LIN 301: Phonology

An introduction to the sound systems of languages focusing on the mental representation of sound structure: how speakers use knowledge of their language to assign meaning to different combinations of sounds. We will examine data from a number of languages to explore the differences and similarities among the sound patterns of different languages, and will consider the question of whether there are universal preferences for specific types of sounds and sound sequences.

Source: http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/bulletin/current/courses/lin/

The following link is a PDF form of my phonology term paper, titled "Voicing Processes in Polish": phonology term paper.pdf

The goal of the paper was to research the grammar of a language of choice and find data involving a morph-phonological alternation. My language of choice was Polish, considering I speak it fluently as a native speaker. The objective of the paper was to describe the process involved in a morph-phonological alternation.

A few of the skills I learned by writing this paper include gathering and analyzing research and data. As a linguist, research is the core of my work, considering I cannot analyze patterns within a language without data. Gathering primary research, instead of looking at secondary data was most useful to me because it gave me a sense of what a linguist goes through in order to collect adequate data. By writing this paper, I have grown as a linguist becuase I used the skills described above to document new data. One of the problems that I encountered while doing my research were the linguistic intuitions of my language consultant. However, this problem was solved by collecting an abundance of data and later finding the correct patterns. This experience prepared me for other courses in linguistics, such as LIN 431: The Stucture of an Uncommonly Taught Language, where I worked with a language consultant specializing in Azeri (a Turkic language).