Theoretical Linguistics

Educational objectives
The course aims at providing a deeper learning in theoretical Linguistics for those students who have already had a basic training in Linguistics and for those ones who have already had an exam in Linguistics; for this reason, the course is obligatorily propaedeutic to the other L-LIN/01 exams offered by LM-37 degree course. The course deals with the structural features that characterize the languages of the world, with regard either to their universal tendencies, and the domains of their mutual divergences. The course also aims to offer a knowledge of the history of linguistic thought and hermeneutic paradigms that have succeeded each other over time.

Knowledge: At the end of the course, the student will have acquired specialized knowledge and skills related to Theoretical Linguistics, as result both of a deeper and more conscious understanding of the structures and the phenomena that characterize the languages of the world, and of a detailed consideration and critical awareness of the general, theoretical and methodological coordinates within the topics of the course are placed.
Skills: At the end of the course, the student will be asked to describe exactly the topics proposed and to report them with highly critical awareness, in order to show her/his adequate and deep possession of the methodological instruments and the founding notions of linguistic sciences. The student will be asked to be able to describe and to frame specific topics proposed into the more general horizon of Western linguistic reflection, its history and the different theoretical paradigms. The student should be able to identify and to explain clearly the specific phenomena exhibited by the languages of the world, and she/he should be able to interpret the empirical dimension with and thanks to the theoretical, methodological, and metalinguistic coordinates offered by the sciences of language and the course.