501111 - GENERAL LINGUISTICS - A

courses

ID:

501111

Duration (hours):

42

CFU:

SSD:

GLOTTOLOGIA E LINGUISTICA

Year:

2025

Date/time interval

Primo Semestre (22/09/2025 - 19/12/2025)

Course Objectives

The course aims at a basic training in linguistics in order to give students of the humanities a deeper understanding of language in general and of the languages of the world. Essential scientific tools are provided for the analysis of phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of natural languages, for the study of meaning and pragmatics, and for the geneticand typological classification of languages.

Course Prerequisites

The main requirement is a basic knowledge of grammar and syntax concerning parts of speech and constituent structure of sentences. As examples and exercises will be mainly based on Italian, a basic knowledge of Italian is a prerequisite.

Teaching Methods

Lectures (30 hours) and guided exercises (12 hours). Guided exercises will be offered for two distinct groups. During the course, slides and other useful accompanying documents (tests, examples, websites) will be uploaded on the website Kiro (https://elearning.unipv.it/course/index.php/).

Assessment Methods

Written test, jointly for parts a) and b). The written test will include: (for part a) phonetic and phonemic transcriptions and morphological analyses of Italian words (for part b) classification of arguments and semantic roles, clauses, sentences and phrase structure trees of Italian sentences, semantic relationships and pragmatic units. For both parts, the written test will include a discussion of some theoretical aspects, both related to the exercises in the test and to wider theoretical issues. Each part is worth 50% of evaluation. The vote is out of 30, with possible honours, and the minimum score to pass is 18/30. Specimens of exercises will be uploaded on the website Kiro, https://elearning.unipv.it/course/index.php/, and solutions will be provided during practical exercises hours. The number of times the exam has been taken may contribute to the assessment.
N.B. Please note that in case of online testing, the examinations will consist of a written part on Kirotesting (https://kirotesting.unipv.it/course/view.php?id=646#section-1) and an oral part discussing the written part and theoretical aspects.

Texts

(for full time and part time students)
FOR BOTH PARTS:
1) Berruto, Gaetano - Cerruti, Massimo, La linguistica. Un corso introduttivo, Torino, UTET, Terza edizione (2022). Previous editions may also be used (2011 and 2017), but please note that students may have free access to the online library version.

FOR THE FIRST PART:
Chapters 2 and 3 of the handbook in 1).
2) (duplicated lecture notes) Manzelli, Gianguido, 2003, Dispensa di fonetica e fonologia con elementi di morfologia

FOR THE SECOND PART:
Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the handbook in 1).
2) (duplicated lecture notes:) Roma, Elisa, 2018, Linguistica generale (modulo b).
The notes will be provided at the beginning of the course on the website Kiro, (https://elearning.unipv.it/course/index.php/

Course parts:
The course consists of two distinct parts: the first part (modulo a) will deal with general aspects of language, phonetics, phonology, and morphology, the second part (modulo b) will concern syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and typology. Each part consists of 30h lessons and 12h tutorials. The first part of the course will discuss the constitutive properties of human language, the basic notions of articulatory phonetics (production of speech sounds; classification of consonants and vowels; phonetic transcription and International Phonetic Alphabet; suprasegmental phonetics), phonology (phone, phoneme and allophone; phonological analysis; suprasegmental phonology) and morphology (morph, morpheme and allomorph; processes of word formation; segmentation of words into morphemes; classification of morphemes).

Course Language

Italian

More information

The exercises will dwell on phonetic and phonemic transcriptions, morphological analysis (for part a), phrase structure, argument structure and semantic roles, semantics, pragmatics and typology (for part b). They will be available in Kiro.
NB: Students will also be provided with tutorials in small groups during the whole academic year.