This course examines the typological classification of languages according to their morphological and syntactic characteristics. Coursework includes practical training in the writing of grammatical descriptions and in the elicitation, transcription, and analysis of data from non-Western language. Discussion includes extensive reference to languages other than English.

Linguistics stands at the intersection of social science, the natural sciences, and the humanities. As such, the investigation of linguistic phenomena requires a mixture of methods drawing on all of these epistemological traditions. This course is a companion to linguistics 611 and will provide an introduction to the full life cycle of conducting linguistics research with an emphasis on qualitative methodologies and the ways in which these methods interface with quantitative approaches.