Università Roma Tre

Linguistic type. Typological corpus. Syntactic and morphological typology. Areal typology. Diachronic typology. Linguistic universals and tendencies. Implicational universals. Explaining language universals. Biological bases for language, brain localization, mirror neurons. Brain imaging techniques. Language in humans and non-humans. Origins (onto- and phylogenesis) of language. Linguistic innatism, functionalism, evolutionism.

- N. Grandi, Fondamenti di tipologia linguistica, Carocci.
- E. Lombardi Vallauri, The Relation between Mind and Language. The Innateness Hypothesis and the Poverty of the Stimulus, in The Linguistic Review 21, 2004, pp. 345-387.
- M. Christiansen – N. Chater, Language as shaped by the brain, in “Behavioral and Brain Sciences” 31, 2008, pp. 489-509 (cioè senza gli interventi di discussione di altri autori).
- F. Di Vincenzo – G. Manzi, Alla ricerca delle origini. In (a cura di N. Grandi), Nuovi dialoghi sulle lingue e il linguaggio, Pàtron, pp. 71-88.

This course will deal with the following three topics:
(1) Basic knowledge of the history of comparative and historical linguistics.
(2) Learning the comparative method (reconstruction of the Indo-European phonological system) and the most important phonetic laws; analysis of some topics of the Indo-European morphophonology; comparison among genealogical, typological, and areal classification of languages.
(3) Analysis of the linguistic change, at phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic level. Learning the reasons of linguistic change, and its spread in space and society.

Lehmann W.P., 1998, Manuale di linguistica storica, Bologna, il Mulino (capp. 2, 5-14).
Szemerényi O., 1980, Introduzione alla linguistica indeuropea, II ediz., Milano, Unicopli, 21-120.
Milizia P., 2002, Le lingue indoeuropee, Roma, Carocci.