An Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics

Last updated: September 19, 2022 at 2:34 PM

The major and minor in Linguistics focus on theoretical generative linguistics, which involves the formal description and analysis of language. The core subfields of linguistics--phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics--explore the sound, word, sentence, and meaning structures and patterns in natural languages. As a whole, these areas of study aim to understand the nature of a speaker’s knowledge of their native language, and to place this knowledge in a psychological and biological framework. Flexible elective options for the major and minor allow students to deepen and broaden their study of the traditional areas of linguistics itself, as well as to explore the role of language in various scientific, social, and humanistic disciplines. The latter include cognitive science; computational linguistics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence; historical philology and epigraphy; literary theory; neuroscience; philosophy of language and logic; psychology; semiotic and linguistic anthropology; and sociolinguistics.

Learning Goals

Introductory Narrative

Linguistics involves the scientific study of human language, which the major approaches from a theoretical, generative perspective. The major's required core courses focus on the description and analysis of structures in the world's languages, in the linguistic subfields of phonology (including morphophonology), which studies linguistic sounds and sound patterns; syntax (including morphosyntax), which studies phrase and sentence structures; and semantics, which studies meaning that arises through our knowledge of words and grammar, or pragmatics, which studies meaning that arises through contextual inference and discourse structure.

The major complements this grounding in the traditional core areas of linguistics with a set of elective courses chosen by each student, according to individual interests and academic goals. These are chosen from a diverse set of course offerings, ranging from electives in linguistics itself to language-related courses in disciplines that include anthropology, philosophy, computer science, near-eastern and Judaic studies, education, psychology, and neuroscience.

Knowledge

Goal I. Students will develop an understanding of the basic components of linguistic knowledge across languages and the modern generative approach to analyzing grammar. This will include knowledge of:

How sound patterns work
The structure of words, phrases, and sentences
How lexical, compositional, and/or contextual meaning arises in language

Goal II. Students will learn to apply their knowledge (as described in Goal I) to analyze data from the languages of the world. Given a set of data from a language or several languages or dialects, this will enable them to:

Identify and propose a formal analysis of the patterns found in each language’s sounds, word structures, sentence structures, and/or meanings
Compare and describe the differences in sound patterns, word structures, sentence structures, and/or meanings present in the set of data.

Goal III. Students will develop an understanding of the existence of multiple perspectives on and applications of the study of language. Through the major’s core courses and the elective courses taken in linguistics or other disciplines, students will be able to identify connections and differences between theoretical linguistics and other perspectives on language. These perspectives may include those of anthropology, cognitive science, computational linguistics, computer science, education, historical linguistics, literary theory, neurolinguistics, philosophy, psychology, and/or sociolinguistics.

Core Skills

Students who complete the Linguistics major will emerge with the ability to:

Transcribe English words and sentences into the International Phonetic Alphabet; identify the sounds present in phonetic transcriptions of data from a given language
Make linguistic generalizations about the phonology, morphology, syntax, or meaning based on data from a given language or languages
Formulate a hypothesis about empirical generalizations present in a set of data, identify ways to test the hypothesis, and arrive at conclusions that the data support
Propose and evaluate linguistic analyses through critical thinking, in terms of both empirical adequacy and theoretical merits.

Social Justice

Language is a core defining trait of humans, and all languages, dialects, and other language varieties are of roughly equal complexity, no matter what social status or way of life their speakers may have. Studying the organizing principles and intricate patterns at work in a wide variety of human languages and language varieties imparts to students a lasting appreciation of and respect for these languages and language varieties, and, by extension, for the speakers of these languages and language varieties. Many linguists are also actively involved in work to document, preserve, or help revitalize endangered and dying languages—a problem that has special urgency given the large number of languages that are currently in danger of dying out by the end of this century.

Upon Graduation

Our students have long gone on to top linguistics PhD programs, and there are prominent linguists at universities within and outside North America who began as Brandeis linguistics undergraduates. The major is also excellent preparation for applied linguistics careers, including speech pathology and therapy, language teaching and translation, and computational linguistics applications — such as information retrieval and extraction, search engines, speech recognition and synthesis, machine translation, computer-assisted language learning, and artificial intelligence. In addition, the strong analytical reasoning skills and understanding of how English and other languages work that our majors develop provides a solid foundation for careers outside linguistics, in areas such as law, editing, publishing, technical writing, advertising, and educational testing.

How to Become a Major or a Minor

The best way to start is to take LING 100a (Introduction to Linguistics), which introduces students to the scientific study of human language and the human language faculty (commonly referred to as "theoretical linguistics"). The course covers the major concepts of the field, what it means for a speaker to know a language, speakers' unconscious knowledge of their language(s), and the shared internal structures that underlie language. Students in the course examine and compare the structural characteristics shared by a broad range of languages and dialects currently spoken around the world.

Students interested in advising related to the major or minor in Linguistics should consult the Linguistics advising webpage for advising information for the current semester.

Committee

James Pustejovsky, Chair
(Computer Science; Linguistics)

Lotus Goldberg
(Computer Science; Linguistics)

Constantine Lignos
(Computer Science; Linguistics)

Sophia A. Malamud
(Anthropology; Computer Science; Linguistics)

Keith Plaster, Undergraduate Advising Head
(Computer Science; Linguistics)

Nianwen Xue
(Computer Science; Linguistics)

Requirements for the Minor

Five semester courses are required:
1. LING 100a, 110a, and 120b.
2. LING 130a or LING 140a.
3. One other course from the LING courses numbered higher than LING 98, but excluding LING 160b, and/or from the elective course list at the end of this bulletin entry.
A grade of C or better is necessary for all courses offered toward a minor in linguistics. No course offered toward the fulfillment of the requirements for the minor may be taken on a pass/fail basis.
Students may petition the Linguistics faculty committee for changes in the above program.

Requirements for the Major

Ten courses are required of all candidates:
1. LING 100a, 110a, 120b, and either LING 130a or 140a.
2. Four additional courses from the LING courses numbered higher than LING 98, but excluding LING 160b, and/or from the elective course list at the end of this bulletin entry. One of the four elective courses must be an advanced course in Linguistics, chosen from among LING 121b, 195a, and, by petition, specific offerings of LING 190b.
3. One of the following:
  1. Two foreign language courses at any level, in either the same language or two different languages. Courses taken at the 30-level or below used to satisfy this requirement must be in a language other than the language used to satisfy the general university foreign language requirement.
  2. LING 125b plus either (i) one foreign language course at any level or (ii) one of the following courses on a core area of Linguistics, so long as the course is not used to satisfy either the core course requirement in 1 above, or the elective course requirement in 2 above: LING 105a, 115a, 121b, 130a, 140a, or 150a. Language courses taken at the 30-level or below used to satisfy this requirement must be in a language other than the language used to satisfy the general university foreign language requirement.
Foundational Literacies: As part of completing the Linguistics major, students must also:
- Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing: LING 120b.
- Fulfill the oral communication requirement by successfully completing one of the following: LING 121b, LING 140a, LING 195a, or LING 197a.
- Fulfill the digital literacy requirement by successfully completing one of the following: COSI 114a, COSI 114b, LING 105a, LING 140a, or LING 197a.
Honors may be awarded on successful completion of a senior thesis (LING 99d) in addition to the above course requirements. A GPA of 3.750 or higher in linguistics courses is normally required to write a thesis. Students must receive approval of a formal thesis proposal (from a program faculty member in consultation with the undergraduate advising head and the other program faculty) before beginning work on the thesis. Students should contact the undergraduate advising head for further details.
A grade of C or better is necessary for all courses offered toward a major in linguistics. No courses offered toward the fulfillment of the requirements for the major may be taken on a pass/fail basis.
Students may petition the Linguistics faculty committee for changes in the above program.

