GENERAL LINGUISTICS 1

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the basic tools of comparative linguistic analysis. Students will learn to reflect on the grammatical properties of their mother tongue (Italian) with particular regard to Phonology, Morphology and Syntax. The linguistic metacompetence developed in this course can consolidate skills in reflecting on the structure of Italian and provide students with a solid foundation for a reflective acquisition of foreign languages and the study of language sciences.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
The students know the biological foundations of human language, the process of language acquisition and the principal contemporary linguistic theories.
The students know the basic linguistic terminology and understand the texts that use it.
The students know the articolatory properties of the sounds of Italian.
The students know the phonetic and phonological system of Italian also in comparative perspective with English and Spanish.
The students know the word formation processes of Italian.
The students know the basic notions of syntactic analysis and how the structure of the sentence is formed as the result of building up and merging words.

2. Applying knowledge and understanding:
The students are able to use the linguistic terminology correctly, at all stages of application of the acquired knowledge.
The students are able to analyze simple phonological, morphological and syntactic structures of Italian, taking into account the universal properties of language and some basic parameters of variation.
The students are able to recognize the categorial and semantic properties of Italian words.
The students are able to provide the phonetic and phonological transcriptions of word and constituent of Italian; the give the morphological analysis of complex words of Italian; can recognize the basic constituents of the Italian clause using the tree diagram.

3. Making judgments:
The students will be able to formulate simple hypotheses, and to argument their judgement with empirical evidence.

4. Communication:
The students are able to transfer their reflection capacity on a number of linguistic phenomena with appropiate terminology.
The studens are able to to argument critically and respectfully with the peers and with the teacher.

5. Learning skills:
The students are able to take notes effectively and to share them with the peers in a collaborative form.

Basic knowledge of traditional grammar learned during the previous educational curriculum.

1. The biologial and cultural nature of human language: the acquisition of natural languages and the Universal Grammar. Principles and parameters.
2. Genealogical classification and typological classification of languages.
3. Phonetics. The properties of the different sounds on Italian (phones). The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Phonetic transcription.
4. Phonology. Phoneme and allophone. Distintive features and suprasegmentals. Phonological transcription. The main phonological phenomena in Italian. The syllable and its internal structure in Italian.
5. Morphology. Morpheme, allomorpheme and word. Word formation processes: Derivation, Composition and Inflection. Morphological rules. The notion of grammatical category.
6. Syntax. Arguments and adjuncts. The argument structure of the verbs and nouns. The thematic theory. Constituents and constituency tests. The phrase structure rules. The structure of main and subordinate clauses: IP and CP.

Cecchetto, Carlo: INTRODUZIONE ALLA SINTASSI. LA TEORIA DEI PRINCIPI E DEI PARAMETRI, LED, Milano, 2001, capp. 1, 2 e 3.

Graffi, Giorgio e Sergio Scalise: LE LINGUE E IL LINGUAGGIO. INTRODUZIONE ALLA LINGUISTICA, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2013 (terza edizione), capp. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 e 11.

Other papers and materials will be made available in the Moodle space of the course.

The exam will consist of a written test with 8 open questions/exercises. The aim is to ascertain the degree of knowledge and problem solving ability attained on the linguistics aspects discussed during the course (i.e., phonetic and phonological transcriptions of Italian words; the morphological structure of Italian words; the representation of the internal structure of the clause using the X-bar theory, etc.).
Approx. length: 2 hours.

The written test verifies:
knowledge and understanding of the principal concepts of formal and descriptive syntax of Italian studied during the course;
capacity of applying the acquired knowledge through simple grammatical analyses (phonetic/phonological, morphological and syntactic) to the Italian language;
capacity of proposing original hypotheses for the solution of a linguistic problem and capacity of verifying them;
capacity of arguing using correct linguistic terminology.

Class lectures. Exercises in the Moodle space of the course.

Italian

Regular attendance is recommended.

written