Courses

October 27th, 2009

The list of courses below is current as of November 27, 2012. Please note that information is subject to change before the start of each quarter so be sure to check the Stanford Bulletin at the beginning of each quarter for updates.

 

2012-13 Linguistics Courses

 

LINGUIST 1: Introduction to Linguistics

The cognitive organization of linguistic structure and the social nature of language use. Why language learning is difficult. Why computers have trouble understanding human languages. How languages differ from one another. How and why speakers of the same language speak differently. How language is used strategically.
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DBSocSci | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

LINGUIST 3: Glamour of Grammar

In this course, we will dispel many a mystery of English grammar, often presented as a dull and dreary subject in schools: we will see that the words ¿glamorous¿ and ¿grammar¿ come from the same root meaning ¿mysterious or occult¿ and we will ask: Why is there ¿stupidity¿ but not ¿smartity¿? Why can we ¿blacken¿ fish or ¿whiten¿ teeth, but not ¿pinken¿ or ¿greenen¿ anything? Who makes up new words anyway? How do we put words together into meaningful sentences? And how do we understand the nuances of English without much direct instruction? While the focus of this course is on English grammar, we will also see that other languages possess grammars that are based on the same principles and constraints.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

LINGUIST 10N: Experimental Phonetics

Terms: Aut | Units: 4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

Instructors: Sumner, M. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 47N: Languages, Dialects, Speakers

Preference to freshmen. Variation and change in languages from around the world. The roots, historical development, and and linguistic and social structures of variation. How languages differ from each other, and how issues in linguistics connect to other social and cultural issues. The systematic study of language.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DBSocSci | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors: Anttila, A. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 52N: Spoken Sexuality: Language and the Social Construction of Sexuality (FEMST 52N)

This course, divided into three sections, examines the many ways language is used in the construction of sexuality and sexual identity. In the first section, we consider how language is used as a resource for performing and perceiving sexual identity. Drawing on detailed linguistic analyses of pronunciation, word choice, and grammar, we will address questions such as the following: Is there a gay accent? Why isn’t there a lesbian accent? How do transgendered people modify their linguistic behavior when transitioning? How are unmarked (heterosexual) identities linguistically constructed? While sexuality is largely an issue of identity, it is also an issue of desire. In the second section of the course, we examine iconic relations between elements of language (e.g. breathy voice quality, high pitch) and aspects of desire (e.g. arousal, excitement). In the final section, we investigate ways in which language encodes ideologies about sexuality. Specifically, we will study how language is used to talk about sexuality in public discourses about gay marriage and bullying, as well as in personal narratives of coming out. We will also consider how language encodes dominant ideologies about sexuality, evident in labels for sexual minorities as well as terminology for sex acts. Class activities will center on discussions of readings, explorations of how sexuality is portrayed in popular media, and analyses of primary data. Students will be expected to write a final research paper on a topic of their choice.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors: Podesva, R. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 83N. Translation
Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. What is a translation? The increased need for translations in the modern world due to factors such as tourism and terrorism, localization and globalization, diplomacy and treaties, law and religion, and literature and science. How to meet this need; different kinds of translation for different purposes; what makes one translation better than another; why some texts are more difficult to translate than others. Can some of this work be done by machines? Are there things that cannot be said in some languages?  GER:DB-SocSci
3 units, Aut (Kay, M)

 

LINGUIST 90. Teaching Spoken English
Practical approach to teaching English to non-native speakers. Teaching principles and the features of English which present difficulties. Preparation of lessons, practice teaching in class, and tutoring of non-native speaker.
3-4 units, Spr (Romeo, K)

 

LINGUIST 105/205A. Phonetics
(Graduate students register for 205A.)
The study of speech sounds: how to produce them, how to perceive them, and their acoustic properties. The influence of production and perception systems on sound change and phonological patterns. Acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Lab exercises. Prerequisite: 110 or equivalent, or consent of instructor.
4 units, Spr (Podesva, R)

