3 credits

P: L303 or a Lingusitics major
Open to undergraduates only.  Meets with LING A501.

This course will cover the essentials of African linguistics from
historical, typological, and analytical perspectives.  First, we will
study the history and current status of African linguistic
classification, with special attention paid to the substance and
methodology of Greenbergšs classification.  Then , we will look at
typological characteristics of African languages.  In the area of
phonology, we will pay special attention to vowel harmony
and tone (including contour tones, polar tones, and segment-tone
interaction) as well as to two important historical sound laws.  The
section on morphology will focus on gender and noun classification, on
nominal and verbal plurality, and on verbal extensions.  Other topics
to be covered include negation and the sound-symbolic words
known as "ideophones".

Texts:
1) Required: Heine, Bernd; and Derek Nurse (eds.), 2000. African
Languages: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press
2) Supplemental: (Will be on reserve)
(a) Welmers, William E. 1973.  African Language Structures.  Berkeley
& Los Angeles: University of California Press.
(b) Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963.  The Languages of Africa.  Bloomington:
Indiana University.