Introduction to Historical Linguistics

This course offers an introduction to the study of language change and language history, focusing on the methods used to identify and analyze instances of change, to reconstruct past language states, and to determine relatedness among languages. Particular emphasis is given to sound change and its phonetic bases, to morphological change and its cognitive (analogical) bases, and to the spread of changes and its social bases.  Attention is paid as well to the effects of contact between speakers of different dialects and different languages.