 

LINGUIST 110. Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
Differences in the sounds of the world’s languages and how these sounds are made by the human vocal tract. Theories that account for cross-linguistic similarities in the face of differences. GER:DBSocSci
4 units, Win (Anttila, A)

 

LINGUIST 120. Introduction to Syntax
Grammatical constructions, primarily English, and their consequences for a general theory of language. Practical experience in forming and testing linguistic hypotheses, reading, and constructing rules. GER:DB-SocSci
4 units, Aut (Wasow, T)

 

LINGUIST 130A/230A. Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics
(Graduate students register for 230A.)
Linguistic meaning and its role in communication.  Topics include ambiguity, vagueness, presupposition, intonational meaning, and Grice’s theory of conversational implicature.  Applications to issues in politics, the law, philosophy, advertising, and natural language processing.  Those who have not taken logic, such as PHIL 150 or 151, should also enroll in 130C. Pre- or corequisite: 120, consent of instructor, or graduate standing in linguistics.
4 units, Win (Potts, C)

 

LINGUIST 130C. Logic Laboratory
Typically taken in conjunction with 130A/230A.
1 unit, Win (Potts, C)

 

LINGUIST 144. Introduction to Cognitive and Information Sciences
(Same as PHIL 190, PSYCH 132, SYMBSYS 100.)
The history, foundations, and accomplishments of the cognitive sciences, including presentations by leading Stanford researchers in artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Overview of the issues addressed in the Symbolic Systems major. GER:DBSocSci
4 units, Win (Goodman, N)

 

LINGUIST 150. Language in Society
How language and society affect each other. Class, age, ethnic, and gender differences in speech. Prestige and stigma associated with different ways of speaking and the politics of language. The strategic use of language. Stylistic practice; how speakers use language to construct styles and adapt their language to different audiences and social contexts. GER:DB-SocSci, WIM
4 units, Win (Eckert, P)

 

 LINGUIST 155: Hip Hop, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language (AFRICAAM 121X, AMSTUD 121X, ANTHRO 121A, CSRE 121X, EDUC 121X)

Focus is on issues of language, identity, and globalization, with a focus on Hip Hop cultures and the verbal virtuosity within the Hip Hop nation. Beginning with the U.S., a broad, comparative perspective in exploring youth identities and the politics of language in what is now a global Hip Hop movement. Readings draw from the interdisciplinary literature on Hip Hop cultures with a focus on sociolinguistics and youth culture.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors: Alim, H. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 167. Languages of the World
The diversity of human languages, their sound systems, vocabularies, and grammars. Tracing historical relationships between languages and language families. Parallels with genetic evolutionary theory. Language policy, endangered languages and heritage languages. Classification of sign languages. GER:DBSocSci
3-4 units, Aut (Pereltsvaig, A)

 

LINGUIST 180/280. From Languages to Information
(Graduate students register for 280. Same as CS 124.)
Automated processing of less structured information: human language text and speech, web pages, social networks, genome sequences, with goal of automatically extracting meaning and structure. Methods include: string algorithms, automata and transducers, hidden Markov models, graph algorithms, XML processing. Applications such as information retrieval, text classification, social network models, machine translation, genomic sequence alignment, word meaning extraction, and speech recognition.
3-4 units, Win (Jurafsky, D)

 

 LINGUIST 185: Writing Systems in a Digital Age (LINGUIST 284A)

Introduction to the variety of writing systems and their behaviors. Classification of all existing scripts as alphabetic, syllabic, ideographic; unifying and differentiating features within each group. How writing captures human language in various ways. The development of the alphabet, from ancient Semitic scripts to modern times. How writing systems are extended to additional languages. Chinese writing, its characteristics and sphere of influence. Japanese writing as a hybrid system that includes Chinese. Korean writing as an ideally designed script. The Indian system of writing as the foundation of numerous Asian syllabic scripts. Unicode as global standard for encoding text in all languages. Font technology: the emulation of human writing in the digital realm. Basic knowledge of phonetics recommended. Knowledge of foreign languages helpful.
Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Terms: Spr | Units: 2-3 | (Mansour, Kamal)