Courses of Instruction

Expand All

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

LING 98a Readings in Linguistics

Independent reading and research under the direction of a faculty supervisor. When appropriate, a faculty member may organize a small group of students into a senior seminar. Usually offered every year.
Staff

LING 98b Readings in Linguistics

See LING 98a for course description. Usually offered every year.
Staff

LING 99d Senior Thesis Research

Involves the student in an independent thesis research project under the supervision of a staff member. A student whose GPA in linguistics is 3.750 or better may apply at the end of the junior year or start of the senior year for permission to enroll in this course and begin work on a senior thesis. The student's findings are to be presented in writing and defended orally before a committee of faculty members. Interested students should contact the undergraduate advising head for further details. Usually offered every year.
Staff

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

LING 100a Introduction to Linguistics
[ ss ]

Open to all students.

A general introduction to linguistic theory and the principles of linguistic analysis. Students will construct detailed analyses of data from English and other languages in the areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and examine their implications for a theory of language as it is encoded in the human mind. Usually offered every year.
Lotus Goldberg or Keith Plaster

LING 105a Phonetics
[ dl ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a.

Introduces the production and perception of the sounds of human speech in the world's languages. Covers the transcription of speech, articulatory phonetics (anatomy and physiology of speech), acoustic phonetics (transmission of speech), and auditory phonetics (perception of speech). Usually offered every second year.
Keith Plaster

LING 110a Phonology I
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a.

An introduction to generative phonology, the theory of natural language sound systems. Includes discussion of articulatory phonetics, distinctive feature theory, the concept of a "natural class," morphology and the nature of morphophonemics, and universal properties of the rules that relate morphophonemic and phonetic representations. Usually offered every year.
Keith Plaster

LING 115a Morphology
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor.

An exploration of word structure and its analysis. Topics include the lexicon and lexical entries, word-headedness, argument structure and other issues in morphosyntax, derivational and inflectional morphology, compounds, morphophonology, and non-Indo-European processes like infixing, reduplication, and Semitic root-and-pattern morphology. Usually offered every second year.
Lotus Goldberg

LING 120b Syntax I
[ ss wi ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a is recommended but not required. Four class hours per week.

An introduction to the process of syntactic analysis, to generative syntactic theory, and to many major syntactic phenomena of English and other languages, including the clausal architecture, the lexicon, and various types of syntactic movement. Usually offered every year.
Lotus Goldberg

LING 121b Syntax II
[ oc ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 120b.

Continues the study of modern generative syntactic analysis begun in LING 120b, focusing especially on data involving wh-movement, other types of A-bar movement, and anaphora. Usually offered every second year.
Lotus Goldberg

LING 125b Linguistic Typology
[ ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor.

Focuses on linguistic typology, in which the languages of the world are classified in terms of their common grammatical features rather than by genetic relationships. Includes study of language universals: traits and implicational relationships which hold in (nearly) every language. Usually offered every year.
Lotus Goldberg

LING 130a Introduction to Formal Semantics
[ hum qr ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor. LING 120b recommended.

Explores the semantic structure of language in terms of the current linguistic theory of model-theoretic semantics. Topics include the nature of word meanings, categorization, compositionality, and plurals and mass terms. Usually offered every year.
Sophia Malamud

LING 140a Discourse and Pragmatics
[ dl oc ss ]

Prerequisite: LING 100a, enrollment in the Master of Science in Computational Linguistics program, or permission of the instructor.

Assuming a theory of sentence-level linguistic competence, what phenomena are still to be accounted for in the explication of language knowledge? The class explores topics in language use in context, including anaphora, deixis, implicature, speech acts, information packaging, and pragmatics of dialogue. Usually offered every second year.
Sophia Malamud

LING 150a Historical Linguistics and Language Change

Prerequisite: LING 100a.

