Historical Linguistics (Masters)

All languages are constantly in a process of change and over time related languages can diverge and become different from one another. Linguists have developed techniques for studying language change and for comparing languages in order to group them into families and reconstruct their parent forms.

Objectives and learning outcomes of the module

The aim of this module is to familiarise students with the techniques of language comparison and reconstruction, based on materials from the study of Indo-European languages, but also illustrating the methods with data from a range of other language families. At the conclusion of the module, students will be familiar with reconstruction and comparison methods for any set of language data.

Workload

Total of 10 weeks teaching with 2 hours classroom contact per week consisting of a lecture.

Method of assessment

• Two Data Analyses (500 words each) (20% each): due Term 2
• One 2,000-word Essay (60%) due Term 3
• The exact assessment deadline dates are published on the relevant module Moodle/BLE page

Suggested reading

The reading list will be made available from the convenor at the beginning of the module.

Convenor

Professor Lutz Marten

Disclaimer

Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules