History of the Language

Welcome to the English class unlike any other English classes. It's got proto-languages that we've basically had to invent, invasions by Vikings, diagrams of mouths and a Great Vowel Shift. It doesn't have papers, but boy does it have quizzes and exams. It's an English Class with Facts! Welcome to...

History of the English Language

Calendar

The Pertinents

	Text: Millward, C.M. A Biography of the English Language. 2nd Edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
	Office Information

The Goals

	To present a detailed history of the development and changes within the English language
	To provide a basis for understanding what a "language" is
	To provide a basic understanding of phonetics, so that phonological change may be better understood
	To provide a continuous narrative charting how English literature came to be

The Course Requirements

Seven weekly Quizzes, of which five will count toward your final grade

15%

Three Hour Exams

50%

Final Exam

25%

Participation. This means not only being in class, but also being prepared in class. You may miss three class days without effect on your grade; after that, there will be a half-letter grade drop per absence. There will also be some worksheets/problem sets which will figure into your participation grade. This is a work-intensive class, especially initially, so I think it would be in your best interest to plan on being around more than not.

10%

The Course Itself

History of the English Language is designed to give you a view of the internal and external causes which shaped English over the past 1500+ years. We will study the linguistic bases for English (which means we'll start with a primer in phonetics) and then study the development of English as it moved from Indo-European into Germanic into Old English into Middle English into Early Modern English into Modern English in Present Day English, which we're going to discuss as Present Day Englishes. Got that? Don't worry if you don't: that's the job of the whole next semester, after all.

A Footnote: Academic Honesty

This is really simple: if you copy someone else's direct words or exact ideas -- intentionally or not -- without giving them credit you fail the class. Universities and colleges are built upon the notion that ideas matter; if you plagiarize someone else's ideas, you're denying that fundamental tenet. Thus there will be zero tolerance for plagiarism in here. If you do it, you will fail the course, period. (Please see also p. 31 "Academic Dishonesty" in the college's 2005-06 catalog and Section 54 of Hacker's Bedford Handbook.)

The Calendar

T 8/30	Syllabus Lecture
R 9/1	Chapter One: Natural Languages
T 9/6	Articulators & Phonemes: Consonants
R 9/8	Phonemes: Vowels	Quiz
T 9/13	Transcription Practice
R 9/15	Minimal Pairs, Allophones and Complimentary Distribution	Quiz
T 9/20	Morphemes (Handout)
R 9/22	Writing (Chapter Three)	Quiz
T 9/27	Syntax & Semantics
R 9/29	EXAM ONE
T 10/4	Indo-European & Language Families
R 10/6	Indo-European & Language Families
T 10/11	Indo-European, etc.	Quiz
R 10/13	Old English: Outer History
T 10/18	Fall Break
R 10/20	Old English: Outer History/Inner History	Quiz
T 10/25	Old English: Inner History
R 10/27	Old English: Inner History
T 11/1	EXAM TWO
R 11/3	Middle English: Outer History
T 11/8	Middle English: Outer History/Inner History
R 11/10	Middle English: Inner History	Quiz
T 11/15	Class cancelled
R 11/17	Middle English: Prosody, ME Lexicon, Formation of New Words, ME Semantics, and ME Literature
T 11/22	Early Modern English: Outer History (224-250)	Quiz
R 11/24	Thanksgiving Break
T 11/29	Early Modern English: Inner History: Vowels, Prosody
R 12/1	Early Modern English: Inner History: EMnE Lexicon, Semantics, Dialects
T 12/6	Present-Day English (302-310; 344-349)
R 12/8	Present-Day English (324-338; 349-363; 368-378)
W 12/18	8:00: Final Exam (Exam Three)