Course overview
Phonology II · Fall 2004

This course is open to students who have completed either LING 123 (Phonology I) or LING 60 (Sound Patterns in Language). Intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, it is a reading-intensive, seminar-style course in which students will discuss and critique research papers on current topics in phonology.

Course requirements include writing responses to the assigned readings and leading class discussion of some of the readings. Each student will also complete a term paper.

The papers to be discussed in this course relate to the following topics, which have emerged as areas of controversy in Optimality Theory phonology over the last few years. These topics reflect fundamental questions that are important in any phonological framework, so their significance is not restricted to their consequences for OT.

• Do constraints refer to abstract phonological categories, or directly to phonetic quantities and values?
  • Does phonological theory need to recognize abstract phonological categories?

• Most constraints are phonetically "sensible," but why is this? Is the explanation to be found in phonology, in historical change, in language acquisition, or in some combination of these factors?
  • What is the nature of the interface between phonetics and phonology? To what extent can phonological patterns be explained by diachronic, perceptual, and acquisition-related factors?

Additional topics will be chosen based on participants' interest.

This page last revised August 19, 2004.