Your teacher:

Goals:

In this class we'll be looking at recent attempts, both within generative theory and outside of it, to deal with the role of the lexicon in phonology. Why? Because it's important for understanding the human mind, and also because I think it's cool, so you get to see an actual professional linguist doing his actual research. But what do you get out of it? Well, you'll learn how to think, read, and write. And who knows -- maybe you'll make a new discovery that you can publish or present at a conference.< /P>

Grading:

This class is a discussion class. All we will do is read papers (real ones, not from a textbook) and discuss them together. So class participation means you discuss: you read, think, talk, and respond to others' ideas (nicely, but not too nice).

Every week somebody will lead the discussion on the week's paper. The discussion leader should NOT summarize the whole paper. Instead, she or he should act as a teacher, first giving us a general overview of the main points of the paper, and then askin g us questions that can inspire us to discuss together. You are encouraged to ask questions that even you don't know how to answer, but keep your discussion organized. That means you should bring the focus back to the big issues if we get lost. If you eve r want to be a teacher, here's a chance for you to practice.

The other important part of the class is to prepare a term paper with an original phonological analysis of something. The only restriction is that it has to connect with the theoretical issues discussed in this class. You should choose a topic by 11.14 so you have time to do a good job on it. The paper itself should be short (about 15 pages maximum, in English), with formatting like the real published papers we read. On the last day of class, you'll give a short, informal and ungraded presentation on y our research, just so you can get some feedback to help you revise. The paper is due about a week later (Monday, 1.5), in my mailbox by 5 pm.

Schedule (may be changed later)