Spanish Linguistics

Objectives

(a) To learn to discover autonomously how a linguistic approach may contribute towards a better knowledge of a foreign language.
(b) To acquire basic concepts of linguistics that will enhance the knowledge developed in the Spanish Language course.
(c) To acquire explicit knowledge of the structures and grammatical rules of Spanish.
(d) To explore phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical, semantic and pragmatic data, using the students’ own knowledge of the language as a point of departure.
(e) To develop awareness of the differences found, on the one hand, between Spanish and other languages, and, on the other hand, among different varieties of Spanish.

General characterization

Code

01100204

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Ana Maria Lavadinho Madeira

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Bosque, I. & V. Demonte (1999) Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa.

Hualde, J. I., A. Olarrea, A. M. Escobar, C. E. Travis & C. Sanz (2020) Introducción a la Lingüística Hispánica (3ª ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Additional bibliography

Clegg, J. H. & W. C. Fails (2018) Manual de fonética y fonología españolas. Routledge.

Díaz‐Campos, M. K. L. Geeslin & L. Gurzynski‐Weiss (2018) Introducción y Aplicaciones Contextualizadas a la Lingüística Hispánica. Wiley Blackwell.

Hualde, J. I. (2014) Los sonidos del español. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hualde, J. I., A. Olarrea & E. O'Rourke (orgs.) (2012) The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell.

Moreno-Fernández, F. (2020) Variedades de la lengua española. Routledge.

Muñoz-Basols, J., N. Moreno, I. Taboada & M. Lacorte (2017) Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: teoría y práctica. Routledge.

Ridruejo, E. (org.) (2019) Manual de Lingüística Española. De Gruyter.

Teaching method

Presentation of the syllabus contents, encouraging students' active participation. Exercises focusing on the description and analysis of linguistic data completed in practical sessions and outside the classroom.

Evaluation method

(a) Midterm test (40%)

(b) Final test (60%)

Subject matter

1. Introductory concepts
Levels of linguistic analysis
The standard variety and dialectal variation

2. The sounds
Representation of Spanish sounds
Articulatory classification of sounds
Phonemes and phonological processes
Syllable structure
Prosodic properties: accent, intonation and rhythm

3. The words
Internal structure of words
Word formation processes
Personal pronouns
(a) Pronominal systems of address
(b) Variation in pronoun systems. The phenomena of leísmo, loísmo and laísmo.
Verbs
(a) Irregularities of the verbal conjugation paradigms
(b) Verbal aspect: past perfect, past simple and past imperfect
(c) Types of verbs: auxiliary, (semi) copulative and predicators

4. The sentences
Syntactic categories and functions
Some uses of ‘se’
Prepositional direct complements
Clitic doubling and clitic left dislocation
Complex sentences, and the use of the indicative and the subjunctive

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: