Johannes Dellert

Typology I: Languages of the World (SS 15)

Welcome to the course website!

Course Description

The course gives an introduction into the diversity of the languages of the world, their geographical distribution, genetical relationships, and their typological similarities and differences. The goal of the course is to give a general impression of the linguistic diversity across the world, but also to discuss approaches to classify languages according to their historical relationships or similarities in grammar. In the main part of the course, you will get to know a variety of recurrent cross-linguistic patterns, many of which can be cast into typological universals. In the accompanying exercises, you will learn to apply typological methods and concepts to data from unfamiliar languages.

News and General information

  • The results of the midterm exam are now available.
  • Please register for the course: write a mail with the usual data (Name, StudentID, major subject) to your tutor!
  • Changed date for the midterm exam: it will be written on June 10th!
  • Handout with all the information you need for now.
  • The first course meeting on April 15th will be devoted to organizational issues.
  • Regular lectures begin on April 22nd.

Course Schedule

# Date Topic Materials Links/Literature Homework
15.04.2015 Organization (Deniz Cevher)Handout
01 22.04.2015 Languages & Language FamiliesSlidesEthnologue - Languages of the WorldExercises 1 (Solution)
02 29.04.2015 Methods of Historical LinguisticsSlides Exercises 2 (Solution)
03 06.05.2015 Phonological TypologySlidesUCLA Phonetics Lab: Story in !XóõExercises 3 (Solution)
04 13.05.2015 Morphological TypologySlides Exercises 4 (Solution)
05 20.05.2015 Linguistic Universals & Word OrderSlides Exercises 5 (Solution)
27.05.2015 (No Lecture - Pentecost Holidays)
06 03.06.2015 Lexical TypologySlides Exercises 6 (Solution)
10.06.2015 Midterm ExamRESULTSLast year's exam
07 17.06.2015 Case Marking SystemsSlides Exercises 7 (Solution)
08 24.06.2015 Nominal CategoriesSlides Exercises 8 (Solution)
09 01.07.2015 Verbal CategoriesSlides Exercises 9 (Solution)
10 08.07.2015 Head, Dependent, and Argument MarkingSlides Exercises 10 (Solution)
11 15.07.2015 Clause Types, Relative ClausesSlides
22.07.2015 Final ExamRESULTSLast year's exam

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