The course will be devoted to appreciating and evaluating issues in historical linguistics: e.g. language families, sound changes, borrowing, re-borrowing, doublets, semantic and syntactic changes, etc.

Excerpts from the various periods of the English language will be read and thoroughly analysed.

Be warned, please: since this course will be (mainly) devoted to the internal history of the language (more specifically: to phonological and, to a lesser degree, syntactic and semantic changes), a more-than-modest knowledge of phonology/phonetics (or at least a pass grade) is expected from the participants.

Mental

• ungraded: weekly homework assignments (mainly tasks involving issues tackled during sessions)
• graded
  1. two major homework assignments graded on a five-point scale
  2. a mid-term test and
  3. an end-term test (in the last week of the semester)

Physical

• not more than 3 absences will be tolerated

Final grade: based on the average of the term tests and the 2 major homework assignments.

Note that every grade that you accrue during the semester will be worth 25% of the final grade, a good enough reason to take every assignment seriously.

To successfully avoid the quite disquieting practice of forgotten and/or misplaced handouts, late and/or grossly mangled downloading from the internet and the like students will also be required to participate in the photocopying costs of this seminar with 1500 HUF. This means that the all the material responsibility for the smooth running of the course rests solely in the teacher. The package will be distributed on a weekly basis and includes handouts, homework assignments, past tests, maps, charts, etc.

I may also find it necessary during the semester to assign some chapters from standard textbooks (e.g. Baugh, A.C. and Th. Cable (1978): A History of the English Language, London: Routledge)

Note our Institute's policy on the number of absences for a 90 mins/week seminar: