Introduction to Linguistics.
Nothing is more distinctly human than our ability to talk, to use language.
This course is an introduction to the methods which linguists have developed in the process of analyzing and describing human languages. We will look at the sounds of language, how they are produced, and how they are patterned into words. We will study the diverse ways in which individual languages approach the processes of word and sentence formation, while we try to decide if there are processes which are universal to all human languages. In other words, our focus will be on the processes of analysis and the methods of critical thinking as they apply to the study of language. Daily exercises will afford opportunities to collect data, define problems and propose tentative solutions.