Introduction to formal linguistics
- SIS code: NPFL006, link to SIS
- Fall term 2026/2027: Wednesday 9:00-10:30 in room S7
- Lecturer: Doc. Mgr. Magda Ševčíková, Ph.D.
- 2/0 (exam)
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Moodle: https://dl1.cuni.cz/enrol/index.php?id=4893
- please enroll in the course (using the link & SIS login and password) to access slides and additional materials
Description and objectives of the course
The course guides students through selected linguistic frameworks which have been designed for formal description of natural language. Focus is laid on syntactic issues.
Linguistic features (form vs meaning of the sentence, syntactic relations between the sentence items, role of the verb, referencing within the sentence, etc.) are discussed first and then analysed in both dependency- based and constituency-based frameworks.
Course completion requirements
1. Completion of 4 homework assignments (max. 10 points each), i.e. max. 40 points in total. Students may resubmit one of the homework assignments once to improve their score.
2. Attendance and participation in class — max. 10 points.
3. Final exam: an in-class test at the end of the term — max. 50 points. Students may retake the final exam once to improve their score.
Maximum: 100 points in total. The final grade is determined according to the total number of points earned.
Grading
Excellent 80+ points
Very good 70–79 points
Good 60–69 points
Fail 0–59 points
/PhD students: 75 points required for Pass/
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Course schedule
30 September 2026 -- Lecture 1: Intro
Intro: Description and objectives of the course, lecture topics, course completion requirements, grading
7 October 2026 -- Lecture 2: What does it mean to describe a language formally? (i/ii)
Form vs. meaning and the notion of linguistic sign
Focus on syntax:
- Form vs meaning of the sentence
- Intermediate levels in the sentence description: surface-syntactic vs deep-syntactic representation
- Dependency vs. constituency
14 October 2026 -- Lecture 3: What does it mean to describe a language formally? (ii/ii)
Formalization of features observed in natural languages
- Relationships between surface and depth: synonymy, homonymy, deletions
- Verb as the core of the sentence structure; valency
- Referencing within the sentence and beyond, coreference
- Information structure of the sentence
21 October 2026 -- Lecture 4: Functional Generative Description
Multi-level approach to language
Valency: arguments vs. adjuncts, valency frame
Surface-syntactic and deep-syntactic trees, non-dependency relations
28 October 2026 -- no lecture (public holiday)
4 November 2026 -- Lecture 5: Paninian framework
Dependency-based approach
Karaka relations
11 November 2026 -- Lecture 6: Meaning-Text Theory
Levels of language system description
Meaning-to-text approach
Lexical functions: syntagmatic vs paradigmatic
18 November 2026 -- Lecture 7: Generative Linguistics – The Chomskyan approach
Language description in the generative perspective: competence vs performance, language faculty
Constituency trees
Generation of sentences, transformations
Lexicalist Hypothesis, Government & Binding
25 November 2026 -- Lecture 8: Minimalism. Constituencies in treebanks of English and beyond
Minimalism
Constituency treebanks
2 December 2026 -- Lecture 9: Distributed Morphology
A unified approach to syntax and morphology
Vocabulary items, Encyclopedia, Late Insertion, Underspecification, etc.
9 December 2026 -- Lecture 10: Case Grammar & Frame Semantics (Charles Fillmore)
Case Grammar
Frame Semantics
FrameNet database
16 December 2026 -- Lecture 11: Construction Grammar
Construction as a form-meaning pairing
Types of constructions
Constructions as means for a full-fledged description of language
6 January 2027 -- Lecture 12: Some more approaches
Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR), Universal Conceptual Cognitive Annotation (UCCA), etc.
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References (overview surveys):
Allan, K.: The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics. Oxford University Press 2013.
Luelsdorff, P. A. (ed.): The Prague School of Structural and Functional Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1994.
Matthews, P. H.: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford 2007.
Robins, R. H.: A short history of linguistics. Longman 1984.
Seuren, P.: Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction. Wiley 1998.
References to particular topics and individual frameworks will be provided in the lectures.