Spanish Linguistics
Code
711131022
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Linguística
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Ana Maria Lavadinho Madeira
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
(a) To develop awareness of the ways in which adopting a scientific approach to language may contribute towards a better knowledge of a foreign language.
(b) To acquire basic concepts of linguistics that will enhance the knowledge developed in the course of Spanish Language.
(c) To acquire explicit knowledge of the structures and grammatical rules of Spanish.
(d) To explore phonetic, phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic and discursive data, using the students´ own knowledge of the language as a point of departure.
(e) To develop awareness of the differences among Spanish and other languages and among varieties of Spanish.
Prerequisites
None
Subject matter
1. Phonetic and phonological properties: articulatory classification of the sounds of Spanish; phonemes and their allophones; phonological processes; syllable structure and prosodic properties.
2. Morphological aspects: word structure and processes of word formation; nominal and verbal inflection; properties of some word (sub)classes.
3. The lexicon and sentence structure: simple and complex sentences.
4. Description of some forms and constructions specific to Spanish:
- distribution of the indicative and the subjunctive;
- prepositional direct objects;
- informational structure and word order;
- topic constructions: topicalization and clitic left dislocation;
- focus and cleft structures;
- pronominal systems and clitic doubling structures;
- the simple past and the present perfect in Peninsular and Latin American Spanish;
- the copulas ´ser´ and ´estar´;
- pronominal systems of address;
- discourse markers.
Bibliography
Azevedo, M., 2009. Iintroducción a la lingüistica española. N.J.: Prentice Hall, 3ª ed.
Azevedo, M., 2009. Student workbook for introducción a la lingüística española. N.J.: Prentice Hall, 3ª ed.
Bosque, I. & V. Demonte, 1999. Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa.
Escandell Vidal, M., 1995. Los complementos del nombre. Madrid: Arco Libros.
Hualde, J., 2005. The sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: CUP
Hualde, I. et al (orgs.),2012. The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hualde, I. et al., 2010. Introducción a la lingüística hispánica . Cambridge: CUP.
King, l. & M. Suñer, 2007. Gramática Española: análisis y práctica. NY: Mcgraw-Hill Higher Ed.
Mar-Molinero, C., 1997. The Spanish-speaking world: a practical introduction to sociolinguistic issues. Routledge.
Marquez Reiter, R. & M.-H. Placencia, 2005. Spanish pragmatics. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Palacios, A. (coord.) El Español en América: contactos lingüísticos en Hispanoamérica. Ariel.
Teaching method
(a) Theoretical sessions (60%), with presentation of the various topics of the syllabus by the lecturer and a strong interactive component.
(b) The practical component (40%) includes the description and analysis of linguistic data, and problem solving.
(c) Tutorial supervision of the research assignment.
Evaluation method
Evaluation:
(a) Two take-home exercise sets (20%)
(b) Research assignment on a topic covered in the syllabus (30%)
(c) Written test covering the whole of the syllabus (50%)