How Why Languages Differ

This course begins with an introduction to an empirical approach to language description and comparison frorn a cognitive perspective, plus introduction to information structure concepts, which fundamental to understanding language structure. A range of linguistic forms and functions are then compared and contrasted systematically at different levels of analysis, attempting to highlight the cognitive differences in the mindsets of the speakers (how they cut up or "chunk" their experiences and represent them in language forms) that lead to the languages manifesting different patterns.