In Russian 451/Slavic 570 we deal primarily with  Russian phonetics, phonology, and a brief introduction to inflectional and derivational morphology (the minimal units of meaning and how these units influence one another).  In addition, we shall also touch upon topics such as the origins of the writing system, dialectology, and borrowing (lexicology). Our goals are twofold: first, to enable you to do a self assessment of your pronunciation and your control of the building
blocks for words in Russian; and, second, to
develop sufficient background to aid you in reading intelligently in linguistic literature about the Slavic languages and to be in a position to inform others about  such topics.

There will be periodic readings and  homework assignments[10%], a mid-term [20%], a 5-7 page research report (due on December 1) [30%], an oral presentation of results in class with a handout during the last week of the course [10%], and a final exam [30%].

A set of readings is available at Professional Copy. Here is the reading schedule corresponding approximately with the weeks of the quarter:

1. Introduction to linguistic structures

Readings: Your choice of the `phonetics' or 'phonology' chapter from a textbook on linguistics, several are listed in the Bibliography.

2. English and Russian phonetics

Readings (1-3, 4-6): Avanesov, excerpts from  Русское литературное произношение  pp.8-12, 44-48

3. Articulatory phonetics and phonetic transcription

Readings (7-13,14-17): Avanesov,  Русское литературное произношение, pp.58-71, 94-99 
                                 

4. Distribution of Russian sounds - phonemics

Readings (18-27):  Lunt, `On the
Relationship of Russian Spelling to Phonology';
                                           

5. Phonology of borrowings in Russian, especially OCS

Reading (28-48): Isachenko, `Russian' pp. 119-142 of The Slavic Literary
Languages 

6. Dialectal variation in Great Russian

Reading (41-56): Vinogradov, ``Mid 19th Century Literary Styles, pp. 178-208
from The Russian Literary Language

7. Alphabet primer (see handout)

8. Inflection and derivation

Reading (67-72):  Channon, ` The Single-Stem Verb System Revisited'