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Catalan Language: Analysis, Coding, Communication and Learning

Code: 42498 ECTS Credits: 10
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
4313382 Advanced Studies in Catalan Language and Literature OT 0

Contact

Name:
Gemma Repiso Puigdelliura
Email:
gemma.repiso@uab.cat

Teachers

Ana Bartra Kaufmann
Gemma Rigau Oliver
(External) Cląudia Pons
(External) Jordi Fortuny

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

Those required for the master program.


Objectives and Contextualisation

This module analyses the linguistic bases and criteria governing the fixing of oral and written standards. The relationship is also studied between the grammatical description conceived as a system of linguistic competence and production and prescriptive grammar.


Competences

  • Apply the research methods of linguistics and literary studies.
  • Communicate and justify conclusions clearly and unambiguously to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Construct a well-argued critical evaluation of a linguistic or literary analysis.
  • Contextualise texts for analysis and production.
  • Continue the learning process, to a large extent autonomously
  • Integrate knowledge and use it to make judgements in complex situations, with incomplete information, while keeping in mind social and ethical responsibilities.
  • Seek out information in the scientific literature using appropriate channels, and use this information to formulate and contextualise a research topic.
  • Show respect for the opinions, values, behaviours, and practice of other researchers and professionals.
  • Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  • Use acquired knowledge as a basis for originality in the application of ideas, often in a research context.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Apply the difference between descriptive grammar and normative grammar.
  2. Apply the difference between descriptive grammar and pedagogical grammar.
  3. Communicate and justify conclusions clearly and unambiguously to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  4. Construct a well-argued critical evaluation of the different aspects of codification.
  5. Continue the learning process, to a large extent autonomously
  6. Evaluate the sociolinguistic context in which the Catalan language operates.
  7. Integrate knowledge and use it to make judgements in complex situations, with incomplete information, while keeping in mind social and ethical responsibilities.
  8. Know the new linguistic theories and their methodologies.
  9. Seek out information in the scientific literature using appropriate channels, and use this information to formulate and contextualise a research topic.
  10. Show respect for the opinions, values, behaviours, and practice of other researchers and professionals.
  11. Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  12. Use acquired knowledge as a basis for originality in the application of ideas, often in a research context.

Content

BLOCK 1: Phenomena of prosodic structure and prosodic form (Gemma Repiso)

1.1 Phonological analysis within the framework of generative theory. From segments to the sentence: hierarchy and prosodic constituents. Stress: the metrical foot and syllabic weight.

1.2 Morphophonological processes dependent on prosodic structure: truncation, reduplication, others. Dialectal variation.

1.3 The prosodic form. Autosegmental theory and prosodic annotation tools.

 

 

References

 

Cabré Monné, Teresa. 1993. Estructura gramatical i lexicó: el mot mínim català. Tesi doctoral. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Cabré, Teresa. 2002. Altres sistemes de formació de mots. Dins: Solà, Joan; Lloret, Maria Rosa; Mascaró, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel (dir), Gramàtica del català contemporani. cap. 9. Barcelona: Empúries. 889–932.

Cabré, T. (2009) "Els sistema vocàlic del català central i l'adaptació de manlleus" Actes del XIV Col·loqui Internacionsl de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes, vol. 3: 111-120. Budapest 2006.

Cabré, T. Torres-Tamarit, F.J., Vanrell M.M. 2021 Hypocoristic truncation in Sardinian. Linguistics, 59.3: 683-714. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0061

Mascaró, J. (2011) "Efectes accentuals i sil·làbics sobre la distribució de les vocals mitjanes en català central" M-R. Lloret i C. Pons (eds) Noves aproximacions a la fonologia i la morfologia del català. Symposia Philologica, 21: 405-426. Alacant: IIFV.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1993b. Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint interaction and satisfaction. Linguistics Department Faculty Publication Series 14. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In Jill N. Beckman, Suzanne Urbanczyk & Laura Walsh Dickey (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory, 249–384. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association, University of Massachusetts.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1999. Faithfulness and identity in prosodic morphology. A: René Kager, Harry van der Hulst & Wim Zonneveld (eds.), The prosody-morphology interface, 218–309. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pescarini, Diego. 2007. Types of syncretism in the clitic systems of Romance. Anuario del Seminario Julio Urquijo. ASJU, XLI.2: 285–300.

