GENERAL LINGUISTICS 1

This course is a basic course of the curriculum in Languages, Civilization and Language Science. its goal is to provide the first methodological instruments for linguistic analysis.
The main educational goal of the course is to provide students with the basic tools for linguistic analysis and crosslinguistic comparison. The course is meant as an introduction to the formal analysis of language through the conscious reflection on the grammatical properties of one's mother tongue, with particular reference to the phonological, morphological and syntactic modules of grammar.

1. Knowledge and Comprehension
Knowledge of the basic terminology of phonetic and phonology, morphology and syntax. Knowledge of the basic notions of the modules of grammar. Knowledge of the basic linguistic cognitive processes and language acquisition.

2.Ability of applying knowledge and comprehension
Ability of providing a simple linguistic analysis of several aspects of one own's mother language, taking into account the universal propertied of langauge and of the parameters of linguistic variation with respect to some specific phenomena.

3. Judgment autonomy
To be able of formulating simple hypotheses. Ability to critically evaluate alternative hypotheses.

4. Communicative abilities
To be able of expressing by writing linguistic analyses by using the appropriate terminology. to be able of fruitful interaction with the professor, the tutor and fellow students.

5.
Ability of taking notes and consulting linguistic handbooks and their references.

For this course there are no prerequisites

Universal grammar: innatism and language acquisition; the faculty of language and the principles-parameters theory.
The articulation of the sounds of Italian.
Phone, phoneme and allophone.
The distinctive features and the supersegmental features.
The main phonological phenomena.
The internal structure of the syllable.
Morpheme and allomorph, types of morphemes.
The morphological processes of composition and derivation.
Semantic properties and restrictions on the word-formation rules.
The notion of constituent and the constituency tests.
The X-bar theory and the internal structure of phrases.
The thematic theory and the notion of thematic role.
The structure of the main clause and of the subordinate clause.

Cecchetto, C., "Introduzione alla sintassi", LED - Milano, 2002, chapters 1,2,3.
Graffi, G., Scalise, S., "Le lingue e il linguaggio - Introduzione alla linguistica" Terza edizione, Il Mulino - Bologna, 2013, chapters 1,2,3,4,5,7,11.

The checking of the learning results will be performed through the administration of a written test lasting 1h 30min hours. The student will be required to provide, among other things, the phonetic and phonological transcription of Italian words, the morphological decomposition of complex Italian words, the phrase structure of Italian sentences.

Traditional classes. Exercise sessions with a tutor will be organized. The online 'virtual classroom' will be used for exercises, discussion and forum. Students are strongly advised to attend the exercise sessions.

written