Linguistics 203: Assignments
Week 9: November 20, 2002
Due: November 27, 2002

Readings:

Hale, Ken. 2001. Ulwa (Southern Sumu): the beginnings of a language research project. In Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff (eds.) Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hyman, Larry M. 2001. Fieldwork as a state of mind. In Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff (eds.) Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

field work assignment

Some default topics for field methods

Korean

  1. phonetics/phonology: Korean stops are reported to have a 3-way contrast involving glottal state.
  2. syntax: explore Korean suffixes for subjects and objects (and other categories?).
    • e.g. -nIn and -lIl (where “I” is barred [i]).
      Sample sentence:
      kI sonoyOn-nIn wIyu-lIl massi- ass- ta
      the boy -subj mkr milk -obj mkr drink- past- assertion mkr
      ‘the boy drank milk’

Spanish

  1. phonology: Hypocoristics (nicknames)
    • Type A hypocoristics (e.g. [(lé.o)] < [le.lo.(ká.dja)] 'Leocadia'
    • Type B hypocoristics (e.g. [(ká.ya)] < [le.o.(ká.dja)] 'Leocadia'
  2. syntax
    • What are the different properties of the two types of restrictive relative clause in Spanish?
    • Type A, que:
      El libro que leí es de Juan ‘the book that I read is John’s’
    • Type B, quien, el cual
      El hombre con quien estaba hablando es ciego
      or
      El hombre con el cual estaba hablando es ciego
      ‘the man with whom I was talking is blind’

Russian

  1. phonology
    • Voicing assimilation: which classes of segment assimilate and don’t assimilate, in which phonological and syntactic environments?
    • goro[d]-a ‘town’ (gen.) goro[t]-ka ‘little town’ (nom.)
    • ara[b]-a ‘Arab’ (gen.) ara[p]-ka ‘Arab’ (fem. nom.)
    • o[t] ozera ‘from a lake’ o[d] banka ‘from a bank’
  2. syntax
    • word order and information structure

English



Last modified: April 10, 2003