Формат за разпечатване

[Stoyanoff]

http://www.etymonline.com/

Linguistics - Word Origins: English Etymology. Some Semiotics

Lecturer: Vassil Stoyanoff PhD
vassil@stoyanoff.com, Skype: stoyanoff.com     Fall Semester 2008
   
This course explores the archaeology of English words.  The English lexicon is remarkable for its diverse origins, and many of its most familiar words, whether inherited or borrowed, represent linguistic artifacts whose origins can be traced back thousands of years, well into human prehistory.  Over time, sound change and other linguistic processes have done much to alter the earlier forms of English words, and thus obscure their genetic connection to cognates (related words) in languages such as Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and German.  The science of etymology enables us to 'undo' the effects of linguistic change and reveal the fascinating sources of English vocabulary.
This course introduces basic principles and methods for establishing the etymologies of English words.  No prior study of linguistics is assumed or required.  At the outset we will survey briefly the history of English and its position in the Indo-European language family.  A short module on speech sounds will follow, and then we will proceed to the main topics of the course.  First we will undertake a study of sound change, which will enable us to predict correspondences between related languages and to reconstruct ancestral forms.  We will then move on to explore the internal structure of words and concern ourselves especially with the process of derivation, i.e., with ancient and modern patterns of forming of new words by means of suffixation and other processes.  Among the questions we will consider in this course are:

•   How are words transmitted across generations of speakers? 
•   How can sound change alter the form of a word, and thus obscure its origin?
•   Given a word from an ancient language such as Latin, why are we able to predict, with remarkable accuracy, the outcome of that word in French or Spanish?
•   How are we able to confidently reconstruct the prehistoric forms of words?
•   What is the ultimate ancestor of languages such as English, Latin, and Greek?
•   How do we analyze words into their component parts?  How are new words derived?
 
Prerequisites: there are no prerequisites for this course. Knowledge of modern foreign languages (e.g. French, Spanish, German) or of ancient or medieval languages (Latin, Greek, Old English) will be helpful.
Requirements and coursework:  Regular attendance of lectures and taking good notes is essential.  Much of the material that students are responsible for will be from lectures.  For homework there will be reading assignments and problem sets of various kinds.  Assigned readings will be from supplementary materials available on the www. 
Grading:  You are guaranteed a minimum of Good (4) as your homework average if you complete all the problem sets. The homework assignments will count as 70% of the grade. The basis for the other 30% of the grade will consist of three quizzes.
Syllabus
Introduction. Course objectives.  The science of etymology.  The Comparative Method.  Genetic relationship.  The Indo-European family and the position of English.  Sources of the English lexicon.  Inheritance vs. borrowing.  Cognates.  Speech sounds:  spelling vs. transcription.  Basic phonetics: vowels. Latin, Romance, Greek. Basic phonetics: consonants.  Phonemes and allophones.  Sound systems.  Mechanics of sound change. The Regularity Principle.  Predictive power. Types of sound change.  Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law.  Basic developments in Latin and Greek.  Linguistic reconstruction. The structure of words.  Roots, affixes, endings.  Formal categories.  PIE roots and root structure. Laryngeals.  Ablaut.  Lecture: Principles of derivation.  Stem formation.  Productivity.  Lecture: Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs and Miscellanea.