An introduction to the scientific analysis of the structure and uses of language. Core areas covered include phonetics and phonology, morphology, the lexicon, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, with data from a wide range of languages. Additional topics include language acquisition, bilingualism, neurolinguistics, historical linguistics and computational linguistics.

Language and music are fundamentally human systems used to express complex ideas and feelings. They share many properties, involving timing, rhythm, and pitch, likely in part due to common neurocognitive underpinnings. This course explores the language-music connection by surveying diverse artistic traditions that blur the lines between the two, like tune-tone association in Chinese opera, African talking drums, Ancient Greek poetic meter, and rhyming in rap. Students are equipped with the linguistic and musical tools to analyze, interpret, and appreciate the intricacies and beauty of these traditions.

This course is an introduction to the science of speech sounds (phonetics) and sound systems (phonology). Students will 1) learn how sounds from a wide variety of languages are produced, and learn to produce and transcribe them; 2) understand and analyze the acoustic properties of speech sounds using (free) software; 3) understand the unconscious knowledge speakers have of the rules and constraints that govern their native language's sound system; 4) extract phonological generalizations from phonetic data from various languages; 5) learn about the similarities and differences between the sound systems of the world's languages.

Syntax is the aspect of human language involved in building phrases out of words. How do words combine - like beads on a string? Are words the smallest building blocks of phrases? How can we make predictions about what is possible and impossible in these structures? This course aims to answer these questions while focusing on the methods linguists use to analyze natural language expressions. Explorations of universal properties of language structures, as well as the ways in which those structures can vary. Strong emphasis on building and testing hypotheses on the basis of both language data and foundational principles of the field.