| Professor: | Jonathan North Washington | |
| Office: | Pearson 105 | |
| Office phone: | x6134 | |
| Office hours: | T 13:30-15:00 | |
| Email: | jwashin1@swarthno scrapers please...more.edu | |
| Meeting time: | W 1:15pm-4:00pm | |
| Classroom: | Perason 115 | |
| Course website: | http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/jwashin1/ling068 | |
| Course moodle site: | F18 - LING068.01 | |
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language which is spoken throughout the Tien-Shan mountains and surrounding areas of Central Asia and has been influenced by Mongolian, Persian, Arabic, and Russian. The grammar of Kyrgyz includes many intriguing phenomena, such as pervasive vowel harmony, productive sonority effects across syllable edges, a range of morphological and syntactic strategies for using one part of speech as another, and an intricate system for marking tense, aspect, mood, voice, and evidentiality on verbs. In this course, students will examine all aspects of Kyrgyz grammar, with a focus on the major phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of the language. Hands-on research using primary and secondary printed and digital materials will guide this course. The historical and modern social and cultural contexts will also be considered.
Students who complete this course will have gained the following (knowledge goals):
Additionally, they will have gained the following (skills goals):
Furthermore, it's my hope that you'll gain an appreciation for the value of exploring an unfamiliar language in depth: that the more you work with a language, the more you find interesting and unexpected things.
There are no required textbooks for the course; however, there are a number of resources that you should know about. The following resources are on reserve in the library:
You'll need to be able to access Moodle (moodle.swarthmore.edu) as well. Additional resources will be available—including required materials for the course, updated course information, and assignments—so make sure you can access it as soon as possible. If you have any trouble with it, notify me as soon as you can.
N.B. Non-Swarthmore TriCo students may not have access to Moodle immediately at the beginning of the semester. Let me know if this is the case for you, and I will make sure you have access to resources in some other way.
The course website (listed above, and linked to from the Moodle course) contains the schedule for the semester and this syllabus. I'll mostly put updates and new materials on Moodle this semester, so will be sure to make announcements about any major changes to the website.
I hold regular office hours (listed above), and can be available at other times by appointment—just send me an e-mail letting me know when you might prefer to meet.
If you are having any trouble with class, such as with understanding a concept or completing an assignment, please don't hesitate to ask me for help. I'm here to help you learn, so I encourage you to take advantage of my availability.
But even if you're not having trouble, it never hurts to come to office hours from time to time. We can discuss course content, ideas for the final project, or whatever's on your mind in a more relaxed atmosphere.
Show up on time and silence cell phones. Food and drinks are allowed as long as they are not disruptive. If you need to step out of the class for any reason (bathroom, emergency phone call, etc.), please do so with minimum disruption (i.e., don't ask for permission).
Please use computers only for relevant classroom activities. In other words, please refrain from any sort of non-class-related activities, including messaging (e-mail, social media, etc.), homework for other courses, or even catching up on course reading. Even the best multitaskers are still not participating fully when they're engaging in unrelated endeavours. If it's too difficult to avoid the temptation of these other distractions, you may try strategies like disabling the computer's internet connection, using a filter for web usage, or similar.
Note on pronouns: if you'd like to be referred to by a pronoun that you think I might not guess correctly or if you notice me referring to you by some other pronoun than what you'd prefer, please let me know so that I can get it right.
Any excuse for missing any course-related activities will need to be handled by your class dean. Please see the Medical Excuse Policy (http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-health/medical-excuse-policy), and remember to contact your class dean as soon as you can so that they can work with you.
Assignments will generally be due in physical form (on paper) and typed at the beginning of class on Wednesdays. Work on the assignment must be complete in order to engage with the day's topic, so it is essential that assignments be submitted on time.
Any assignments submitted late will be evaluated and feedback will be provided, but a grade of 0 will be recorded.
Using words or ideas from another source without attribution constitutes plagiarism, and misrepresenting another student's work as your own (or allowing another student to misrepresent your work as their own) is cheating. Please see the student handbook for the College's policies on academic misconduct (http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-handbook/academic-policies#academic_misconduct). Suspected cases of academic misconduct will be pursued to the full extent of College policy, including referral to the College Judicial Committee.
You are always expected to write up your own assignments. However, you may (and are encouraged to) discuss assignments with one another. Just be sure to cite others' ideas when you use them, or write the name of anyone you worked with.
In short, submitting work that is not your own or providing a classmate with a solution outright will be considered academic misconduct and will be addressed as such (see above-mentioned policies). So please just be honest. And if you have any questions about what's considered acceptable, ask me first.
