History of the Italian Language
Unit Code ITAL20009
Second Teaching Block
Unit Tutor: Rodney Sampson
Unit length: two hours per week for 11 weeks
Method of assessment: Two assessed essays and one class test in phonetics
This unit aims to familiarize students with the main patterns of change in the evolution of present-day Italian from Latin. First, the impact which political and socio-cultural forces have had on shaping broad linguistics patterns in Italy will be explored. Then, the focus will fall on major developments in the formal structure of the evolving Italian language. Here, changes in all three main areas (pronunciation, grammar and lexicon) will be considered.
It would be useful if students taking this unit had some familiarity with Latin, but this is not indispensable.
Second Teaching Block
Unit Tutor: Rodney Sampson
Unit length: two hours per week for 11 weeks
Method of assessment: Two assessed essays and one class test in phonetics
This unit aims to familiarize students with the main patterns of change in the evolution of present-day Italian from Latin. First, the impact which political and socio-cultural forces have had on shaping broad linguistics patterns in Italy will be explored. Then, the focus will fall on major developments in the formal structure of the evolving Italian language. Here, changes in all three main areas (pronunciation, grammar and lexicon) will be considered.
It would be useful if students taking this unit had some familiarity with Latin, but this is not indispensable.
Set texts:
There are no set texts as such. However, the following appear in the bibliography distributed at the beginning of the unit and they are recommended for preparatory reading:
M. Maiden, A Linguistic History of Italian (London, Longman, 1995)
B. Migliorini, The Italian Language (London, Faber, 1984)