Introduces the study of historical linguistics and language change, using data from ancient and modern languages in a variety of language families. Examines types and mechanisms of change, linguistic reconstruction, and recent theories about how and why change occurs. Usually offered every second year.
Keith Plaster

LING 160b Mathematical Methods for Computational Linguistics
[ qr sn ]

An introduction to the key mathematical concepts which belong to the basic repertoire of computational linguistic methods. Topics covered include combinatorics, discrete probability, linear algebra, and basic differential calculus. Usually offered every year.
Sophia Malamud or Keith Plaster

LING 173a Psycholinguistics
[ ss ]

An introduction to modern psycholinguistics, with an emphasis on sentence comprehension and production. Questions concerning species-specificity and the neurological organization of language are included for consideration. Usually offered every second year.
Sophia Malamud

LING 190b Topics in Linguistics
[ ss ]

See the schedule of classes for topic and prerequisite(s). Maybe repeated for credit with permission of the instructor.

Advanced topics in linguistics, varying by year. Usually offered every year.
Staff

LING 195a Introduction to Research in Linguistics and Computational Linguistics
[ dl oc ss ]

Prerequisite: either (a) Two of LING 110a, LING 120b, LING 130a, or LING 140a, or (b) COSI 114b and concurrent enrollment in COSI 134a.

Introduction to researching a topic of interest from the primary literature and doing independent research in linguistics or computational linguistics. In short assignments, class presentations, and a final research paper, students gradually complete the initial stages of a research project. In the process, the course explores scholarly and scientific approaches to research in various areas of linguistics and computational linguistics, including the relevant terminology, concepts, and procedures associated with academic writing and research in these areas. Usually offered every year.
Lotus Goldberg

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

Open to all students.

The central problem of first language acquisition is to explain what makes this formidable task possible. Theories of language acquisition are studied, and conclusions are based on recent research in the development of syntax, semantics, and phonology. The overall goal is to arrive at a coherent picture of the language learning process. Usually offered every second year.
Sophia Malamud or Keith Plaster

LING Digital Literacy

COSI 114a Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing I
[ dl sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 12b or enrollment in the Master of Science in Computational Linguistics program. LING 100a is recommended but not required.

Explores the computational properties of natural language and the foundations of the algorithms used to process it. Students will develop an understanding of basic statistical natural language processing (NLP) methods by implementing language analysis and classification algorithms in Python. Topics include corpus statistics, text classification, language modeling, and the computational techniques needed to support these tasks, with a focus on generative models (e.g., naive Bayes, hidden Markov models). Usually offered every year.
Constantine Lignos

COSI 114b Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing II
[ dl sn ]

Prerequisites: COSI 114a, plus at least one of LING 160b, MATH 10a, MATH 10b, MATH 15a, MATH 20a, MATH 22a, or equivalent knowledge.

Provides a fundamental understanding of the problems in natural language understanding by computers, and the theory and practice of current computational linguistic systems. Of interest to students of artificial intelligence, algorithms, and the computational processes of comprehension and understanding. Usually offered every year.
James Pustejovsky

LING 105a Phonetics
[ dl ss ]

LING 140a Discourse and Pragmatics
[ dl oc ss ]

LING 195a Introduction to Research in Linguistics and Computational Linguistics
[ dl oc ss ]

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

LING Oral Communication

LING 121b Syntax II
[ oc ss ]

LING 140a Discourse and Pragmatics
[ dl oc ss ]

LING 195a Introduction to Research in Linguistics and Computational Linguistics
[ dl oc ss ]

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
[ dl oc ss ]

LING Writing Intensive

LING 120b Syntax I
[ ss wi ]

LING Electives

ANTH 61b Language in American Life
[ deis-us oc ss ]

Examines the relations between language and some major dimensions of American social life: social groupings (the structures of ethnic, regional, class, and gender relations); social settings (such as courtrooms, workplaces, and homes); and social interaction. Usually offered every second year.
Janet McIntosh

ANTH 153a Writing Systems and Scribal Traditions
[ nw ss ]

Explores the ways in which writing has been conceptualized in social anthropology, linguistics and archaeology. A comparative study of various forms of visual communication, both non-glottic and glottic systems, is undertaken to better understand the nature of pristine and contemporary phonetic scripts around the world and to consider alternative models to explain their origin, prestige, and obsolescence. The course pays particular attention to the social functions of early writing systems, the linkage of literacy and political power, and the production of historical memory. Usually offered every second year.
Javier Urcid