Most of your assignments will be graded with a fine-grained measure of completion and correctness based on normal letters grades and grade points (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, C = 2.0, D = 1.0, and F = 0.0), with the standard modifiers + (one-third of a grade point higher) and - (one-third of a grade point lower). In addition, intermediate grades using parentheses or a slash may be used, giving the following correspondence between letter grade and grade points:
| A+ | 4.33 |
| A(+) | 4.17 |
| A | 4.00 |
| A(-) | 3.83 |
| A- | 3.67 |
| A/B | 3.50 |
| B+ | 3.33 |
| B(+) | 3.17 |
| B | 3.00 |
| B(-) | 2.83 |
| B- | 2.67 |
| B/C | 2.50 |
| C+ | 2.33 |
| C(+) | 2.17 |
| C | 2.00 |
| C(-) | 1.83 |
| C- | 1.67 |
| C/D | 1.50 |
| D+ | 1.33 |
| D(+) | 1.17 |
| D | 1.00 |
| D(-) | 0.83 |
| D- | 0.67 |
| D | 0.50 |
The grade in this course is broken down into the following components. Each component is expounded upon following the table.
| Weekly assignments: | 50% |
| Engagement: | 10% |
| Reading presentations: | 10% |
| Final project prposal: | 5% |
| Final project presentation: | 10% |
| Final project write-up: | 15% |
Each week an assignment will be due that may involve solving problems and/or responding to a reading for the week. These are due typed on paper at the beginning of the class they are assigned for. See above for late policy.
Additionally, everyone (including those not presenting) is expected to complete the reading assignment for each class meeting. This is crucial for discussing the presentation
I do not grade on attendance, but you will be graded on engagement in the class, and this requires attendance. Beyond simply showing up and participating, you're encouraged to contribute to discussions by asking questions, answering questions, making relevant comments, helping classmates with in-class activities, etc. You will not be ridiculed for asking even simple questions—I want to make sure everyone grasps the concepts, and many are not as straightforward as they may first seem (or as I think they are). You are also expected to have read any assigned readings before class.
Each student will present two readings, selected by the student from available options, over the course of the semester. One reading will be on a linguistic topic and one on a "peripheral" topic, including socio-cultural or historical issues.
For your presentations, you should begin by summarising the main point or points of the paper, and then go into the supporting details. You may also consult other sources to support your presentation, but don't forget to mention you got information that wasn't in the article. For example, if an article about a social issue is out of date, you might look up new statistics or whether a particular situaiton the article discusses has changed. You may also consult Kyrgyz speakers about opinions or grammaticality judgements when possible and appropriate, or find a video online to demonstrate some culturally specific activity. You should use some visual aid for your presentation, such as a handout or slides.
A short (~1 page) proposal outlining several possible topics for the final project will be due around the middle of the semester before the paper is due. More information on this will be made available later.
Short presentations (~15 minutes) of work in progress for the final project will be presented during the final exam period for the class. More information will be made available later.
A final paper or project will be due during finals period, [hopefully] after the presentations [depending on timing]. More information will be made available later.
If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please contact Student Disability Services (Parrish 113W, 123W) via e-mail at studentdisabilityservices@swarthmore.edu to arrange an appointment to discuss your needs. As appropriate, the office will issue students with documented disabilities or medical conditions a formal Accommodations Letter. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, please contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. For details about the accommodations process, visit the Student Disability Services website. You are also welcome to contact me privately to discuss your academic needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.
| week | date | topic | due (by class) | readings | additional materials / readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 05 Sep | Course outline Sound system | |||
| 2 | 12 Sep | Sound system Writing system(s) Basic morphology and phonology | |||
| 3 | 19 Sep | More morphology and phonology Pronouns and copulas | |||
| 4 | 26 Sep | Case system | Assignment 3 | Bernard Comrie (1997) - Turkic languages and linguistic typology | |
| 5 | 03 Oct | More nouns Adjectives Reduplication | Assignment 4 | Bonnie Krejci & Lelia Glass (2015) - The Kazakh Noun/Adjective Distinction | |
| 6 | 10 Oct | The lexicon, dictionaries Food! | Assignment 5 | ||
| 17 Oct | Fall break! | ||||
| 7 | 24 Oct | Tense/aspect system | Assignment 6 | Irina Nevskaya & Saule Tazhibayeva (2018) - The category of proximative in North-Western Turkic: Kazakh and Kirgiz in a comparative perspective | |
| 8 | 31 Oct | Voice | Assignment 7 | Nedjalkov (2003) - Kirghiz reciprocals (/2) | |
| 9 | 07 Nov | Evidentiality | Assignment 8 | Christopher Straughn (2011) - Evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh | |
| 10 | 14 Nov | Non-finite verb forms | Assignment 9 | Lars Johanson (1995) - On Turkic converb clauses | |
| 11 | 21 Nov | Quotatives "Modal nominals" Ideophones | Assignment 10 | Jendraschek (2001) - Semantic and structural properties of Turkish ideophones | |
| 12 | 28 Nov | Kyrgyz and other Turkic languages | Assignment 11 | Jonathan Washington (2013) - Turkic-Turkic convergence in Altay varieties | |
| 13 | 05 Dec | The history of Turkic | Assignment 12 | ||
| 14 Dec | (9:00a.m. - 12:00p.m.) Final project presentations! |