LINGUIST 188/288. Natural Language Understanding
(Graduate students register for 288. Same as CS 224U.)
Machine understanding of human language. Computational semantics (determination of word sense and synonymy, event structure and thematic roles, time, aspect, causation, compositional semantics, scopal operators), and computational pragmatics and discourse (coherence, coreference resolution, information packaging, dialogue structure). Theoretical issues, online resources, and relevance to applications including question answering and summarization. Prerequisites: one of LINGUIST 180 / CS 124 / CS 224N,S: and logic such as LINGUIST 130A or B, CS 157, or PHIL150).
3-4 units, Win (Potts, C; MacCartney, W)

 

LINGUIST 191/291. Linguistics and the Teaching of English as a Second/Foreign Language
(Graduate students register for 291.)
Methodology and techniques for teaching languages, using concepts from linguistics and second language acquisition theory and research. Focus is on teaching English, but most principles and techniques applicable to any language. Optional 1-unit seminar in computer-assisted language learning. GER:DB-SocSci
4-5 units, Win (Hubbard, P; Rylance, C)

 

LINGUIST 196: Introduction to Research for Undergraduates

Terms: Aut | Units: 1 | Grading: Satisfactory/No Credit


LINGUIST 197A: Undergraduate Research Seminar

Terms: Spr | Units: 1-3 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors: Sumner, M. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 198. Honors Research
1-15 units, Win (Staff), Spr (Staff)

 

LINGUIST 199. Independent Study
1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

 

 LINGUIST 200: Foundations of Linguistic Theory

Theories that have shaped contemporary linguistics; recurrent themes and descriptive practice.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

 

LINGUIST 207: Seminar in Phonetics

Topics vary. Current topic is phonetic variation in speech perception. Previous topics include ow variation is accommodated in current models of speech perception, and how perceptual models need to be altered to accommodate phonetic variation encountered by listeners. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win | Units: 2-4 | Repeatable for credit | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors: Sumner, M. (PI)

LINGUIST 210A. Phonology
Introduction to phonological theory and analysis based on crosslinguistic evidence. Topics: phonological representations including features, syllables, metrical structure; phonological processes including assimilation and dissimilation; and phonological typology and universals; optimality theory.
4 units, Aut (Anttila, A)

 

LINGUIST 217: Morphosyntax

The role of morphology in grammar: how word structure serves syntax in the expression of meaning. Lexical semantics, Theta-roles, argument structure, and grammatical relations. Licensing: case, agreement, word order, and their interaction.
Terms: Win | Units: 2-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
LINGUIST 222A: Foundations of Syntactic Theory I
The roles of the verb and the lexicon in the determination of sentence syntax and their treatment in modern grammatical theories. Empirical underpinnings of core phenomena, including the argument/adjunct distinction, argument structure and argument realization, control and raising, operations on argument structure and grammatical function changing rules. Motivations for a lexicalist approach rooted in principles of lexical expression and subcategorization satisfaction. Prerequisite: 120 or permission of instructor.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

LINGUIST 222B: Foundations of Syntactic Theory II

The nature of unbounded dependency constructions and their treatment in modern grammatical theories. Filler-gap dependencies, island constraints, and the relation between grammar and processing. Prerequisite: 222A.
Terms: Win | Units: 1-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors: Sag, I. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 223: Introduction to Minimalist Syntax

Introduces the basics of Minimalist architecture and structure-building operations, with attention to the communication of syntax with the phonological and semantic interfaces. Topics include phrase structure, locality and phases, phrasal and head movement, functional categories, and features. A previous graduate-level syntax course, or permission of the instructor required.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