ANTH 186b Linguistic Anthropology
[ ss ]

Advanced topics in linguistic anthropology, including the study of linguistic meaning in context, pragmatics, the construction of social relationships through language, language and authority, language and religion, and linguistic ideologies. Usually offered every second year.
Janet McIntosh

COML 171a Literary Translation in Theory and in Practice
[ hum ]

Prerequisite: Excellent reading knowledge of any language other than English. Students will be asked to demonstrate proficiency before receiving consent to enroll in the course.

Approaching literary translation from several angles at once, this course combines readings in the history and theory of translation with a practical translation workshop. Students will experience first-hand the challenges of literary translation and, with the help of the theoretical readings, reflect on what the process teaches us about linguistic, literary, and cultural difference. Usually offered every second year.
David Powelstock or Staff

COSI 112a Modal, Temporal, and Spatial Logic for Language
[ sn ]

Prerequisites: COSI 29a, COSI 121b, LING 130a, or PHIL 6a.

Examines the formal and computational properties of logical systems that are used in AI and linguistics. This includes (briefly) propositional logic and first order logic, and then an in-depth study of modal logic, temporal logic, spatial logic, and dynamic logic. Throughout the analyses of these systems, focuses on how they are used in the modeling of linguistic data. Usually offered every second year.
James Pustejovsky

COSI 114a Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing I
[ dl sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 12b or enrollment in the Master of Science in Computational Linguistics program. LING 100a is recommended but not required.

COSI 114b Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing II
[ dl sn ]

Prerequisites: COSI 114a, plus at least one of LING 160b, MATH 10a, MATH 10b, MATH 15a, MATH 20a, MATH 22a, or equivalent knowledge.

COSI 132a Information Retrieval
[ sn ]

Prerequisites: COSI 21a and COSI 114a, LING 131a, or strong Python programming skills.

Explores the theory and practice of textual information retrieval, including text indexing; Boolean, vector space and probabilistic retrieval models; evaluation; interfaces; linguistic issues; web search; QA and text classification. Students will implement algorithms and design and build a search-based application. Usually offered every year.
Peter Anick

COSI 134a Statistical Approaches to Natural Language Processing
[ sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 114b.

An introductory graduate-level course covering fundamental concepts in statistical Natural Language Processing (NLP). Provides an in-depth view of linear and neural machine learning methods used in NLP, including supervised and unsupervised methods used in text classification, sequence labeling, sequence-to-sequence transduction, and parsing of syntactic and semantic structures. Usually offered every year.
Benjamin Wellner or Nianwen Xue

COSI 135b Computational Semantics
[ sn ]

Prerequisites: COSI 10A or COSI 12b or equivalent, and COSI 121b or LING 130a, or permission of the instructor.

A study of the computational treatment of core semantic phenomena in language. After a review of first-order logic and the lambda calculus, the course focuses on three core topics: interrogative structures, including semantics of questions, question-answering systems, dialogue, entailment, commonsense knowledge; meaning update and revision; and computational lexical semantics. Usually offered every second year.
James Pustejovsky

COSI 136a Automated Speech Recognition
[ sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 12b or permission of the instructor.

Explores speech recognizer core components and their underlying algorithms, surveying real applications. Covers phonetics, HMMs, finite state grammars, statistical language models, and industry standards for implementing applications, like VXML. Students build and analyze simple applications using a variety of toolkits. Usually offered every year.
Staff

COSI 137b Information Extraction
[ sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 134a.

Examines the major issues and techniques in extracting semantically meaningful information from unstructured data, putting the information into a structured database for easy access and manipulation. Teaches students to design and implement a working natural language system. Usually offered every year.
Benjamin Wellner or Nianwen Xue

COSI 140b Natural Language Annotation for Machine Learning
[ sn ]

Prerequisite: COSI 114b or either LING 131a or COSI 114a with concurrent enrollment in COSI 114b.

