Course content
Here you can find a week-by-week breakdown of the course.
Please note that I expect you to come to every class prepared, which means
- You have read that week’s readings and
- You have completed that week’s homework tasks and/or thought about the week’s questions, as detailed below.
Homework is always due on Wednesday (day before class) at noon.
Formative assessments are due at noon on the day of the seminar. These are designed for you to receive feedback on parts of your conlang’s grammar. Note that each formative assessment is based on the topic of the previous week.
More information on formative and summative assessments can be found on the Assessment page.
The reading list for this seminar can be found here.
Week 1
There is no class in Week 1.
Week 2: Conlanging and the languages of the world
- Conlanging 101 by Sai Emrys, Alex Fink and David Peterson.
- An introduction to conlanging, the art of constructing artificial languages.
- The Language Construction Kit (LCK), Ch The overall process.
- The LCK is the go-to book to teach yourself how to build a conlang from scratch. The Chapter The overall process gives you an overview of the entire conlanging process.
The following are readings that you can skim through in Week 1 and read at your own time throughout the course.
- Croft, Bill. 2003. Typology and universals. Ch 1.
- Classical book on linguistic typology (and typological linguistics). The first chapter introduces you to typological linguistics. Pay special attention to the Problem of cross-linguistic variability.
- Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2014. The art of grammar: A practical guide. Ch 1.
- Writing a reference grammar is an art and a science in itself. This textbook covers the main practical aspects of how to go about writing a grammar. Chapter 1 focusses on what a reference grammar is and its structure and offers guidance on linguistic analysis and argumentation.
Other conlanging books
Advanced Language Construction by Mark Rosenfelder.
The Syntax Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder.
In the Land of Invented Languages by Akira Okrand.
A Secret Vice by JRR Tolkien.
Pick a language you are curious about and find a descriptive grammar of that language through the library (either digital or print).
- You can choose any language, except “big” languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, French, German, … (what’s the fun in that!). I strongly recommend you to pick languages from language families you are the least familiar with.
- Find inspiration on Glottolog: https://glottolog.org.
- Go to Piazza (link on Learn) and make a new note with name of the language, language family, location, features of interest, why you picked that language.
Week 3: Sound systems
Submit one or two paragraphs of language context for your conlang. Remember to give a name to your conlang (you can change this later).
- A language context article can include “information about speaker demography, social organisation, culture, linguistic ecology, language vitality, and language use and transmission in the local community, its diaspora and the Internet, discussion of the range of languages/varieties in use by speakers, including socio-cultural factors affecting language/variety choice”.
- A more detailed description of language context articles can be found here: http://www.elpublishing.org/about-language-contexts. Remember that you are supposed to write only one or two paragraphs.
- To find inspiration, check the language context papers at http://www.elpublishing.org/language-contexts.
- How to Create a Language, Ch Sounds.
- Gordon, Matthew. 2016. Phonological typology. Ch 3.
- Find the phonemic inventories of two languages that are related to the “adopted language” you picked in Week 2.
- Create a note on Piazza with the phonemic inventories of your adopted language plus those of the two related languages you picked.
- Check out phonemic inventory tendencies on the Universals Archive.
Week 4: The lexicon
Submit the phonemic inventory of your conlang.
- This should include at least a table of consonants and a table of vowels, plus a description of the major allophones of the consonantal and vocalic phonemes.
- You can also include information on phonemic vowel/consonant sequences (if they exist in your conlang).
- Feel free to expand on any aspect of the sound system of your conlang.
- LCK, Ch Word building.
- Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. Understanding morphology. Ch 2.
- Which word classes are there in your adopted language?
- Post a note on Piazza about the word classes in your adopted language, with examples.
Week 5: Events, actions and verbs
Submit a Swadesh list of your conlang with a paragraph describing the main features of the lexicon.
Please, use this template.
It is up to you how many words you wish to submit, but you should include at least 25 words and words from at least 5 categories.
At a minimum you should include the phonemic transcription and the part of speech of your chosen words.
If you already have a writing system/transliteration/transcription system in mind, you can also include that.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2014. The art of grammar: A practical guide. Ch 7.
Croft, William. 2022. Morphosyntax: Constructions of the world’s languages. Ch 2.
- What characteristics of verbs in the adopted language you picked caught your attention and why?
- Post a note on Piazza with your answer to that question.
Week 6: Catch-up week (no class)
There will be no class this week.
Week 7: Objects and nouns
Submit one/two pages that explain the morphosyntax of your conlang’s verbal system.
- Make sure to include at least one full verbal paradigm.
- Provide a description of how different verbal features (person, gender, number, tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, …?) are coded in your conlang (affixes, particles, …?) and provide a few examples for each.
- Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. Understanding morphology. Ch 5.
- What characteristics of nouns in the adopted language you picked caught your attention and why?
Week 8: Basic clauses
Please, check the Assessment page.
- Croft, Bill. 2003. Typology and universals. Ch 5.5.
- Cristofaro, Sonia. 2012. Cognitive explanations, distributional evidence, and diachrony: Theory and data in cognitive linguistics. Sec 1-2.
- Which syntactic aspect of the adopted language you picked caught your attention and why?
Week 9: Modification and subordination
- Croft, William. 2022. Morphosyntax: Constructions of the world’s languages. Ch 4.
Translate a couple of sentences in your conlang and post them on Piazza with a minimal explanation (and glossing if you feel like).
You can get inspired by this list: Conlang Syntax Test Cases
Week 10: Interlinear glossing
Submit an overview of your conlang morphosyntax.
You can focus on particular aspects you would like to get feedback on.
Remember to include a lot of examples for any aspect you are discussing. You can use words and/or glossed sentences.
There is no limit but note that the longer the submission, the more general the feedback will be. 1/3 pages are ideal, but you can definitely submit more than that.
If you haven’t done so, familiarise yourself with LaTeX: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Learn_LaTeX_in_30_minutes.
Choose a few example sentences for glossing from your conlang. You will gloss it in class using LaTeX.
Week 13
Please, check the Assessment page.