Pescarini, Diego. 2014. The evolution of Italo-Romance clitic clusters. Prosodic restructuring andmorphological opacity. In P. Beninc., A. Ledgeway & N.Vincent (eds.) Diachrony and dialects. Grammatical change in dialects of Italy. pp. 155–176. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198701781.003.0008

 

Bloc 2.1 Pronominal issues (Gemma Rigau)

1.1 Possession expressed by pronouns

1.1.1 The pronoun "en"

1.1.2 Genitive pronouns

1.1.3 Dative pronouns

1.1.4 Elliptical anaphora

1.2 The partitive pronoun "en": special cases

1.2.1 The pronoun "en" in constructions with pure intransitive verbs

1.2.2 The pronoun "en" in constructions with temporal measure phrases

 

 

BLOCK 2.2 Phenomena of diachronic syntactic analysis of Catalan. Case studies of grammaticalization and reanalysis (Anna Bartra)

1.1. Determiners

1.1.1. The definite article and the indefinite article

1.1.2. Use of articles in Old Catalan

1.1.3. Restructuring within the noun phrase

1.2. Grammaticalization and impersonal structures

1.2.1. Hom

1.2.2. Reflexive, impersonal, and passive structures. Se.

 References

Bartra, Anna & M. Carme Picallo (2011). “¿Puede haber competencia entre gramáticas en la mente de los hablantes?”, dins Escandell Visal, Maria Victoria, Manuel Leonetti i Cristina Sánchez Lópex (eds.), 60 problemas de gramática, dedicados a Ignacio Bosque. Madrid, Akal, p. 176-182.

Company Company, Concepción (dir.) (2010) Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Segunda parte: la frase nominal, 2 vols. México, Fondo de Cultura Económica.

D'Alessandro, R. (2002). “Agreement in Italian impersonal si constructions: A derivational analysis, Revista da ABRALIN, vol1, nº1, p.35-72.

D'Alessandro, R., & Alexiadou, A. (2002). Inclusive and exclusive impersonal pronouns: A feature-geometrical analysis. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa, vol. 27 (2002), p. 31-44.

http://157.138.8.12/jspui/bitstream/11707/371/3/D%27Alessandro%20-%20Alexiadou.pdf

D'Alessandro, R. (2008). Impersonal" si" constructions. De Gruyter Mouton.

D’Alessandro, Roberta & Artemis Alexiadou (2006), “The syntax of the indefinite pronoun nome”, Probus,18: 189-218.

Egerland, Verner (2010), “On Old Italian uomo and indefinite expressions”,in D’Alessandro, Roberta; Adam Ledgeway & Ian Roberts (ed.) Syntactic Variation. The dialects of Italy, Cambridge, CUP, 71-85.

Egerland, V. (2018). First Person Readings of MAN: On semantic and pragmatic restrictions on an impersonal pronoun. In Sheehan & Bailey, eds. Order and structure in syntax II, 179.

Giusti, Giuliana (2001). “The birth of a functional category. From Latin ILLE to the Romance article and personal pronoun” in Cinque G., Current Studies in Italian Syntax: Essays offered to Lorenzo Renzi, Amsterdam, Elsevier (ISBN 9780080438740).

Institut d’Estudis Catalans. 2016. Gramàtica de la Llengua Catalana. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans. https://giec.iec.cat/

Jané, Albert (1998). “Sobre l’ús impersonal del pronom es”, Llengua Nacional, 23. https://taller.iec.cat/filologica/documents/ajr/JaneA1998-2_SobreLUsImpersonalDelPronomEs.pdf

MacDonald, Jonathan (2017). “An Implicit Projected Argument in Spanish Impersonal- and Passive-Se Constructions, Syntax, 20.4: 353-383.

