Romance Linguistics Course Descriptions
ROMANCE LINGUISTICS 831
Seminar in Romance LinguisticsThe Latin Foundation
G 3 - 5 Credit Hrs.
RL831 is a course which analyzes Latin morphology and phonology as a synchronic system. Using a Distributed Morphology approach, sets of related Latin forms are provided to formalize. Alternative analyses are discussed and then additional data are provided which demonstrate which of the previous alternatives remain viable and which do not.
This type of synchronic Latin analysis forms the basis for subsequent study of the evolution of that system into the Romance families. A major outcome of the course is to demonstrate that the shared diachronic changes of Romance are present as synchronic processes in Latin itself, while family-specific changes are not. It will also be shown that the underlying synchronic morphology of Latin is much closer to Indo-European than the surface forms of Latin suggest.
Previous knowledge of Latin is not required; indeed many students find it advantageous to understand the systematic nature of Latin inflections rather than memorize paradigms.