Studies corpus linguistics, the computational study of any naturally occurring fragment of language, a key area for data mining, information extraction, and machine learning. Students model, annotate, train, test, evaluate, and revise their own corpus for machine learning. Usually offered every second year.
James Pustejovsky or Nianwen Xue

COSI 216a Topics in Natural Language Processing

Prerequisites vary by topic. The course can be repeated for credit with the approval of the instructor if the student has not previously taken the course covering the same topic.

Reviews recent trends in computational approaches to linguistics, semantics, knowledge representation for language, and issues in parsing and inferences. Topics vary by year. Usually offered every second year.
Constantine Lignos, James Pustejovsky, or Nianwen Xue

COSI 217b Natural Language Processing Systems

Prerequisites vary by topic.

This course looks at building coherent systems designed to tackle real applications in computational linguistics. Particular topics will vary from year to year, but each call will consider some of the following: machine (aided) translation, speech interfaces, information retrieval/extraction, natural language question answering systems, dialogue systems, summarization, computer-assisted language learning, language documentation/linguistics hypothesis testing, and handwriting recognition. Usually offered every year.
Constantine Lignos, James Pustejovsky, or Nianwen Xue

COSI 233a Discourse and Dialog

Prerequisite: COSI 134a.

A critical element of interactive systems is managing the dialog between the system and the user. This course will explore multiple approaches to implementing dialog management components, both symbolic and statistical, including what contextual information must be represented in the dialog states and the decision processes to move from one state to another. Students will implement a dialog manager using industry standards. Usually offered every second year.
James Pustejovsky

HBRW 167b The Sleeping Beauty: The Revival of Modern Hebrew
[ dl fl hum ]

Prerequisite: Any 40-level Hebrew course or permission of the instructor.

An advanced course that surveys the origins of the Hebrew language and its development throughout the centuries, focusing on its major stages (biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern). Explores the unique phenomenon of its revival as a spoken language and its adaptation to the modern world. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 104a Comparative Semitic Languages
[ hum nw ]

An introduction to and description of the Semitic languages, the internal relationships within this linguistic family, and the distinctive grammatical and lexical features of the individual languages. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NPSY 22b Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience
[ sn ss ]

Prerequisite: PSYC 10a or MATH 10a or permission of the instructor.

This course explores how the human brain makes the human mind. It covers neural and behavioral dimensions of attention, memory and learning, perception, motor control, plasticity and planning. Experimental approaches and neuroimaging are emphasized. Usually offered every year.
Robert Sekuler

NPSY 199a Human Neuropsychology
[ sn ss ]

Prerequisite: Psych 10a or Math 10a and at least sophomore standing.

Designed as an introduction to human neuropsychology. Topics include cerebral dominance, neuroanatomical mapping, and localization of function, with special reference to language, memory, and related cognitive function. Usually offered every year.

Teresa Mitchell

PHIL 131a Philosophy of Mind
[ hum wi ]

Covers the central issue in the philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem. This is the ongoing attempt to understand the relation between our minds -- our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and so on -- and our bodies. Is the mind just a complex configuration of (neural) matter, or is there something about it that's irreducibly different from every physical thing? Topics include intentionality, consciousness, functionalism, reductionism, and the philosophical implications of recent work in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Usually offered every year.
Jerry Samet or Umrao Sethi

PHIL 133b Mental Content: Mind, World and Meaning
[ hum ]

Covers central philosophical themes in the theory of meaning, focusing on the development of theories of reference and representation in 20th-century analytic philosophy. The material covered includes the seminal works of Frege, Russell, and Kripke, which laid the groundwork for the contemporary fields of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. The class will be taught as an advanced lecture course, with ample time for discussion included; it is designed for students with some background in philosophy. The material covered is essential for students interested in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and will also be of interest to students in linguistics. Usually offered every second year.
Peter Epstein

University Bulletin (2022-2023)