LL223
Sound, Structure, and Meaning
0.5 Credit
Hours per week:
- Lecture/Discussion: 3
This course introduces students to descriptive/theoretical approaches to linguistics, the study of human language. We first look at the acoustics and articulation of sound (phonetics) and how some sounds change depending on the ones around them (phonology). Next, we explore the structure of words (morphology) and phrases (syntax) and how such structure is the foundation of meaning (semantics). The course ends with a synthesis of how sound, structure, and meaning change over time (historical linguistics), demonstrating that language evolution is a systematic and predicable phenomenon.
