In the very first part of the course, the fundamental premises on the mechanisms of historical-natural languages will be presented, with a strong emphasis on the verbal communication properties and the general principles of linguistic analysis. Then, the course will focus on the main levels of linguistic analysis, that is to say phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. In particular, phonetics and phonology deal with what sounds make up human language and how our brain organizes the sounds, morphology examines how words are formed from smaller unit of meaning (morphemes), syntax enters the structure of the language to show how words come together to form sentences, semantics focuses on the meaning of the linguistic signs and how we extract meaning from sentences.

Course topics will be treated from the principles and methodologies of the contemporary linguistics, through a double perspective: on one hand, the structures and levels of analysis will be presented, that means an inner analysis of the language as a system; on the other hand, external features of the language as social act, such as the role of language in the history of human being, will be pointed out.

Finally, during the course, practical exercises on the structure of the Italian language and its varieties will be proposed.

Required Text:
Yule, George. (2008). La linguistica. Un corso introduttivo (Trad. Pietro Maturi). Bologna: Il Mulino. ISBN: 978-88-15-11430-3.