Course outline for LS-332, January-April 2013
Morpho-syntax: Tense, Aspect and Modality (5 credits)
Prerequisite: Minimum B in any Level 2 Syntax
TENSE, ASPECT AND MODALITY
Course Instructor: Dr. Kalyanamalini Sahoo
1. This course addresses recent developments in the study of tense, aspect and modality
from a cross-paradigm and cross-linguistic point of view. It explores challenging ideas
about tense/aspect/modality at the interfaces between semantics and syntax as well as
syntax and morphology. The course is divided into three main subsections: 1) Tense,
aspect, mood, and modality, 2) Tense in tenseless languages, types of modality; and 3)
Interrelatedness of tense-aspect-modality
Course Teaching and Grading Policy
This course is taught in a seminar format, involving reading and critical discussion of some of
the foundational articles as well as some recent research works dealing with tense, aspect and
modality. Students write a short research paper (3000-4000 words) on a topic related to the
theme of the course.
Mid-term Exam (40%): Review of an article
Final Exam (60%): A Project work
Reading List
Bhat, D.N.S. 1999. The prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. John Benjamins Publishing
Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Dahl, • Osten. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford.
Giorgi, Alessandra and Fabio Pianesi. 1998. Tense and Aspect: From semantics to
morphosyntax. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Hacquard, Valentine. 2009. On the interaction of aspect and modal auxiliaries. Linguistics and
Philosophy 32: 279-315.
Higginbotham, James. 2009. Tense, Aspect, and Indexicality. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Kratzer, Angelika. 2002. The notional category of Modality. In Formal semantics: The essential
readings, edited by Paul Portner and Barbara H. Partee, pp. 289-323. Blackwell
Publishing Ltd., Oxford.
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2005. Time in a language without tense: The case of Chinese. Journal of
Semantics 23: 1-53.
Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Stowell, Tim. 2007. The syntactic expression of Tense. Lingua 117: 437-463.
January-April 2013
LS-402: Language & Communication
Politeness Strategies in Cross-cultural Perspective
(5 credits)
Course Instructor: Dr. Kalyanamalini Sahoo
Course outline
This course is for Ph.D students working on Language and Communication.
This course illustrates how communicative competence and politeness can be approached by
different means. How the principle of politeness comes under a more general framework of
communication strategies and is also considered to be culturally bound resulting in positive or
negative politeness strategies? How do requests, apologies, and compliments vary across
languages and what sociological factors help us choose an appropriate politeness strategy when
making requests, apologies, and compliments? The speech acts of request, gratitude and apology
will be focused on as examples of the complexity of politeness. What kind of strategies appear,
how they are presented and whether they are effective or not will be considered.
Course Teaching and Grading Policy
This course is taught in a seminar format, involving reading and critical discussion of some of
the foundational articles as well as some recent research works dealing with politeness strategies.
Students write a short research paper (5000-6000 words) on a topic related to the theme of the
course.
Mid-term Exam (40%): Review of an article
Final Exam (60%): A Project work