English Linguistics

Objectives

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
(1) Know specific aspects of the syntax and semantics of English in a comparative perspective.
(2) Know specific aspects of the phonology and morphology of English in a comparative perspective.
(3) Master theoretical tools for the linguistic analysis of English data.
(4) Recognize linguistic aspects of different varieties of English.

General characterization

Code

01100221

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Maria Alexandra Moreira de Jesus Fieis e Melo, Joana Alexandra Vaz Teixeira

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Aarts, B. (2017). English syntax and argumentation (5th ed.). Palgrave.
Crystal, D. (2002). The English language: A guided tour of the language. Penguin Books.
Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2017). An introduction to language (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.
O’Grady, W., & Archibald, J. (Eds.) (2016). Contemporary linguistic analysis. An introduction (8th ed.). Pearson.
Plag, I., Arndt-Lappe, S., Braun, M., & Schramm, M. (2015). Introduction to English linguistics. De Gruyter.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Starvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman.
Starvik, J., & Leech, G. (2006). English. One tongue, many voices. Palgrave Macmillan.

Teaching method

Classes will include lectures and practical work on each topic from the programme.

Evaluation method

Midterm test - 45%
Final test - 45%
Coursework - 10%

Subject matter

1. English phonetics and phonology
1.1. The sounds of English: articulatory representation and classification
1.2. Phonemes, free variants and contextual variants
1.3. Phonological processes
1.4. Prosodic properties: syllable, stress and intonation

2. English morphology
2.1. The morphological structure of words: morphemes and their variants
2.2. Inflection
2.3. Word formation and lexical creation
2.4. The compounding parameter

3. From lexicon to syntax
3.1. Word classes and subclasses
3.2. Argument structure

4. English syntax
4.1. Sentence structure: constituents, categories and functions
4.2. The subject in English: referential and expletive subjects, subject-auxiliary inversion, and subject-verb inversion
4.3. The object in English: dative alternation and the dative passive
4.4. Simple and complex sentences: coordination and subordination (complement, relative and adverbial clauses)

5. Variation in English
5.1. English in the world
5.2. Dialectal variation in English
5.3. Languages in contact: pidgins and English-based creoles

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: