Exam details
- The final exam will be given on Tu Dec 11 at 4:00 pm in Dey 307.
- The exam will include:
- discussion questions to test your knowledge of facts, terms, and concepts
- problem-solving questions (based on data sets) to test your ability to apply those concepts
- The exam is cumulative, so it would be a good idea to look over the study guide for the midterm exam as well.
General strategies for success
- You are more likely to be asked to apply what you know to a new data set than to discuss
specific data sets you have already seen -- but practicing analysis and argumentation on data sets from class
is a good way to prepare.
- Be prepared to justify your answers with concrete details, especially if you are given a data set or specific examples to consider for the question.
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The following are suggested review topics to help you organize your studying, but be sure to review class notes, lecture outlines, assigned readings, and past homework assignments as well.
Overview of topics covered since the midterm
Comparative reconstruction
- Know when it is appropriate to apply this technique, and when it is not
- Given a data set that is appropriate, be able to carry out the steps of the Comparative Method
- Be able to reconstruct word/morphemes of the protolanguage
- Be able to state the sound changes that have taken place in each of the descendant languages
- Be familiar with Grimm's Law and how the apparent "exceptions" were later analyzed (except Verner's Law, which will not be covered on the exam)
- Can the Comparative Method be applied in morphology? In syntax? What can be "compared" in these domains?
- Understand how to make an argument for subgrouping within a language family based on each of these methods, and know their relative strengths and weaknesses:
- Subgrouping on the basis of the results of the Comparative Method
- When is this method appropriate to apply?
- Why is it important to distinguish between shared retentions and shared innovations?
- Subgrouping on the basis of lexicostatistical methods
- What is 'basic vocabulary', and how is it important in this context?
- What is glottochronology, and what are some of the problems with this approach?
- Subgrouping on the basis of the results of the Comparative Method
- Be an "informed consumer" of research that applies computational methods to solve questions of subgrouping
- What kinds of arguments are strong, and what kinds are less strong, for showing that two languages are related?
- What factors can make it harder to tell whether two languages are related?
- Know how to apply this technique, and under what circumstances it is appropriate to use
- What are some of the assumptions about language change that underly this technique? Are there problems with these assumptions?
- What are some of the limitations of this technique? Are there facts about the language's history or about how change has occurred that will generally not be found through internal reconstruction?
- Family tree and wave models of language change:
- Understand the type of change that each model is designed to explain
- Given information about a set of related languages, evaluate them for compatibility with each model (what phenomena are strong evidence for each model?)
- Be familiar with Labov's (2007) discussion of transmission and diffusion, and understand how this relates to the family-tree and wave models of change
- Be able to use your knowledge of language change and methods of linguistic reconstruction to obtain data from a written source and draw conclusions from it