Course Description
The Indo-European language family: the various early Indo-European dialects, their grammatical structures, and the evolution of those structures from the proto-language.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will complete longer and more complex written assignments during the semester, as well as a final research paper (not required for undergraduates), which will include a literature review and will conform to professional standards in the discipline in terms of organization, formatting, argumentation, and citations. In general, all graduate student work in the course will be graded according to more stringent standards.
Athena Title
Intro to Indo-European Studies
Prerequisite
LING 2100 or LING 2100E or LING 2100H
Semester Course Offered
Offered every odd-numbered year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students, having read a substantial body of material about the Indo-European language family and the various families and languages descending from it, will be able to discuss the principles of comparative historical linguis- tics, enumerate the primary dispersal routes of Indo-European languages, explain the major phonological, grammatical, and lexical similarities of Indo-European langauges, and perform simple reconstructions of prehistorical linguistic forms using early recorded stages of various Indo-European languages.
Topical Outline
The choice and sequence of topics will vary from instructor to instructor and from semester to semester. Topics will consist of readings about comparative/historical linguistics, the theory of genetic relationships between languages, and the develop- ment of Indo-European studies. They will include analysis of specific texts from early recorded Indo-European languages and exercises in reconstructing earlier stages of these languages. A number of graded tasks will be assigned, such as quizzes, tests, and various writing assignments done either in or outside of class.