HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

Prerequisites & course information

Requisites: ( LINGUIS 101 or 301 ), ENGL 417 , ASIAN 631 , GERMAN 650 , PORTUG/FRENCH/ITALIAN/SPANISH 429 , or SCAND ST 415 Course Designation: Core GenEd - Humanities & Arts Breadth - Humanities Level - Intermediate L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Spring 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify patterns of change in human language Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Organize and analyze data on language change Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Apply theories of change to analyze data from familiar and unfamiliar languages Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Describe patterns of language change, common accounts for those patterns and how they are grounded in understanding language generally Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Apply the Comparative Method to evaluate linguistic reconstruction Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Understand and critically evaluate research on language change Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 7. Critically evaluate theoretical and empirical arguments for competing linguistic analyses of changes Audience: Graduate 8. Integrate structural and social accounts of language change into a holistic analysis Audience: Graduate 9. Formulate and develop support for new hypotheses for the analysis of language change Audience: Graduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify patterns of change in human language Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Organize and analyze data on language change Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Apply theories of change to analyze data from familiar and unfamiliar languages Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Describe patterns of language change, common accounts for those patterns and how they are grounded in understanding language generally Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Apply the Comparative Method to evaluate linguistic reconstruction Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Understand and critically evaluate research on language change Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 7. Critically evaluate theoretical and empirical arguments for competing linguistic analyses of changes Audience: Graduate 8. Integrate structural and social accounts of language change into a holistic analysis Audience: Graduate 9. Formulate and develop support for new hypotheses for the analysis of language change Audience: Graduate