This course is meant to provide you with an in depth study of the structure of (spoken) language in three different modules: Phonology & Phonetics (period 1), Morphology & Syntax (period 2), and Semantics & Pragmatics (period 3).  You will recognize how structural aspects of language in these domains are currently studied, and you will understand how they can be analyzed in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. You will be able to evaluate theories, and to judge the value of experimental findings in the light of these theories.

The emphasis will be on how structural aspects of language in the different domains influence language production, language perception and comprehension, and language learning. We will read and discuss recent scientific articles. Different theoretical perspectives will be discussed to describe and analyze morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, phonological, and phonetic aspects of language. The relevance of linguistic approaches and generalizations for current psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research will be addressed explicitly during the course. Topics to be covered in the three modules include the nature of phonological rules and representations, phonetic and phonological variation, and prosodic structure (Phonology & Phonetics), case, agreement, and word order (Morphology & Syntax), quantification, definiteness, and discourse particles (Semantics & Pragmatics).