Mendikoetxea, A. (1999a). “Construcciones inacusativas y pasivas”, dins Bosque, I. & V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española, 2: 1575-1629. 

Mendikoetxea, A. (1999b). “Construcciones con se: medias, pasivas e impersonales”, dins Bosque, I. & V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española, 2: 1631-1722.

Par, Anfós (1923). Sintaxi catalana segons los escrits en prosa de Bernat Metge, Halle, Max Niemeyer. [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für RomanischePhilologie]. Disponible a https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k24867t.texteImage

Ricós Vidal, Amparo (2002), “Construcciones impersonales en el español medieval y clásico: estructuras con omne, se y uno”, Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española.  M.T. Echenique, y J. Méndez (eds.), Madrid, Gredos: 945-958.

Roberts, Ian & Anna Roussou (2003). Syntactic Change. A MInimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

BLOCK 3. Research on Ambiguity (Jordi Fortuny)

3.1 General aspects

3.1.1 Definition and basic examples

3.1.2 Ambiguity and vagueness

3.1.3 Ambiguity and vagueness as problems

3.1.4 Solutions

3.2 Analysis

3.2.1 Morpholexical phenomena

3.2.1.1 Polysemy

3.2.1.2 Homonymy

3.2.1.3 Syncretism

3.2.2 Syntactic phenomena

3.2.2.1 Constituent ambiguity

3.2.2.2 Transfer ambiguity

3.2.2.3 Constituent ambiguity and prosody

3.2.2.4 Ambiguity and coordination

3.3 Codification

3.3.1 The treatment of ambiguity in the GIEC

3.3.2 Constituent ambiguity and punctuation: the Ortotipografia by Pujol & Solà (1995)

 References

Atlas, Jay David. 1989. Philosophy without ambiguity. Clarendon library of logic and philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bennett, Charles. 1973. Logical reversibility of computation. IBMjournal of Research and Debelopment 17(6): 525–532.

Bennett, Charles. 2008. Notes on Landauer’s principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell’s Demon. Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34(3): 501–510.

Bennett, Charles & Rolf Landauer. 1985. The fundamental physical limits of computation. Scientific American 253(1): 38–46.

Bonet, Eulàlia. 1984. Aproximació a l’entonació del català. Barcelona. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona MA Thesis.

Church, Kenneth & Ramesh Patil. 1982. Coping with syntactic ambiguity or how to put the block in the box on the table. American Journal of Computational Linguistics 8: 139-149.

Ferrater, Gabriel. 1981. Sobre mètrica. Dins Gabriel Ferrater, Sobre el llenguatge. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema.

Fortuny, Jordi & Bernat Corominas. 2013. On the Origin of Ambiguity in Efficient Communication. Journal of Logic, Language and Information: 22(3): 249-267.

Fortuny, Jordi & Bernat Corominas (eds.). 2015. The locus of ambiguity and the design of language. The linguistic Review: 32(1).

Grosholz, Emily. 2007. Representation and productive ambiguity in mathematics and the sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Institut d’Estudis Catalans. 2016. Gramàtica de la Llengua Catalana. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Landauer, Rolf. 1961. Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process. IBM Journal of Research and Development 5(3). 183–191.

Levinson, Steven. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. The MIT Press.

Lolli, Gabrielle. 2017. Ambiguità. Bolonya: Mulino.

Lyons, John. 1995. Linguistic semantics: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

May, Robert. 1985. Logical Form: its structure and derivation. Cambridge: The MITPress.

Montague, Richard. 1974. Formal philosophy: selected papers of Richard Montague. A curda de Richmond Thomason. New Haven.

Noguera i Clofent, Carles. 2008. Un apropament matemàtic al problema de la vaguetat. Butlletí de la Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques 23(2): 233– 273.

Pelletier, Francis Jeffry. 1993. Some issues involving internal and external semantics. The logical foundations of cognition. 282–295.

Piantadosi, Steven, Harry Tily & Edward Gibson. 2011. The communicative function of ambiguity in language. Cognition 122: 280–291.

