Inquiry+Questions

Inquiry Questions

 * Task 1: The International Phonetic Alphabet** //due September 16//
 * 1) Why do we need an International Phonetic Alphabet. What is the history of the IPA? What do the IPA symbols represent in general? Give examples where the IPA is an absolute necessity.
 * 2) Terminology: What is a phoneme? A phone? An allophone? A grapheme? A morpheme? What is a diphthong? A monophthong? Are there any triphthongs in any English Dialect? Give examples, explanations, and useful bits of information.
 * 3) Vowels: What is a vowel? What is a high vowel? Low vowel? Mid vowel? Front Vowel? Back Vowel? Central Vowel? Roundedness? Tenseness?
 * 4) Consonants I: What is a consonant? What is "point of articulation"? "Manner of articulation"? "Voicedness"?
 * 5) Consonants II: Define with meaningful examples
 * Velar
 * Alveolar
 * Palatal
 * Alveolal-Palatal
 * Labio-Dental
 * Interdental
 * Bilabial
 * Glottal
 * Stop (or Plosive)
 * Fricative
 * Nasal
 * Affricate
 * Liquid (or Semivowel or Approximant)
 * 1) How is the IPA used in phonetic transcriptions? Find and/or create copious examples of IPA transcriptions from multiple languages.


 * Task 2: Proto Indo-European** // due September 30 //
 * 1) What are the approximate dates of Proto-Indo-European? Where do scholars believe the IE-speaking tribes had their homelands? What is the evidence? What are the controversies?
 * 2) Who was Sir William Jones and what role did he play in the discovery of IE?
 * 3) What are "cognates"? Explain how IE has been reconstructed by scholars.
 * 4) What are the branches of IE. What are the general geographical regions and times for the branches? Describe the process by which IE broke into separate languages.
 * 5) What are the major linguistic features of IE? What is a "synthetic" language? What kinds of inflections did IE have? What is Schleicher's Fable? Find a copy. Describe its features.


 * Task 3: Germanic** //due October 7//
 * 1) What are the general timelines and geographical regions of the Germanic-speaking tribes? How do scholars know this (what is the evidence)?
 * 2) What are the seven major differences between Germanic and the other descendants of IE? Explain each one in detail.
 * 3) What are the branches and sub-branches of Germanic? What are their timelines? What controversies, differences, or disputes are there among scholars?
 * 4) Find examples of Germanic texts. Explain them. What is the oldest written text we have in any Germanic language? Can you find it online? What are its most noticeable features?
 * 5) Describe Grimm's Law. Give examples. What are the major controversies surrounding Grimm's Law? How do you evaluate the various positions and arguments regarding Grimm's Law?
 * 6) Describe Verner's Law and apply it to a word to illustrate its principles. Describe the genesis of Verner's Law. What is rhotacism? Are there any remnants of rhotacism in Modern English? How did they come to occur? Can you provide any logical phonological or physiological explanation for the phenomenon?


 * Task 4: Old English** // due October 21 //
 * 1) What was the social, political, and military atmosphere on the island we now call "England" from the years 100 A.D. to 449 A.D. Who was "Bede"? What happened in 449 A.D.? How do we know? What was the effect on the language being spoken on that island? What happened to the native Celtic tribes who inhabited the island? What do scholars dispute?
 * 2) What were the dialects of Old English? Who was Alfred the Great? What effect did he have on the evolution of the English language?
 * 3) How did the alphabet now used in English arise and evolve?
 * 4) What are the major linguistic features of Old English? What are strong and weak adjectives? Find examples in Old English texts. Strong and weak verbs? Find examples in Old English texts. Other inflections? Find some Old English sentences and parse them. How can we say that Old English is a synthetic language?
 * 5) What changes in features of English were taking place over this period from 449 to 1066?
 * 6) What is the oldest document we have in Old English? Find copies of its pages and describe them. What are some of the best known literary works of the period? Find their texts online. What are their features?


 * Task 5: Middle English** // due November 4 //
 * 1) What were the social, political, and historical events on the island we now call "England" from the years 1066 to 1500 A.D. Who was the first English king after the Conquest to speak English?
 * 2) Describe the French and Latin influences on English during this period. Why do we (i.e., native speakers of English) not speak French today (this is complicated and lengthy)?
 * 3) What were the linguistic features of Middle English?
 * 4) What major technologies impacted the language during this period, and in what ways? What changes were occurring in the language over this period? Why? Specifically, what was happening to inflections and syntax, and why?
 * 5) What are the major ME dialects? How are they differentiated?
 * 6) Who were the major literary figures and what were the major recorded documents (both literary and mundane) of the period? Find examples of original texts of the period online. Describe the features of the language you see. How are they differnt from similar constructions in Old English? Find different dialectical versions of the same works: what dialectical differences are there between them?


 * Task 6: Early Modern English** // due November 18 //
 * 1) What were the major social, political, religious, technological, and literary events of the period from 1500-1650. In particular, how did the Renaissance affect the English Language?
 * 2) What were the linguistic features of Early Modern English? What features of the English Language were changing during this period? Specifically, what is happening to inflections and syntax? Why do we call Shakespeare's English "modern"?
 * 3) What happened to the second person singular pronoun?
 * 4) What was happening to vocabulary? What was happening to spelling? Why? What were early dictionaries from this period like? Why did they arise in the first place? In particular, what does this say about the development of English, the forces acting upon it, and the responses of its users?
 * 5) What passages from Shakespeare illustrate features carried over from Middle English, and features that have been transformed since Middle English?
 * 6) What is the value of conceptually breaking the Modern English period into Early Modern English and Contemporary (or Present Day) English (PDE)? What is lost when we do so?


 * Task 7: Modern English (Present Day English "PDE")** // due December 9 //
 * 1) What's new in English? What features of English have changed since 1650?
 * 2) What have been the changes in American English from 1620 on. What role has Scots-Irish played?
 * 3) What are the major American dialects? What features distinguish them?
 * 4) Who decides what is and what is not "Standard English"? What was (is) the furor over "Ebonics"? What is "Spanglish"? What larger linguistic principles does it illustrate?
 * 5) What are the arguments for and against "English-only" in America? Other linguistic controversies abound in both current scholarship and the popular imagination: what are they, what is the evidence offered for the multiple points of view, and how do you evaluate the evidence and arguments offered?
 * 6) Why is PDE spelling so non-phonetic? What spelling reforms have been tried for English? How successful have they been? What features of English are changing this very minute? What are the differences between "grammatical mistakes" and "linguistic evolution"? How is technology, especially the Internet, contributing to linguistic evolution?

> Alveolar > Palatal > Alveolal-Palatal > Labio-Dental > Interdental > Bilabial > Glottal > Stop (or Plosive) > Fricative > Nasal > Affricate > Liquid (or Semivowel or Approximant) > ablaut > analogy > apheresis > aphesis > apocope > assimilation > dissimilation > ellipsis > epenthesis (svarabhakti) > metathesis > rhotacism (aka rhoticism) > stress shift > syncope > umlaut (mutation) > borrowing > compounding > coining of new words > acronym > portmanteau > back formation > euphemism > folk etymology > metonymy > synecdoche > learned (etymological) respelling > phonetic spelling > hypercorrection > folk etymology > semantic broadening > semantic narrowing > amelioration > pejoration
 * Not part of any Specific Task: Terminology for Exam I** //Continuous but must be completed by October 21//
 * Velar