Bachelor 2025/2026

Grammatical Semantics

Type: Compulsory course (Fundamental and Computational Linguistics)

Delivered by: School of Linguistics

Where: Faculty of Humanities

When: 2 year, 4 module

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Instructors: Konstantin Filatov, Daria Ryzhova, Oleg Volkov

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course presents a survey of various nominal and verbal grammatical categories such as number, case, aspect, tense, etc. We provide a typological perspective on their functioning and semantics. This course is intended for students who have basic knowledge on linguistic diversity and linguistic typology.

Learning Objectives

• The main goal of this discipline is to present an overview of different grammatical issues such as verbal tense, verbal aspect, nominal case, numger, gender. Students are to find out about contemporary grammatical theories and paradigms. This will allow them to make more elaborate research later on.
• This discipline is essential for the study of linguistic diversity: it will show how different semantics can be expressed grammaticaly in languages of different types and areals.
• This course will help to develop critical thinking in relation to current linguistic literature.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Students can use the basic concepts of grammatical semantics in their research.
• Students are familiar with the basic-level literature on verbal and nominal categories.
• Students are able to use data from various languages to illustrate theoretical hypotheses.

Course Contents

• Introduction
• Case
• Gender
• Number
• Tense
• Aspect
• Modality

Assessment Elements

• Quizzes
• Exam
• Home task defence
• Tests
  The tests are held in the beginning of each seminar

Interim Assessment

• 2025/2026 4th module
  Basic part = 0,8*(0,2 * Quizzes + 0,3 * Exam + 0,3 * Tests). If a student would like to get the grade >8, they should choose the research home task (by agreement, according to one of the course topics), do it in written and defend the results during the home task defence. The student can get additional +0, +1 or +2 points to the basic part of the grade, depending on the cohesiveness of the results and the presentation.

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• William Croft. (1990). Typology and universals. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.F410506D

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Heine, B., & Kuteva, T. (2002). World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press.

Authors

• FILATOV KONSTANTIN VADIMOVICH
• ALEKSEEVA ANASTASIIA PAVLOVNA
• Volkov Oleg Sergeevich
• LANDER Iurii ALEKSANDROVICH