Poesio, Massimo. 1994. Semantic ambiguity and perceived ambiguity. Dins Kees van Deemter & Stanley Peters (eds.), Semantic ambiguity and underspecification (pp. 159–201). Stanford (Califòrnia): CSLI Publications.

Prieto, Pilar. 1997. Prosodic manifestation of syntactic structure in Catalan. Dins Fernando Martínez-Gil & Alfonso Morales-Front (eds.), Issues in the phonology and morphology of the major Iberian languages (pp. 173–194). Washington: Georgetown University Press.

Pujol, Josep-Maria & Joan Solà. 1995. Ortotipografia. Manual de l’autor, l’autoeditor i el dissenyador gràfic. Barcelona: Columna.

Pustejovsky, James. 1995. The generative lexicon. Cambridge: the MIT press.

Selkirk, Elisabeth. 1986. On derived domains in sentence phonology. Phonology yearbook 3: 371–405.

Sennet, Adam. 2021. Ambiguity. Dins Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/ambiguity/.

Tuson, Jesús. 1999/2000. Com és queens entenem? (si és que ens entenem). Barcelona: Empúries.

Wasow, Thomas. 2015. Ambiguity Avoidance is Overrated. Dins Susanne Winkler (ed.), Ambiguity: language and communication. De Gruyter. 

BLOCK 4. Phenomena at the Phonology – Morphology – SyntaxInterfaces (2) (Prof. Clàudia Pons-Moll)

  1. Phonological Analysis

    1.1. Phonological analysis: from descriptive generalization to formal analysis

    1.2. Tools for phonological analysis: optimality theory and other constraint-based models

  2. The Phonology-Morphology Interface

    2.1. Morphological phenomena conditioned phonologically

    2.2. Allomorph selection

    2.3. Morphological realization

    2.4. Others

  3. The Phonology-Syntax Interface

    3.1. Syntactic phenomena conditioned phonologically

    3.2. Prosodic weight and constituent order

    3.3. The case of reversible and irreversible binomials

    3.4. Other cases

References

Bennett, Ryan & Elfner, Emily. 2019. The Syntax–Prosody Interface (January 2019). Annual Review of Linguistics, Vol. 5, Issue 1. 151–171.

Bolinger, Dwight L. 1962. Binomials and pitch accent. Lingua 11. 34–44.

Bonet, Eulàlia. 2018. Missing inflectional features and missing exponents in DP-internal agreement asymmetries. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 79. 1–19.

Bonet, Eulàlia; Lloret, Maria-Rosa. 1998. Fonologia catalana. Barcelona: Ariel.

Bonet, Eulàlia; Pons-Moll, Clàudia. 2019. From data to theory in descriptive courses. Comunicació presentada al 27mfm fringe workshop (Teaching phonology: the state of the art), 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting, Manchester.

Bonet, Eulàlia, Maria-Rosa Lloret & Joan Mascaró. 2007. Allomorph selection and lexical preferences:Two case studies. Lingua 117. 903–927.

Cabré Monné, Teresa. 1993. Estructura gramatical i lexicó: el mot mínim català. Tesi doctoral. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 170 p.

Cabré, Teresa. 2002. Altres sistemesde formació de mots. Dins: Solà, Joan; Lloret, Maria Rosa; Mascaró, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel (dir), Gramàtica del català contemporani. cap. 9. Barcelona: Empúries. 889–932.

Cabré, Teresa; Torres-Tamarit, Francesc (ed.). 2021. Recursivity in phonology. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 20.

Elfner, Emily. 2015. The syntax-prosody interface: Current theoretical approaches and outstanding questions. Linguistics Vanguard 4(1). 1–14. 

Hayes, Bruce. 1995. Metrical stress theory: Principles and case studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

IEC. 2016. Gramàtica de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans. [“Les categories suprasegmentals”]

Jiménez, Jesús. 2019. Poesia bastida

 amb materials planers: Optimització del ritme en els alexandrins d’Estellés». Zeitschrift für Katalanistik, vol. 32, pàg. 223-269.

