SLAVIC LINGUISTICS

This course is part of the obligatory courses for students of LLEAP and also counts as Slavic Philology 1 mod. 2 for students of Language sciences. The general objective of the course is to provide students with a metalinguistic knowledge of the structure of the modern Slavic languages by offering both a diachronic and synchronic analysis of some aspects of their grammar from a comparative and a contrastive point of view.

The course Slavic Philology mod. 2/2 is reserved for students of Language sciences and will consist of individual study and presentation of a reseach paper on a selected topic.

1. Knowledge and comprehension
Know and comprehend the relevant interlinguistic variation in the grammatical systems of the Slavic languages.
Know the properties that characterize the three groups of Slavic languages (East, West and South Slavic) according to diachronic criteria of their formation as genetically related but also independently developed.
Know and comprehend the recent theoretical analyses regarding the internal structure of the Slavic nominal expressions and the various types of sentential constructions from point of view of morphosyntax and information properties.

2. Ability to apply acquired knowledge and comprehension
Students are supposed to develop abilities to apply the principles of linguistic theory (also in a comparative perspective) to the study of the Slavic languages.
Students are supposed to learn what are the analytic instruments of linguistic analysis and how to apply them in argumentation, reflecting on the structure of the Slavic languages and making appropriate use of linguistic terminology.

There are no prerequisites for this course.

The course offers an in-depth comparative and contrastive analysis of some aspects of Slavic morphology and syntax. It is subdivided in two parts, a diachronic and a synchronic one. The diachronic part will consist in lectures which will discuss some historical issues that characterize the Slavic languages and set them apart from other Indo-European language families. The subjects will be mainly philological-lingusitic and will refer to the various phases of the formation of Slavic starting from the disintegration of Protoslavis, through Late Common Slavic, Old Church Slavonic until later medieval times.
The synchronic part of the course will present comparative analyses of specific topics in the morphology and the syntax of the contemporary Slavic languages. The topics to be discussed feature: the grammatical categories of Tense, Aspect, Mood and their syntactic representation; the grammar of Case and of definiteness; the structure of the noun phrase; clitic pronouns and cliticization patterns; word order and information structure; subject-verb agreement. The course will also introduce basic notions and methods of modern linguistic theory relevant for the comparative study of the Slavic languages as well as for research into philology.

References
Comrie B.,G. Stone, D. Short & G. Corbett "Slavonic Languages" in B. Comrie (ed.) The Major Languages of Eastern Europe. Routledge, London 1990, pp. 56-143
Dvornik F. The Slavs: Their early history and civilization. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston 1956
Fici Giusti F. Le lingue slave moderne, Unipress, Padova 2001
Franks S. Parameters of Slavic morphosyntax, Oxford University Press, New York 1995.
Siewierska, A. & L. Uhlirova. "An Overview of Word Order in Slavic Languages." In A. Siewierska (ed.) Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, Eurotyp 20.1, 1998, pp. 105-149.
Sussex Roland and Paul Cubberley. The Slavic Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2006

Further readings
Benacchio R., L. Renzi. CLITICI SLAVI E ROMANZI. CLESP, Padova 1987.
Franks S., T.H. King. A HANDBOOK OF SLAVIC CLITICS. Oxford University Press, New York 2000.

The course work will be evaluated through a written reseach paper and a final written exam

Lectures, power point presentations and other online materials

English

Students are requested to frequent the course regularly. The students wishing to take the course as non-frequentants are prompted to contact the professor in order to establish the modes of individual work.

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