 

LINGUIST 224A. From Text to Natural Reasoning
To reason about textual information we rely extensively on extra-linguistic information but the syntactic structure and lexical items used also play a role in guiding us to conclusions. In by now traditional semantic practice the contributions of those are treated in model theoretic terms. But formulas of first or higher order logic do not come with effective procedures for the reasoning that is required to draw inferences or answer questions given some natural language input. Natural Reasoning is a cover term we use for a family of proof-theoretic formal approaches that are currently used by computational linguists. The course will give an overview of proof-theoretic logic as applied to natural language, discuss some of the computational systems that incorporate this view (Stanford’s NatLog, Bar Ilan’s Biutee, Parc’s Bridge) and conclude with a critical view of the linguistic generalizations that underlie these approaches and means to improve them or mitigate their shortcomings. The examples of natural reasoning will mainly be in the domain of monotonicity reasoning and reasoning about the factuality of events.
2-4 units, Spr (Karttunen, L; Zaenen, A)

 

LINGUIST 225: Seminar in Syntax: Binding Theory

The course begins with a review of classic generative theories of anaphora, from early transformational analyses to GB Binding Theory and its competitors. We then survey the empirical typology of referentially dependent expressions and binding domains, including obviation, logophoricity, and the different binding properties of affixal, pronominal, and complex reflexives and reciprocals. We conclude by exploring how the cross-linguistic variation and generalizations can be addressed in the three principal current theoretical approaches: pragmatic, minimalist, and optimality-theoretic. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win | Units: 2-4 | Repeatable for credit | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

 

LINGUIST 230B. Advanced Semantics and Pragmatics
Expands on 130A/230A. Detailed study of selected topics in formal semantics and pragmatics. Prerequisites: LINGUIST 130A/230A or permission from instructor.
2-4 units, Spr (Lassiter, D)

 

LINGUIST 232A. Lexical Semantics
Introduction to issues in word meaning, focused primarily around verbs. Overview of the core semantic properties of verbs and the organization of the verb lexicon. Approaches to lexical semantic representation, including semantic role lists, proto-roles, and causal and aspectual theories of event conceptualization.
2-4 units, Aut (Levin, B)

 

LINGUIST 232B. Seminar in Lexical Semantics: Lexical Categories
Current topic: A review of recent research into the nature of lexical categories. Topics include languages said to lack lexical category distinctions, languages lacking full lexical category inventories, and methodological issues facing investigations of lexical categories. Data will be drawn from various languages and several semantic domains. May be repeated for credit with different content.May be repeated for credit.
1-4 units, Win (Levin, B)

 

LINGUIST 234: The Structure of Discourse: Theory and Applications (LINGUIST 134A)

The organization of language above the sentence level, and the manifestation of language in context. Practical experience in working with discourse data.
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

 

LINGUIST 236. Representations of Meaning
Exploring the role of context in language learning and language understanding using methods and results from cognitive psychology, language acquisition, and linguistics. Topics include discourse coherence and anaphora, conversational implicature, word learning, on-line sentence comprehension, and the influence of sociolinguistic variables. May be repeated for credit.
3 units, Spr (Goodman, N; Potts, C)

 

LINGUIST 250. Sociolinguistic Theory and Analysis
Methods of modeling the patterned variation of language in society. Emphasis is on variation, its relation to social structure and practice, and its role in linguistic change. Intersection between quantitative and qualitative analysis, combining insights of sociology and linguistic anthropology with quantitative linguistic data. Prerequisite: graduate standing in Linguistics or consent of instructor.
4 units, Aut (Eckert, P)

 

LINGUIST 251: Sociolinguistic Field Methods

Strengths and weaknesses of the principal methods of data collection in sociolinguistics.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

LINGUIST 255. Seminar in Sociolinguistics: California Dialectology
Topics vary by quarter. Current topic is based on sociolinguistic interviews gathered in the first two field seasons of the Voices of California project. May be repeated for credit.
2-5 units, Aut (Eckert, P)

