Course syllabus

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Welcome to African Language Structures and Typology!

This course forms a continuation of AF1111 Introduction to Linguistics and African Languages. You will deepen your knowledge of phonology and grammar, taking a typological perspective. Typology is the systematic study and comparison of different aspects of language, such as phonology and morphology, in order to find out what is common in the languages of the world, what is rare, and what (if any) are the limits of human language?

This means that we will focus on African languages and their structures, while comparing them to the languages of the world.

Further information about the course and its set-up can be found in the course guide and in modules, in which you will find all the material and the structure of the course.

We will have an introduction on Zoom Thursday 20 January at 16.00 CET The Zoom link can be found in the course guide

Syllabus / Kursplan

Reading List

Schedule Spring Term 2022

Course instructor is Eva-Marie Bloom Ström

Course outline

Further details will be published in Modules on the date listed here for each lesson.

Start date 17 January

Lesson 1; Velupillai 1-3

  • introduction
  • how do linguists get their data?
  • the work of the descriptive linguist
  • the work of the typologist

Introduction on Zoom Thursday 20 January at 16.00 CET

31 January

Lesson 2; Velupillai 4

  • phonetics
  • phonology; vowels and consonants

Zoom Thursday 10 February 17.00

14 February

Lesson 3

  • phonology; prosody
  • morphophonology

Zoom Thursday 24 February 16.00

Test 1 open Thursday 24 February 17.00 until Sunday 27 February 17.00

28 February

Lesson 4, Velupillai 5-6

  • morphology; kinds of morphological systems
  • morphology; word classes
  • lexicon

Zoom Thursday 10 March 16.00 NB new date Monday 14 March 16.00

14 March

Lesson 5

  • morphology; inflection
  • morphology; derivation

Zoom Thursday 24 March 16.00 NB new date Thursday 31 March 16.00

28 March

Lesson 6, Velupillai 7

  • morphology; noun class systems and agreement, animacy

Zoom 7 April 16.00

Test 2 open Thursday 7 April 17.00 until Sunday 10 April 17.00

11 April

Lesson 7, Velupillai 8

  • Verbal categories; tense and aspect. Negation

Zoom Monday 25 April 16.00 (this is our ordinary meeting

Extra! Zoom Thursday 28 April 17.00-18.00 with the University library:

https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/66009134358?pwd=THc2TWViSnNwUTFIOVJPTFNaTXBJZz09

Passcode: 486740

25 April

Lesson 8, Velupillai 9

  • Simple clauses

Zoom 12 May 16.00

9 May 

Lesson 9, Velupillai 10

  • Word order
  • Information Structure

Zoom Monday 23 May 16.00

30 May

Exam, the test will be open to take any time starting Saturday 28 May 08.00, with deadline Monday 30 May 23.59

22 Aug

Retake exam, the test will be open to take any time starting Saturday 20 August 08.00, with deadline Monday 22 August 23.59

Course summary:

Course Summary
Date Details Due