Malkiel, Yakov. 1959. Studies in irreversible binomials. Lingua 8: 113–160.

Mascaró, Joan. 1985. Morfologia catalana. Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana.

Mascaró, Joan. 1996a. External allomorphy and contractions in Romance. Probus 8(2). 181–205. 

Mascaró, Joan. 1996b. External allomorphy as emergence of the unmarked. In Jacques Durand & Bernard Laks (eds.), Currenttrends in phonology: Models and methods, vol. 2, 473–483. Manchester: ESRI & University of Salford.

Mascaró, Joan. 2007. External allomorphy and lexical representations. Linguistic Inquiry 38(4). 715–735. 

Mascaró,Joan. 2016. Morphological Exceptions to Vowel Reduction in Central Catalan and the Problem of the Missing Base. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 15. pàg. 27-51

McCarthy, John J. 2008. Doing Optimality Theory. Applying theory to data. Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Equinox.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1993a. Generalized alignment. In Geert Booij & Jaap van Marle (eds.), Yearbook of morphology 1993, 79–153. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1993b. Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint interaction and satisfaction. Linguistics Department Faculty Publication Series 14. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In Jill N. Beckman, Suzanne Urbanczyk & Laura Walsh Dickey (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory, 249–384. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association, University of Massachusetts.

McCarthy, John J.; Prince, Alan. 1999. Faithfulness and identity in prosodic morphology. A: René Kager, Harry van der Hulst & Wim Zonneveld (eds.), The prosody-morphology interface, 218–309. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mollin, Sandra. 2012. Revisiting binomial order in English: Ordering constraints and reversibility. English Language and Linguistics 16 (1): 81–103.

Oliva, Salvador; Serra, Pep. 2002. Accent. Dins: Solà, Joan; Lloret, Maria Rosa; Mascaró, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel (dir), Gramàtica delcatalà contemporani. pàg. 345-391.

Pons-Moll, Clàudia. 2007. La teoria de l'optimitat. Una introducció aplicada al català de les Illes Balears. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat.

Pons-Moll, Clàudia. en premsa.Las propiedades fonológicas de los binomios irreversibles en español. Círculo de Liingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, 2024.

Pons-Moll, Clàudia; Molas Bolaño, Carla. Enviat. Pes, ritme i altres propietats dels binomis irreversibles del català. 

Pons-Moll, Clàudia; Torres-Tamarit, Francesc and Mascaró, Ignasi. 2023. Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP" Linguistics, vol. 61, no. 3. 499-546.

Ryan, Kevin M. 2016. Phonological weight. Language and Linguistics Compass 10: 720–733.

Ryan, Kevin M. 2019. Prosodic end-weight reflects phrasal stress. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 37, 315–356.

Wheeler, Max (2005). The phonology of Catalan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Participation and debates in classs 50 2 1, 2, 7, 8, 11
Type: Supervised      
Supervision and coaching 70 2.8 3, 4, 5
Type: Autonomous      
reading assignments, writing assignments and study 120 4.8 5, 7, 8, 11

Lectures, exercises, debates, practical activities and personal study.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Activity of part 1 25% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Activity of part 2 25% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Activity of part 3 25% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Activity of part 4 25% 2.5 0.1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Each part of the module will be assessed by means of one or two activities. When two activities are submitted, none of them will represent more than 50% of the final mark. Each bloc corresponds to the 25% of the final score.

Previous evaluation of a set of activities equivalent to two thirds of the total value of the assignments is required to opt for a recovery exam. The student will be able to access to a recovery exam of the whole module only when his/her final score is between 3,5 and inferior to 5. The recovery exam will consist in an activity for each part of the module.

 

On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.

Students will obtain a Not assessed course grade unless they have submitted more than 30% of the assessment items.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Single assessment: students who wish to take the single assessment must carry out four activities at the end of the year that will correspond to the four scheduled blocks

 

 


Bibliography

See the Contents section in the Catalan version.


Software

None.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TEm) Theory (master) 1 Catalan first semester afternoon