 

LINGUIST 256: Stylistic Practice

Research seminar focusing on the stylistic use of variation, locating it in broader theories of stylistic practice. Examining within-speaker stylistic variation and stylistic variation across social groups. Prerequisite: Phonetics, at least 1 sociolinguistics course, or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | Repeatable for credit | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors: Eckert, P. (PI)

 

LINGUIST 259. Topics in Sociolinguistics: Sociophonetics
Topics vary by quarter. Current topic is language attitudes. The significant literature on language attitudes, which is relevant both to variation theory and micro-sociolinguistics (e.g. Acts of Identity, why some changing variants are adopted and spread and others are not, indexical fields) and to macro-sociolinguistics (intergroup relations, language problems and language planning, choice of vernaculars as official languages at the national level and as languages of instruction in schools).   May be repeated for credit.
2-4 units, Spr (Podesva, R)

 

LINGUIST 260B: Historical Morphosyntax

Morphological and syntactic variation and change. Reanalysis, grammaticalization. The use of corpora and quantitative evidence.
Terms: Spr | Units: 2-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

 

LINGUIST 274B: Field Methods II

First course is series with 274C, with a focus on phonetic topics in a targeted language. Prerequisite: one quarter of phonology and one quarter of syntax or permission of instructor. Students who take 274B in the Fall, are required to also sign up for 274C in the Winter quarter.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit


LINGUIST 274C: Linguistic Field Methods: Syntax

Prerequisites include one quarter of phonology and one quarter of syntax or permission of instructor
Terms: Win | Units: 3-4 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

LINGUIST 276. Quantitative methods in linguistics
Introduction to methods for collecting and analyzing quantitative linguistic data, with a primary focus on the use of corpora in exploring theoretical questions in various areas of linguistics. Topics include the access and retrieval of corpus data (including web-based corpora), data annotation, and statistical modeling. Practical experience with R, Python scripting, and (time permitting) setting up online experiments through Amazon Mechanical Turk.
2-4 units, Spr (Grafmiller, J)

 

LINGUIST 284. Natural Language Processing
(Same as CS 224N.)
Methods for processing human language information and the underlying computational properties of natural languages. Syntactic and semantic processing from linguistic and algorithmic perspectives. Focus is on modern quantitative techniques in NLP: using large corpora, statistical models for acquisition, translation, and interpretation; and representative systems. Prerequisites: CS 121/221 or CS124/LINGUIST 180, CS103, CS109.
3-4 units, Aut (Manning, C)

 

LINGUIST 286. Information Retrieval and Web Search
(Same as CS 276)
Text information retrieval systems; efficient text indexing; Boolean, vector space, and probabilistic retrieval models; ranking and rank aggregation; evaluating IR systems. Text clustering and classification: classification algorithms, latent semantic indexing, taxonomy induction; Web search engines including crawling and indexing, link-based algorithms, and web metadata. Prerequisites: CS 107, CS 109, CS 161.
3 units, Spr (Manning, C)

 

LINGUIST 294. Linguistic Research Discussion Group
Restricted to first-year Linguistics Ph.D. students.
1 unit, Aut (Wasow, T)

 

LINGUIST 390. M.A. Project
1-3 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

 

LINGUIST 394. TA Training Workshop
For second-year graduate students in Linguistics
1 unit, Aut (Levin, B)

 

LINGUIST 395. Research Workshop
Restricted to students in the doctoral program. Student presentations of research toward qualifying papers.
1-2 units, Spr (Potts, C)

 

LINGUIST 396. Research Projects in Linguistics
Mentored research project for first-year graduate students in linguistics.
2-3 units, Win (Staff)

 

LINGUIST 397. Directed Reading
1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

 

LINGUIST 398. Directed Research
1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

 

LINGUIST 399. Dissertation Research
1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

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