a language. There will be weekly homework assignments, several in-class quizzes, an open-book midterm, and an open-book final.

Required Texts: Zsiga, Elizabeth C. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. The text is available at the Brooklyn College Bookstore or can be purchased online.

Participation:

Students must attend regularly, arrive on time and must be prepared to participate, having done the assigned work. Participation will count for 20% of the overall grade for the course..

 

Assignments:

There will be an open-book midterm.

There will be an open-book final.

There will be weekly homework assignments.

There will be five short quizzes.

There will be group presentations.