Course Syllabus

Instructors:            Adam Albright                          Giorgio Magri
Email:                      albright@mit.edu                      gmagri@mit.edu

TA:                           Trevor Driscoll
Email:                      trevord@mit.edu

Lecture:                   TR 10-11:30am, 26-168

Recitation:              TBA

Office hours:          TBA

Website:                  https://canvas.mit.edu/courses/19119

Prerequisites:   24.961 or equivalent or permission

Course requirements: 

  • Weekly readings
  • Participation
  • 6 written assignments (data analysis and critical reading): graded
  • Term paper, presented in class and written up

Dates to remember:

  • April 3rd: date by which you should have talked to us about your term paper topic
  • May 11 and May 16: student presentations of final projects
  • May 22:  final paper write-up due

 

Schedule of topics (subject to revision)

Feb 7 Optimality Theory warm-up and review [handout]
Feb 9 Correspondence theory: constraints and units Read: McCarthy and Prince (1995) Appendix.  Optional: McCarthy (2008) Chapter 4.6 "Properties of Faithfulness Constraints"
Feb 14
Feb 16
Feb 21 No class (Monday schedule)
Feb 23
Feb 28 Opacity, part 1: the role of IO-Faithfulness
Mar 2
Mar 7 Phonology—Morphology Interface: cyclicity
Mar 9
Mar 14
Mar 16 Paradigm effects
Mar 21
Mar 23
Mar 27–Mar 31 Spring break
Apr 4 Opacity, part 2: the role of OO-Faithfulness
Apr 6
Apr 11 Probabilistic phonology + learning
Apr 18
Apr 25
Apr 27
May 2
May 4
May 9
May 11 Final paper presentations
May 16 Final paper presentations