Morphology:Latin to Mod Span

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In this course we will explore the history of the Spanish language, from Classical Latin to modern Spanish. Our objectives will be: (a) get a reading knowledge of basic Latin through fun and short mythology texts (b) understand and explain the main sound changes from Latin to old Spanish (c) explore how those changes affected the verbal system, thus explaining all the regularities as well as many of the irregularities of modern Spanish (d) compare the evolution of Spanish with that of Portuguese, Italian or French (depending on what languages the students in the class know) (e) work through some old Spanish texts and be able to explain the evolution of words from Latin and then to the modern form (f) in order to improve the level of competence in Spanish, we will have intensive practice with tests from the Diploma de español lengua extranjera (DELE), getting ample practice in all four skills (reading, writing, understanding, speaking) in the language.