Selecting a course
We are offering three 447 options in Winter 2026/2027. Each of the 3 seminars will cover different topics. Details about topics can be found below.
These 447 courses are classified under 447I-001 (term 1) and 447J-002 (term 2), with two seminars for term 1 (447I-SM1, 447I-SM3) and one seminar for term 2 (447J-SM2).
In order to register for a 447 class, please first select your term (447I-001 or 447J-002) and then choose which corresponding seminar (SM1, SM2, or SM3) you would like to take. You must enroll in both a section (I/J) AND a seminar section (1/2/3).
For example, a student could choose to enroll in 447I-001 and 447I-SM1. This is similar to the process of selecting a course section and then choosing a corresponding tutorial.
Current course offerings
Discover the current LING 447 courses offered by the Department of Linguistics for the 2026W academic year.
Term 1
The Development of Linguistic Knowledge among Children, Adults, and Dogs
Course #: LING 447I-SM1
Days/times: Mon/Wed 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Instructor: Anne-Michelle Tessier
Prerequisites: LING222 and either LING300 or 311
Description:
This seminar will discuss current and recent work in language acquisition, focusing on questions of how and why linguistic knowledge develops and matures. We will discuss infants, toddlers, older children and adults, including their acquisition of phonology, morpho-phonology, lexicon building and some syntax-semantics. We will also compare early child language acquisition to current studies of canine recognition and comprehension of human speech.
How to register for this course:
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- First, register for LING 447I 001 (Lecture)
- Next, register for LING 447I SM1 (Seminar)
Conditionals
Course #: LING 447I-SM3
Days/times: Mon/Wed 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Instructor: Eva Csipak
Description:
This course will look at conditional sentences and related phenomena in natural language. Conditionals can be future-oriented (to express predictions of what will be) as well as past-oriented (to speculate over what could have been). They can be used to share a speaker’s causal reasoning (“If we turn this lever, the door opens”) or – in many languages – to explain why a speaker is choosing to share a particular piece of information (“If you are hungry, there is pizza in the fridge”). They can be used for threats and promises (“If you attend this meeting, you will get a raise (promise)/you will be fired (threat)”). They can, but don’t have to, use “if”-clauses in English (“Attend this meeting and you will be fired”). We will discuss both “conditional” meaning and the forms it can take on the one hand, and the if…then form and the meanings that that can express on the other.
Ideally, students taking this course should have some concept of semantics (LING 327, LING 425, PHIL220) or pragmatics (LING 345). We will spend some time in the first part of the course to develop an informal understanding of possible worlds semantics before we venture into the conditionals literature.
How to register for this course:
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- First, register for LING 447I 001 (Lecture)
- Next, register for LING 447I SM3 (Seminar)
Term 2
Xenolinguistics
Course #: LING 447J-SM2
Days/times: Mon/Wed 9:30 am - 11:00 am
Instructor: Rose-Marie Dechaine
Description:
Xenolinguistics — also called exolinguistics or astrolinguistics —is the study of non-human, extra-terrestrial languages. Using the 2023 Xenolinguistics book edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and Jeffrey Punske as a springboard, this course will:
- survey the current state of knowledge concerning human language and animal communication, and how that informs our understanding of the design features of communicative systems;
- examine the boundary conditions for what constitutes language;
- explore interdisciplinary perspectives offered by linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, and others, on possible forms of language for non-Earth intelligence
How to register for this course:
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- First, register for LING 447J 002 (Lecture)
- Next, register for LING 447J SM2 (Seminar)