The University of the West Indies, Mona

This course provides an introduction to the study of language structure, and will help students see that variation in language is limited, despite differences between languages. It considers how the vocal apparatus is used to produce speech sounds and how individual languages use sounds to differentiate words. Students also learn how words can be analyzed to consist of smaller meaningful parts called morphemes, how these can be classified by their function in language, and how words are formed through processes such as inflection, compounding, reduplication. Finally, the course considers how words are combined to form hierarchically structured phrases and sentences.

LING1402 compresses some of the subject matter of LING1001 and LING1002 in a single course. For a fuller understanding, it is recommended that those two courses are taken instead. LING1402 should not be taken alongside either LING1001 or LING1002.